"She's not breathing, should we be concerned?"
"Yes! Oh, don't do this to me Saria, wake up!"
"I take it greenie doesn't usually do this?"
"No! Saria has never fallen out of a tree! This is not like her at all!"
"How long has she been out?"
"About two minutes now, is there anything we should do?!"
"I dunno, I'm not a doctor."
In a very sudden jerk, Saria's limp body wheezed to life, and her eyelids whipped backward. She cut her eyes side to side wildly, and gasped for air. Relieved, Mari flew over to her face and took a closer look.
"Mari?! What's happening? Where am I? When did you learn to fly upside down?"
"Saria! Oh thank the goddesses! I was worried sick about you! Are you alright? What happened?"
"I don't know! I'm fine, I think... but could you please fly right side up, you're making me woozy."
"What?"
"You are upside down, aren't you?"
"Uh... oh, heheh... I'm not upside down, Saria, you are!"
"Huh?"
The girl looked lazily downward, and saw that her foot was stuck in a tree. Downward? She looked up, to find her arms and hair dangling inches from the rocky pathway.
"Oh... I see. Heh..."
"She's alright, I told you she would be! Don't be such so fussy ya silly fairy!"
"Hey, that's no way to talk to a fairy! No wonder we all left this place, you people have no manners."
"Mari, who is that?"
Saria pulled her arm up to point at the brunette standing in front of her.
"Oh, you two haven't met. This is Martha. She's a friend of Link's, I guess."
Link! She couldn't lose that boy now, they needed to get back on the move!
"Wait. Where is Link?"
"He's in the tree, fixing to get you down."
Craning her neck upward once more, Saria saw Link sitting atop the branch her foot was hung on. The boy waved at her, and then grabbed hold of her foot. As he lifted, she felt a strange feeling, like something rubbing against her skin.
"Wait, Link!"
Before he could respond to her call, Saria's foot slipped out of her boot, and she hit the ground headfirst.
"Ow..."
"Ooh... are you okay, greenie?"
"I'm fine... why did you call me greenie?"
"Because your hair is green."
"Last I checked, that's not uncommon."
"Of course it isn't, if you have green hair!"
"How would you like it if I called you brownie?"
"Doesn't sound too bad to me."
"Okay then, brownie."
Swiftly, the girl climbed to her feet, but when she put her bare foot on the stone path, she started hopping around on one leg.
"Ow! Ow! Why is the ground so pointy?!"
"Geez, have you never gone barefoot before?"
"I have, plenty! On grass! Link, gimme back my boot!"
The boy dropped her footwear with a snicker, Saria's behavior was goofy, to say the least. She stopped hopping around and slid her foot back into the green boot. After resituating her messy hair, she took a big sigh.
"There, that's much better. Now would somebody care to tell me what happened?"
"Well, Link had just won the archery competition-"
"I let him win."
Martha remarked without hesitation.
"Right, Martha just let Link win the competition, and you were jumping up and down cheering. I guess you stepped on a bad branch or something, because next thing I know, you're tumbling through the tree! You must've hit your head on the way down, because you were unconscious when I got to you. I got Link as fast as I could, and he brought her along. You were lucky you got your foot caught on that branch, you could have seriously injured yourself on the stone!"
Mari was her worrisome self, as always. She remembered slipping from the tree, but she also remembered she was out before she could react. Saria had a pretty good idea why she was unconscious, one's spirit cannot be in two places at once, after all.
"Right... I guess that makes sense. We got the tunics?"
"Yeah."
"Okay... what's she doing here?"
"I'm a nice kid, I see someone hurt, I help. That, and I wanted to know... are you and Link really forest children?"
"Forest children?"
"You know, they never leave the forest, they always wear green, each of them have a fairy, they live in tree houses-"
"Hold on, how do you know so much about the Ko-"
"They take baths in the marsh, they eat grass, they turn into Deku Scrubs when they get older-"
"Wait a minute, that doesn't sound-"
"They don't have good manners, they play pranks on you if you enter their forest, they worship a big tree-"
"Alright alright, that's enough!"
"Are you sure? I can keep going if you like."
"No, I think I get the picture. How do you know so much, yet so little, of the Kokiri?"
"My grandmother used to tell me stories of her travels, she's a sorceress."
"Right... I think she might have gotten a few things confused or something..."
"So, this is your fairy, right?"
"Well, yes, she is my guardian fairy, but I don't own her. She is her own being. She was assigned to me by the Great Deku Tree at birth."
"Aha! So you do worship a tree!"
"Not exactly... boy, you've got a lot to learn."
Link jumped down from the tree and grinned at the others. Saria was reminded of her urgency, and tried to rush the conversation along.
"Anyway, nice meeting you, we've really got somewhere to be. The molten rivers, isn't that right Link?"
Before he could even nod his head, Saria resumed talking.
"Yeah, we're very busy. C'mon Mari, let's get going, we've got a big adventure to finish, save the world and all that stuff."
"Wait, I haven't got to see you eat any grass yet!"
"Where did you hear that one? I've never seen anybody eat grass, let alone Saria."
"C'mon Link, get those feet moving, we've got harp pieces to find, lives to save, fairies to find. Remember?"
Saria put her arms on Link's back and started pushing him down the path. The boy did nothing to object, and simply moved forward. Mari wanted to say something, but held her tongue.
"Well, goodbye greenie! Take care of your ridiculously green hair!"
"Yes yes, goodbye!"
At Saria's coaxing, the group left the city as quickly as possible.