In response to the questions of M - I left out that detail by choice. You will have to keep reading to find out why I did this evil thing. MWAHAHAHA!! *gets a hold of herself* No, you will get to find out why this is happening, but not for a while. In regards to Link being in Kakariko "during" his seven year sleep... Well... That is one of the ways I explain Time happening all at the same time. See, you learn the Song of Storms in the game when you are an adult from "someone" playing it to him seven years ago, so I used the philosophy of... Basically, anything Link does in the past has already happened when he gets to the future. I'm rambling now, but I tried to make sense. ^_^()
Enjoy!
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April had indeed been forced to "drag Vaiya along" on her return trip to Hyrule. Only slightly grudgingly the eighteen year old Seer had agreed to watch over the Princess on what would soon come to be known as Hassle Trips to Hyrule.
But that is getting a bit ahead of the current situation.
"I'm really starting to hate the number seven," April muttered as the fairy had explained the rest of the problem with the seals.
Apparently, magic that strong was not effective if it had not been given the proper amount of time to 'set in.' This meant that each of these seals could only be placed after the previous one had sat for exactly seven weeks. The natural forces and sources of magic in Hyrule seemingly could not take the strain of two seals setting in at one time. This, of course, meant that April was going to have to return to Hyrule once every seven weeks to finish the next seal.
This had been explained to the Princess, Sheik, Impa and Vaiya as they sat around the same table the reflections had sat at the previous night. The fairy, who they came to know as Saria's fairy, had told them that the sooner they began the better it would be for the Sages in the end. They had all agreed, and April and Vaiya, as well as the fairy who made her seat in April's cloak hood, had set out that very day.
As the mulled through the Shadow Temple, what would be twice in the last twelve hours for April, the blonde wondered why Sheik hadn't mentioned anything to Impa about her having been in Hyrule the night before. Of course she didn't think he was a tattler or anything, but she would have thought he would have said something to her guardian for 'the sake of her protection or some crap like that,' as April had thought it.
"You think I didn't know?" Vaiya said suddenly as the gray light of the Kakariko Graveyard assaulted their eyes.
April faltered, almost tripping. "Know what?" she asked, with a nervous smile.
"That you left, ajitu. I'm not stupid."
'Pip-squeak again,' April thought.
"But why didn't you ask for one of our help? I know you know there could have been danger."
April stopped outright at this, just as they both landed on the main surface of the graveyard. "Look. I don't feel like blowing up right now, explaining the whole thing, okay? I know you probably are mad, but let's just say that at the moment I don't really care."
Vaiya smirked, and continued to walk toward the cemetery exit. "Oh, I know why you did it." She laughed slightly. "I just like listening to you embarrass yourself."
April blinked, following the older girl. "Then... What's this? You don't sound mad..."
"How can I be mad at someone who takes initiative, however stupid it seems to be? Someone who feels as if they need to do more, that they have been abandoning their friends? I admire that side of your personality, Zelda."
"Oh," was the only think April could think of to say.
The scenery of the growing town of Kakariko met their eyes. It was even busier than the last time the two of them had been there. April was sure, now, that the Hyrule Market was emptying and that people were fleeing to the 'safety' of Kakariko. She was glad, however, that at least one place in Hyrule would not become desolate for some time.
As they passed through the village, April tried to remain inconspicuous as she could. She knew that there might be some who would still recognize the Princess of Hyrule, even if she was currently disguised as a Sheikah.
A few hours later, with help from a passing mail cart on its way to Lake Hylia, the Princess and Vaiya found themselves at the entrance to Kokiri forest. It was mid-afternoon, but none of the bright light penetrated the foreboding gloom of the entrance to the infamous Lost Woods. April had more than one dark thought about the forest, having heard horror stories from many over the years.
Still, she refused to let this sway her from helping Hyrule in any way she could. She practically dragged Vaiya into the woods in her determination.
"Can we not slow down a little, Princess?" the Seer asked. "The seal cannot be performed until midnight, anyway."
"And you know this how?" April asked, irritated.
Vaiya raised an eyebrow.
"Oh."
April now felt stupid as well as terrorized.
As they walked through the impossibly large hollow tree to the interior of the forest, April noted the sounds that their footsteps made. At first it was nothing but soft, grassy sounds. Then it became the snapping of twigs and crushing of dry leaves. Suddenly she felt and heard the dull click of wood under them, wood which presented itself to be a bridge. Another hollow tree and the two of them could not take another stop for the site they saw.
Before them was a meadow, misty and surrounded by towering trees. Odd, glowing orbs not dissimilar from Saria's fairy fluttered and floated leisurely in almost every area of the place. There were some trees carved out to form what seemed to be houses. And the whole area was occupied by children.
Or what seemed to be children.
April was the first one to step out of the hollow tree, looking around as Saria's fairy emerged saying how wonderful it was to be in the forest again.
Just as false comfort began to overcome her senses, something jumped at April from the right.
She squeaked, rolling out of the way just as the dark shadow struck above her. She reached for the dagger she kept in her boot, turning around to face her attacker.
What met her eyes was a strange site. It was what appeared to be a demented version of a flower, complete with light green sepals and fangs. What would be petals were blue in color, and the 'flower' was attached to the ground by a moving vine. April immediately associated this creature with the word "Deku," though she couldn't for the life of her remember what it was called.
"Damned, stupid thing! Yaah!" she yelled, effectively severing the vine that help it up. She watched the its blue head deflate and finally sputter out of existence. She took a deep breath and practically threw the dagger back into her shoe.
"Hey! Thanks for that, newcomer!" said a young sounding voice from behind her.
April turned toward the voice to find a blonde girl, or Kokiri more correctly. She seemed to have been watching April with amazement.
"Those things are always popping up out of nowhere lately, near the forest entrance!" The girl giggled.
April looked back toward Vaiya, who stepped forward and said, "We're looking for Saria. Do you know where we might find her?"
Before the Kokiri had a chance to say anything, another voice answered. A louder, somewhat more mean voice.
"And what would someone like you be doing looking for Saria?"
April glanced behind the blonde to find another childlike Kokiri. He was shorter than the girl, and had red hair and freckles. She thought this person brought to mind a certain name, which she also, alarmingly to her, could not remember.
"We are sorry to intrude on your forest," Vaiya supplied. "But we need to see the girl, Saria."
"Can you just tell us where she is?" April asked, irritated for reasons she didn't quite understand.
"Why do you wanna know?" the red head asked suspiciously.
April glared daggers at the shorter child. "What's it to you, punk?"
"Zelda..." Vaiya warned, although she sounded almost amused.
"I suggest that you all discontinue this train of though. And Mido, stop harassing our guests."
This new voice's owner was a Kokiri with forest green hair, and noticeably lacking in a fairy at the moment. It was not hard to tell that she was, indeed, the Forest Sage Saria.
"But they're not guests!" Mido insisted. "They're intruders!"
"Sure," Saria said as she passed him, smiling warmly at the new comers. "Hello, Princess Zelda."
Neither April nor Vaiya were surprised that Saria knew her name.
* * *
Another hour and the troupe, which now consisted of four including Saria's fairy, hovered around the entrance to the Forest Temple. In the Sacred Forest Meadow, things were even more misty and mysterious, and it was somewhere that April did not wish to be by herself.
Saria sat on an old tree stump under the crumbling staircase that led to the Forest Temple, while April and Vaiya stood inspecting and Saria's fairy hovered seemingly aimlessly.
"I've been having the same nightmare for some time now," Saria said. "It begins with utter darkness, and I know it's not the good darkness, as in night. No, this is Evil itself. A light suddenly appeared, however. It is so bright that I can almost hear it, and... green like leaves during Spring." The small, green haired woman shook her head. "But I cannot reach it. In fact, I do not even know what it is until I wake up."
"Then you know what it is?" Vaiya and April asked simultaneously.
Saria nodded in her fairy's direction. "Mori has sensed that the Sage of Light has tried contacting most of the Sages, including myself, but has failed because of the evil that has befallen their temples. Yes, I know that I am the Sage of Forest, but I cannot truly become her until I've been awakened. And you know the only one who can really do that as of now is the Hero of Time." She ran a hand through her hair, sighing.
"That's why we're here, though," April said, continuing. "To keep the evil from totally taking over, right?"
"Seven years is a long time for evil to take its toll," Vaiya offered.
"So this Seal will be able to at least do something in the way of preventing that. I'm glad we're all on the same track." At this Saria stood up and looked toward the entrance of the Forest Temple. "If the darkness is allowed complete control of any Temple, there is no guarantee that its respective Sage will ever be awakened. Because once this has happened, it will practically take a miracle for Link to break the spell and do anything about awakening us."
'And I think we're all used up on miracles,' April thought sadly.
"By giving ourselves even the slightest chance in our Temples with these seals, we are giving ourselves more of a opportunity to succeed against Ganondorf."
April cringed at the name.
"The seal will use power of the forest to give us this chance. I already know a little bit about using the energy of the forest," Saria declared. "But most of it was from what the Deku Tree had told me. See, I always knew that I was a bit off from the other Kokiri in that I always seemed closer to the forest. I did not know that I was its Sage, however, until right before Link's quest started, actually. The Tree had told me, sensing that the Legend was about to unfold. But until that dream, I had only had the words. I had never felt anything proving this fact. Now I can feel the power close, but it's as if that power is on the inside of an bubble and I'm on the outside."
"And you need a certain Hero of Time to burst that bubble," April added, somewhat ironically.
The Kokiri smiled lugubriously.
"So, at midnight tonight." Vaiya stated matter-of-factly.
"True. I don't know why these things always seem to be so specific in time, but..." Saria shrugged.
Thus, for the next several hours, the small group sat and waited. Saria had brought some food with her, and so they ate that when it began to get dark. Saria played the Ocarina, as she always seemed to be doing. Vaiya sat under the decaying staircase and looked troubled.
Otherwise, April found, oddly enough, that she was bored out of her skull. She would have thought that any trip away from her routine would at least have been interesting. Then again, she was not one of those people that would sit and do nothing for an hour just because she could. There wasn't much in the way of enemies in the forest at that moment, as the Temple's power still hadn't totally been blocked out. So she couldn't even do anything in the way of 'exterminating.' She would have gone into the Temple itself, but for the broken staircase.
Midnight came, however slowly. The moon was directly overhead, and oddly bright from most nights any of them could remember. Each of the three stood, and one floated, and left their own train of thought to gather at the center of the Sacred Forest Meadow. The stone carving of the Forest Medallion was just behind them, shadowed almost eerily in the moonlight.
Saria and Vaiya looked serious, but April looked slightly confused.
"Eh, what exactly are we supposed to do?"
Vaiya sighed and Saria chuckled slightly.
Saria's fairy, Mori, actually offered an explanation. "We need you because, as the Seventh Sage, you link the rest together. And we need each respective Sage because of his or her control over the element of their Temple. Of course, neither of you are fully awakened, but your powers are still hidden somewhere within you."
Vaiya continued. "There is a spell we can use, a sort of protection spell, that will be combined with the Sage's power and the linking power of the Last Sage. Together, it will basically be a seal against alien forces in the Temple, which will include Ganondorf's power and minions." Vaiya paused, seemingly trying to find out how to begin. But then she slouched slightly. "I don't know the words..."
"I do," Mori supplied.
Saria smiled. "That's why I sent her, because she seems to be even closer to this Sage business than I am. I think it is because of her connection to the late Deku Tree."
Without adding anything further, the little fairy began chanting words in an ancient language that April didn't recognize at first while Vaiya stepped back to make room. After a moment, however, April identified it as a dialect of Ancient Hylian usually used by priestesses of the Sect of Farore. April had to shake her head at the odd little tidbit of information the Triforce of Wisdom provided her with.
The chanting, which now sounded almost like singing, continued for a minute longer before something odd happened. The air immediately around Saria began to glow a shimmering green. Without warning, a tendril of this same light emerged from the area of her heart. April noted dully that there was something similar coming from her, which was white tinged with gold.
The stone Medallion also played a part. It began to glow dully, a green color similar to Saria's aura, when Mori's chanting greatly resembled a melody known as the Minuet of Forest. None of them could see it, but they could feel the power being drained from the land around them. Saria's visible energy combined with this as it made its way toward the stone. A disk of light was being formed from all this, and suddenly April's energy also jumped into action. It coiled its way around the disk, like a "link" between it and the energy of the forest itself.
Both Saria and April could feel the drain in their energies and those of the land around them, but the onslaught of light continued until the disk imploded on itself and disappeared, leaving Saria and the Princess to collapse when it was gone.
"Well, that was... interesting," April panted.
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***Hm. That's it. I know there wasn't much in that chapter, but I had some explaining to do here. More action will take place in the next chapter. REVIEW!!! Or I won't post. ^_^ Arigatou gozaimasu!