"She... she's gone..."
As Saria coasted down the hill, Link and Mari stared after her. Did she really mean everything she said? That her time with Link was worse than death? The boy kneeled, and cried several tears for his lost friend. If only he could have a do over, and start the adventure from the beginning. While such a thing could have been possible, she took the ocarina of time with her down the mountain, so there was no way he could pull any tricks. No doubt, she planned to return to her own Hyrule with it. There was no getting her back. After a prolonged moment of silence, the boy stood back up and removed his own shield from his back.
"What are you doing Link? Are you going after her?"
"No... she's gone... if I can't help her, the least I can do is finish this quest... for her..."
"Oh... well, I don't suppose you would mind if I stuck around with you for a bit... it's not like I've got anywhere else to go..."
"It's fine... the show must go on."
Sitting on his shield, the boy pushed off and slid down the mountain, with Mari not far behind.
As cold wind blew across her face, several tears streaked down Saria's cheeks. She couldn't think of any way that her mission could have gone any worse. Link was supposed to be a hero, but now... if there was any good left in him, she had undoubtedly smashed it to bits in her outrage. Hyrule's blood really would be on her hands. She was without excuse, she was a failure. While she could have used the ocarina of time to travel straight back to her reality, she pushed it off for multiple reasons. First being, if she returned empty handed, then whatever sorry excuse for a princess that existed in the future would surely show no mercy. Her second reason, she wanted to look the familiar world over once more before it was lost to time forever. While she contemplated her actions, she forgot to look where she was going, and crashed straight into a rock. She went sailing through the air, and landed face first in the snow.
After picking herself up and collecting her shield, she realized that the incline had become too flat for her to start sledding again. Removing the ocarina of time from her pocket, she tried to piece together the song that Link had played to summon his horse. With much trial and error, Saria summoned Epona, and she began riding her down the rest of the mount. The horse seemed to take a liking to her in their previous stints of time together, she listened to her commands well. As she broke out of the evergreen forest, she glanced up at the large moon, under it sat a lifeless civilization. Turning her gaze away from the city of Plurbiocris, she prodded Epona toward the opposite side of the town, to the southwestern Dekudeku Forest. From there, she would be able to find her way to the lost woods.
"Wait, hang on!"
Putting both his feet straight into the snow, Link brought his shield to a halt. He picked up the sheet of metal, and put it on his back.
"What is it Link? What's the problem?"
The boy dug through the white powder wildly around a group of trees. It had to be nearby. Soon enough, he found Saria's ocarina submerged in the snow. He smiled to himself when he saw it, but when he pulled it from the snow, his smile quickly turned to a frown, he realized he was holding only a piece of it. When Saria threw the instrument, it must've smacked into a tree, and broke in half. He scrambled frantically to find the other half, and welled up with tears as he did so. If the ocarina symbolized his and Saria's friendship, then it really had split in two. Pounding his fist in the snow, he shouted at himself in anger. He held in his hands two halves, torn apart from each other.
"Oh no... Saria's ocarina..."
"Dashed in two... just like our friendship..."
Curled up in a ball, the boy sobbed his heart out. Mari sat on his shoulder in an attempt to comfort him, but she knew that nothing would calm the boy down at that moment. As the minutes blew by, the frosty breeze only got colder, and Mari decided Link had been mourning for long enough.
"Alright Link, if you stay still for much longer, you may just ice over."
"She was all I had Mari... the only person who knew who I was..."
"There is one more, Link. Navi. If it kills me, Link, I will find her for you. Now come on, get up before a white walfos gets you."
Slowly, Link pulled himself together and stood up.
"You're right... Saria might not care for me, but I know Navi has got my back. There's no point crying over spilled milk. Let's get this harp piece to Mandgrova."
"At last... home."
Dismounting Epona, Saria walked out of the lost woods, into Kokiri forest. A bittersweet nostalgia washed over her with each sight she took in. Each seemed to bring to her mind a particular memory. Racing around the village, skipping rocks across the pond, carving pictures into trees. With each and every memory, however, she remembered Link by her side, enjoying everything with her.
"That little boy is no more, he's someone completely different now..."
Between her fantasies, she did notice something quite odd. She couldn't find any of her friends, or anyone at all for that matter, in the entire village. For some reason, the whole forest felt like a ghost town. Had the little settlement been abandoned? That made no sense, all the Kokiri were still under the impression that if they left the forest, they would die.
"Hello? Where is everyone?"
She wandered into her house, it was exactly the way she left it when she arrived in this reality, nearly two years ago. Not even her unkempt bed had been made since she left. She sat down on her floor and looked at various drawings she had made what felt eons before. Everything felt froze in time, almost like a painting. There was one thing there that she did not recall, a small box with a ribbon on top. She started to reach for it, before someone fussed after her.
"Hey! Who do you think you are, snooping around in someone else's house? You dirty outsider!"
Saria nearly jumped out of her skin when the familiar voice heckled her. She would know that voice anywhere, she had known it for over a hundred years.
"Mido?"
"Bah! How do you know my name?! You're a witch, aren't you? You're going to try and pillage this house for potion supplies or something! I won't let you! No one goes in this house!"
What had gotten into him? She turned around to try and sort things out with him, but when she did, the forest boy let out a gasp.
"What in- Saria?! But... b-but you're dead!"
"What? Don't recognize me?"
"No! You don't have a fairy, you're wearing different clothes... and your body... it's covered in red."
Clearly, the boy referred to her untreated wounds from the bone fish. Funny to think so few things could make her look like a completely different person. She stood up next to Mido, which only seemed to fluster him more.
"And you're taller than me!? I thought I was the tallest in the village! What... what happened to you?"
"It's a long story... where is everyone?"
"They're hiding... the forest spirits told us you were an outsider... I don't know why that would be..."
"I do..."
Apparently, since Saria was no longer a Kokiri, the forest rejected her as one. So that was why her friends hid from her. Without a fairy, there was no reason for them to think her one of them. There really was no place left for her in this world, but there was no way she could explain that to Mido.
"Where did you disappear to, Saria? Why did you go? Do you know how you leaving affected everybody? What happened to you?"
"It's complicated, Mido..."
"You left the forest, didn't you? Was it because of Link?"
"Please stop asking me questions, Mido. I can't answer them all."
"Why not?"
"Because, something isn't right... I don't belong here."
"What? Of course you do, this is your home."
"Not anymore. Do you wonder why the forest spirits acknowledged me as an outsider? Why I don't have a fairy?"
"Well... uh..."
"It's because I no longer belong here. I am an outsider now."
"No, you're a Kokiri, just like the rest of us."
"According to you, you're only a true Kokiri if you have a fairy."
"But-"
"What? Does that apply to Link and not me? It's one or the other Mido. Either we're both Kokiri, or neither of us are."
Realizing Saria was making him eat his own words, Mido stopped talking and put a hand on the back of his head. She didn't feel right defending Link, even if inadvertently, but there was only one way to drive the point into the boy's thick skull. With a sigh, she put a hand on her old friend's shoulder.
"Mido, I want you to know, you were right about Link, he is an outsider. A bloodthirsty, heartless, outsider."
"Uh... did something happen?"
"No, now leave me be, please."
"Okay..."
The boy walked outside of Saria's house, more confused than ever. Alone again, Saria reached for the decorative box, and looked it over. She had never seen something like it in Kokiri Forest before, so it's origins were a mystery to her. She popped the lid off, and inside, lay a sheet of paper, and an object wrapped in cloth. Unfolding the sheet, Saria found that it had a message written on it, it was a letter. Quickly she recognized the messy handwriting, she found herself unable to tear her eyes from the letter.
To my best friend, Saria
If you're reading this, odds are, I never got the chance to say goodbye. I just want you to know, that while I will always hold you in a special place in my heart, many things have happened that I will never be able to tell you. Though I've hardly been gone a day, so much has occurred in my life, more than you can possibly imagine. I need some time to clear my head, and I may never come back again. I've already made up my mind, and there's nothing you can say that will change it. You were right, me and you are different, but our differences make us stronger. It is only fate that our lives lead two different paths, and if we ever meet again, fate it will be. As you may have noticed, I sent a little something with this letter. I'm sorry, I tried to take better care of it, but some things are just lost to time. I hope you can fix it, then maybe you could use it to remember me. I'll always be your friend too.
From,
Link
Clutching the paper with her thumb, she lightly crumpled it. To her, the letter only made it more clear how self centered Link was, he abandoned everyone he knew just to go on a quest of self discovery, and he made it clear he wasn't coming back. It was almost like he was asking to get away from her. On unwrapping the bundle, Saria found a mess of wood chunks, all splintered and frayed. It took her nearly a minute to figure out what it was, but when she did, it hit her like a sack of bricks. This was the ocarina she had carved for Link! Or at least what was left of it. The object almost looked like it had exploded, it was blown into twenty different pieces.
"If this was here, why didn't he say something!? Why does he hide things from me!?"
He left behind the very object she gave him to remember her by? It was clear to her, Link wanted her gone. Both angry and heartbroken, she stomped out of the her small house, and remounted Epona. Before she reentered the lost woods, she turned her head back, and shouted to the world.
"I thought you couldn't hurt me any more, but no! Somehow you've found a way to hurt me when you're not even here!"
Riding off into the depths of the forest, she only had one place left to go before she returned to her own Hyrule.
Author's Note
Ouch, Saria didn't take that letter too well, maybe it's just her current emotions?
I'm not trying to drag out these chapters for suspense, I just haven't had a whole lot of time to write them, and I want them to feel exactly how I want.
