Author's Notes: I figured it was about time I finished up this story. ^_^ Here's Saria's version.
Warnings: Angst, mention of death.
Archive: Just ask.
Obligatory Disclaimer: I own no part of Zelda or any of its characters.
Wise In Our Own Ways Saria: Tears of a Child
Red is such a funny color, you know. Growing up in the forest, I never saw much of it other than in flowers. There was always green all around me, though. The leaves were green, the trees were green, the grass was green, and just so many other things were green. It was the color of life, of strength. That's why everyone in the Kokori village wore the color. It was the symbol of what we were: children of the forest.
But this red color…it's the color of blood, of dying. I don't think I like it. It spills like thick wine over the white stone of the Temple of Time, staining it forever. It's never going to go away; it's always going to be there to remind us of his death.
Oh Link…why? How could you just leave us all behind? Ruto loved you, Princess Zelda loved you, the people loved you…I loved you. Yet now you're gone, and we can't love you anymore. We only have our memories of you to hold on to.
I'm scared Link, really scared. When you were around I always knew Hyrule had someone to protect us all. When you were around I always knew there was someone to protect me. Now I don't have a protector anymore, and it worries me. I'm only a little girl given powers I only knew how to use because of the gods' intervention. Other than that, I'm still a child! I'm little and weak, tiny and insignificant in the greatness of everyone else. If someone as great and strong and as powerful as you can fall…where does that leave me?
I needed you Link; I needed you here, with me, to take care of me! Children need parents to watch over them! When we were in the forest, the Great Deku Tree was our father, but as the years passed and you grew up where I didn't, you became the father I would never have, the guiding hand where I needed one. It was you who would sit down with me sometimes and paint flowers when we had nothing else to do. It was you who would take walks with me in the rain even thought your clothes always got soaked. It was you who would take me out at night and point out the star constellations at night. And it was you who told me stories of your adventures before I would go to sleep each night.
What am I going to do now? Who's going to hold my hand when we walk in the rain? Who's going to take time out of their own night to read me stories when I can't get to sleep?
Oh, Link, I'm so very afraid. I don't share a bond with the other sages like Zelda and Ruto or Nabooru do. I'm just a little girl to them. A tiny, insignificant girl. The only person who ever thought I was more was you, Link, and now you're gone.
I'm going to miss the pictures we painted together of fields of flowers and forest animals. I'm going to miss those stories and those walks. I'm going to miss being significant.
I think that, for your funeral, I'm going to draw a picture and you and I together in the woods. That was where I remember seeing you happiest, when we were children. I'm going to draw us playing in the flowers and making necklaces like we used to. There will be white and blue flowers, violet and yellow ones. We'll both be wearing green since that's the color of life in our forest.
But there won't be any red. Not at all. Because I don't like that color anymore.
Yes, I know that wasn't the best of my ability, but I was trying to set it in the mindset of a child. Think about it for a few minutes, do you think Saria has the same vocabulary potential as Impa or Zelda? I don't think so. ^_~ Next excerpt should be the last!
Final Excerpt--Zelda: A Royal Eulogy