5. Saria

ka-CHINK

"HHRRRRMMMMMMMM!"

BAM!

"Unh!"

splash

"Ow!"

expletive deleted

expletive deleted

expletive deleted

Those were the sounds heard just after I entered the Sacred Forest Meadow. A frickin' enormous monster with a huge spear completely stabbed me and threw me into a pool of water. Needless to say, I was pissed.

"Calm down Link," Navi said.

"Calm down!" I repeated. "Calm down!"

"See, now you're just drawing attention to yourself."

"So what?" I pulled myself out of the water.

ka-CHINK

"HHRRRRMMMMMMMM!"

BAM!

"Unh!"

splash

"So that," Navi answered smugly.

"Ow, ow, ow," was all I could say.

"Wait until the moblin is farther away," Navi instructed me. "They're really strong, but really stupid, and it'll forget about you if it can't see you."

I stared at her. "You're kidding, right?"

"Nope."

"How could anything that dumb wield a spear?"

Navi bobbed up and down in the fairy equivalent of a shrug. "Beats me. Now be quiet so it doesn't notice you."

I crouched down under the lip of the pool and waited for the moblin to wander over to the other side of the passage. Then I lifted myself out of the water and crept towards it. I doubted my sword would do much good against the great hulking brute, so I got out the hookshot and prepared to take it out from a distance.

Pow!

thunk

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaauurgh!"

"Yes! Got it!" I pumped my arm up in the air. "I took you down!"

"Celebrate later," Navi called from elsewhere in the maze of bushes. "This place is crawling with moblins."

I sighed. "Perfect."

Fifteen minutes later I was faced with the biggest moblin I had ever seen. Not only was it three, maybe four times my size, but it was armed with a hammer as tall as I was. The huge moblin roared and pounded the ground with the huge hammer. I managed to dodge by weaving back and forth and finally rolling between his legs.

I expected the thing to turn around and keep attacking but…it didn't. Navi was right. Moblins are the stupidest things in the world.

Since Giganto-Moblin wasn't doing me any harm I left him standing guard and walked up the stairs and into the clearing where Saria had sat.

It was empty. I suppose I should have known, after all, Saria probably was in trouble, so why would she still be in the Meadow?

I started walking toward the entrance to the Temple. I couldn't see a way up to the entrance, unless…

"Waugh!" I exclaimed as a lithe figure jumped down from the trees.

"Yo," Sheik greeted me calmly.

"Sheik?" I stared at him. "What are you doing here?"

"Helping," he answered, just like before. Then he took the harp he had slung across his back and spoke. "The flow of time is always cruel... Its speed seems different for each person, but no one can change it... A thing that doesn't change with time is a memory of younger days... In order to come back here again, play the Minuet of Forest."

With that he began to play a song I could only assume was the Minuet of Forest. It had a nice tune, and, though I wasn't completely sure what a Minuet was, it certainly reflected the forest. I took out the Ocarina and followed along.

As the music of the harp and Ocarina mingled in the air between us I felt something stirring around me, most likely the magic of the song. But I didn't know that the song was magic, and when I stopped playing I blinked, looked as Sheik, and asked, "What…was that?"

Sheik smiled, I could tell by the way his eyes crinkled up. "The Minuet of Forest will transport you back to this clearing whenever you play it."

"Cool," I looked down at the Ocarina. "It's amazing what music can do isn't it?"

Sheik laughed. I wasn't really sure why, but he did. Long and loud.

"What?" I asked. Sheik just laughed harder. "What?" Finally Sheik wiped his eyes and sighed.

"You're still a child on the inside aren't you?" he asked.

"Well, yeah, I guess. Why?"

Sheik grinned. "I said almost the exact same thing when I first learned that song and what it could do."

I blinked again. "Really?"

He nodded. "Link…I'll see you again."

"What? Hey!" Sheik threw something on the ground that created a bright flash of light, and by the time my vision returned he was gone.

"There is something seriously wrong with that guy," Navi said.

"I like him," I replied. "Okay, so he's a little bit weird, but I like him."

Navi wasn't paying any attention to me. "Try and grab this branch with that grabby thingie," she called down. The branch hung just over what remained of the entrance to the Forest Temple, and grabbing it with the hookshot would probably land me on it.

"Okay," I said, "but it's called the hookshot."

"Whatever."

Latching onto the branch and pulling myself up was easy enough, especially compared to what awaited me just inside the Temple.

Two wolfos. Yeah, two coming at me at once. Actually, it would have been easier if they'd both come at me at once. Instead one came at me and the other stayed behind, then they'd switch and the one who'd been resting would come at me from behind. I managed to take one out with a spin attack, then climbed up some ivy and onto a tree to rest before going after the other one.

While I was up there I noticed two things. One: a gold skulltula or, "Spider of the Curse," as the father of the cursed family in Kakariko had called them. Two: something glinting in the tree across from mine. I killed One, and leapt across to investigate Two, which turned out to be a key. All right!

Then I had to deal with the other wolfos, which was easy enough once it's buddy was gone, and go through the door into the corridor.

There was one of those huge skulltulas along the way, but the hookshot took it down in one shot. "I love this thing," I said, grinning, to Navi. Navi ignored me, she always did that for awhile after I'd been ignoring her, but it didn't matter.

I opened the door at the end of the hall and stared at the room beyond. It was large, dark, and lit mainly by four oddly-colored torches around the small cage-like thing in its center. Or at least it was, until four apparently female poes came in and stole the flames from the torches, causing the cage to sink into the floor.

"Hey!" I exclaimed, at the same time as Navi. I turned to her. "What was that?"

"It looked like the Poe Sisters."

"'Poe Sisters?'" I repeated incredulously.

"Uh-huh," Navi did her bobbing imitation of a nod. "Joelle, Amy, Beth and Meg. They're rather infamous."

"So what was with the torches?" I looked back at the center of the room. "And that cage thingie?"

Navi shrugged. "The cage thingie was an elevator, but I don't know if it's important."

"Well of course it's important!" I drew my sword and stalked over to where the elevator had been. "Would those poes have cut off access to it if it weren't important?"

"Good point," Navi agreed. Then she brightened (literally). "You're learning," she said proudly.

"And just how much of that do you think is due to you?" Navi said nothing. "Come on, we've got to find those Poe bitches."

The door up the stairs at the opposite end of the room, the only unblocked one actually, lead to a flying skull surrounded by blue bubbles. Navi said it was called a Blue Bubble. Of course.

I figured out how to defeat the Bubble purely by accident. It bumped up against my shield and lost both its bubbles and its height advantage, in other words: it fell down, appearing to be just an ordinary hylian skull. That hopped around. Eww. I smashed it to bits with the Master Sword.

The room beyond that seemed normal (or at least as normal as they came in that place) until the door locked behind me and a skeleton rose up from the earth.

"A stalfos!" Navi exclaimed.

"That's a stalfos!" In my surprise, I just barely managed to duck its huge spiked club. The creepy voice of Tido ringing in my ears, I shot the skeleton with the hookshot, pulling its head off.

Have I mentioned that I hate the undead?

Unfortunately, once the first stalfos had been destroyed (which was hard by the way) a second one rose up and came after me. I finished it off the same way I had the first one (smashed its head up) and when I did I found…a key. A key had been in its skull.

I forced myself not to think about it and headed back to the room with the now unlit torches.

The key didn't really help me there, since, of the two remaining doors, one was blocked by bars and the other by…a block. But the block had the same symbol as the door of time. The same symbol as the block in Dampé's underground labyrinth. I played the Song of Time and the block disappeared in a beam of light.

This door lead to what Navi identified as the West Courtyard. It wasn't nearly as creepy as the rest of the Temple, but there was an octorok in the stream that ran through it, and three of the smaller skulltulas on an ivy-covered wall that lead up to a door.

Since that was the only door I thought I could reach, I brought down two of the skulltulas with the hookshot, but the third one I just couldn't reach. After weighing my options (and listening to Navi whine (and getting lost in a fantasy with that blonde girl again)) I decided to risk it and just climb up the wall. I managed to avoid the skulltula by staying as far right as possible and only moving when its back was to me. Once I got to the top of the wall I killed it quite happily.

The room beyond the door at the top of the wall held another one of those Blue Bubbles, which I finished off easily enough. And this one held an old map of the Temple, very useful, especially when the door I hadn't come in by led me to a balcony in the East Courtyard.

"This says that the switch on that balcony over there," I pointed, "will drain that well over there."

"Why do you want to drain the well?" Navi asked.

"So I can climb down into it."

Navi just stared at me.

"Don't question my logic, okay?" I put the map away and got out the hookshot. "Now, let's see if I can get over there without touching the ground."

Navi rolled herself (it's like rolling her eyes). "I will never understand Hylians."

"I'm a Kokiri," I corrected her. But that made me wonder. If I was a Kokiri, why hadn't I died when I left the forest? Why had I grown? Why had I always felt outside when all my friends were in?

Banishing those questions from my mind (I was a Kokiri, I had to be) I aimed the hookshot at a small black and white target on the other balcony. Hook and pull, yes!

Five minutes later I was climbing down the well, it took that long since I had to pause and kill another gold skulltula on the way. It was still damp in there, and pretty empty, except for a key lying on the floor at the opposite end. I climbed out and found myself back in the West Courtyard.

The key unlocked another door in the room with the unlit torches, and this one led down a hall with a big skulltula in it and to a strange labyrinthine room with a lot of different levels and a couple of enormous blocks that I had to move to get anywhere.

Okay Link, climb the first two ladders, then find a green block. Pull it out until it's all the way out of the corridor, then push it to the right until it stops. Run around through where it was and to the right, then push it all the way until it sinks. Don't climb up it yet! Return to where it was originally to find a ladder. Climb up, then make two right turns and find a red block. Push it as far as it'll go, then return to the floor below and climb up onto the green block. From there, climb up to the next level and then push the red block until it falls into place, hop on, hop off, take a right, climb the ladder, kill the Blue Bubbles, and finally enter the locked door.

Whew. That was annoying. I was happy to get out of that room, at least until I got a good look at the corridor I was in.

It made my brain hurt. The entire corridor was…twisted ninety degrees to the right. As I walked down it, I stayed upright while the corridor twisted around me. It was dizzying and annoying and I didn't want to ever have to go back down it.

The next room wasn't much better though. There was a chest and stairs on one of the walls, but while I was staring at them a large shadow began forming beneath me.

"Look out!" I rolled out of the way just as an enormous mottled hand dropped down from the ceiling right where I'd stood.

"Wallmaster," Navi said knowingly. "They hang down from the ceiling and grab people."

I gulped and got out of there as fast as I could.

Up a staircase with poe paintings I found the room where I'd fought the two stalfos, but this time I was above and there was a big hole in the floor. A lone stalfos attacked me, but I knew enough by now not to trust that it was really alone. Sure enough, once it was dead(er) two more stalfos and the rest of the floor dropped down.

The third stalfos I killed (if you can kill a skeleton) left behind a bow and a full quiver of arrows, which I took quite happily to see what I could do with it.

Quite a bit as it turned out.

For starters, I had to play a quick game of shoot-the-painting with Amy the Poe Sister in order to get a key and the torch flame she'd stolen back into the central room.

Then I had to go down the brain-hurting corridor, shoot the eye switch above it to untwist it, and go back down it to get the big scary-looking key out of the chest on what was now the floor.

Then I had to collect some keys, re-twist the corridor, and take down Amy's sister Beth to get a compass.

Then there was some more traveling, a non-twisted corridor with Green Bubbles, a frozen eye switch and some moving pillars, a deadly falling ceiling, and, finally, The third Poe Sister, Amy.

She had only one painting, but she broke it up into blocks and made me put it together in under a minute before I could fight her. It was really hard (I am not a thinker, I'm a fighter, my way of solving things is to beat the crap out of them) but I did it. After six tries. But I did it and I won. Yeah! Take that you dead bitch!

Ahem.

Once I was done with her I left the room to find myself on the previously inaccessible balcony in the central room. Three of the torches were lit, and the last Poe Sister, Meg, was waiting for me.

After some trial and error with the copies she made of herself, I defeated the last Poe bitch and the elevator rose up from the floor once again.

"Wait Link," Navi said as I was about to step onto it. "We don't know what's down there."

"No," I agreed. "We don't." Then I stepped on the elevator and rode it down.

The path was still barred, literally, and there were no eye switches to be found. I swore angrily and slammed my fists against the bars. "I'm so close!"

"Calm down Link," Navi said. "It's just another big monster or something. It can wait."

"But what if Saria can't?" I sighed and leaned my head against the bars. "I have been having a ridiculously hard day, and I've been worried about Saria throughout all of it. I want to make sure she's safe so I can get back to worrying about Zelda without distraction."

Navi stared at me. "You're worried about Zelda?"

I didn't answer. With my head against the bars the way it was I could see between the wall of the room and the wall that the door was in. There were two completely separate walls, and they didn't look attached.

"What are you doing?"

I was pushing experimentally against a protruding bit of wall. Just as I'd expected, it turned. The entire wall rotated counter-clockwise. "Yes!" I ran over to the room I now had access to and pressed the switch. "Do you think that opened it?" I asked Navi.

"Uhh…"

"Never mind. I'll push it again."

Counter-clockwise. Hit another switch.

Counter-clockwise again. Gold skulltula.

Counter-clockwise one more time. Yet another switch.

Cross the room and enter the hall.

Unlock the door and enter…

At first it seemed like there was nothing there. A big empty room with big identical paintings all around. But…there was something. The room was too dark, too quiet, too ominous to be as empty as it seemed. Even Navi felt it, I could tell by the was she was hiding under my hat. I wanted to tell her to get out of there, but I couldn't bring myself to speak and break the silence of that room.

Since there didn't seem to be anything else I could do, I turned and started to leave. ka-CHINK! Spears popped up and blocked the exit, and behind me I heard deep laughter and the clatter of hoof beats.

"Ganondorf!" I grabbed the first weapon that came to my hand and turned around, and sure enough that looked like Ganondorf. But he was much bigger, much darker, and glowing purple.

He laughed again, then turned his horse around and rode into one of the paintings. Right into it, like it was a real path and not just a painting. "Get back here!" I shouted, but it did no good.

"Link!" I spun around to see that phantom Ganon riding at me from a painting. I drew the weapon I had grabbed before, it turned out to be my bow, and shot at him. Yes! A hit! But all he did was turn around and disappear.

I kept that up until he gave up on the horse and came at me himself, shooting a bright ball of energy at me. I dodged it the first time, but it spread as it hit the ground and waves of energy traveled up my feet and into my body.

It hurt like hell.

"The sword that can destroy evil," Navi said, and since it was the best idea she'd had in a while I drew the Master Sword just in time to smack Ganon's ball of energy back at him. Then he hit it back at me, I hit it back at him, he hit it back at me, I hit it back at him, one of us had to slip up eventually and it sure as hell wasn't going to be me.

Then it happened. Ganon was just a second too late hitting the ball of energy and it struck him square in the chest.

He fell to the ground and I rushed at him with the sword. It was only as I was striking him, again and again, that I realized: either Ganondorf had more power than I thought, or this wasn't him. This…whatever it was, was made of something that wasn't flesh.

Well if it wasn't Ganondorf it wasn't worth my time, and apparently the real Ganon realized that as well. The puppet suddenly rose into the air, not like it had been before, triumphantly, but jerkily, like a marionette being poorly manipulated.

"Hey kid, you did quite well." That familiar voice filled the air, filling me with rage.

"Where are you!" I roared. "Show yourself!"

"It looks like you may be gaining some slight skill... But you have defeated only my phantom, when you fight the real me, it won't be so easy! What a worthless creation that ghost was! I will banish it to the gap between dimensions!" The puppet burst into purple flames and fell back to earth.

"Come back here and face me!" I shouted, but I could already tell he was gone. "Damn him!" I fell to my knees and punched the ground. "Damn him!"

"Link…" Navi said softly. "Look."

I was being surrounded by bright blue light, and when my eyes cleared I was back in that room where I had first awakened after taking the Master Sword. "Dammit!" I exclaimed. "It hasn't been another seven years has it!"

"No," a soft voice said. "The first seven were bad enough."

"Saria!" She was standing on the green platform in front of me. "You're okay!"

"I'm fine," she smiled. "Well, mostly. I'm also the Forest Sage."

"I knew it!" I shouted triumphantly. "So you'll be able to help me now, right?"

"Of course." She paused. "Link…you're all grown up…"

I looked down at myself. "Well, close."

"I always knew you were different Link. I always knew you would leave us someday."

"I haven't left you, I'm still here! Saria…"

"Here, take this." A green medallion appeared in front of Saria and drifted over to me. I took it in my hand, and felt a strange warmth spread through me. I felt refreshed, and stronger than before.

"That is the Forest Medallion," Saria told me. "With it, I join my power with yours."

I squeezed the Medallion in my hand. "Thank you."

Saria smiled, and then the light filled my vision once more. In that transition period between leaving one place and appearing in another, I heard Saria's voice. "Saria will always be…your friend..."

When the light cleared I was standing in the clearing in front of the remains of the Great Deku Tree. Great, now I was really depressed. I stood there for a moment and just stared. Then I noticed something. A little sprout, poking its head out of the ground at my feet. I bent over it and brushed a few grains of dirt off of the leaves.

Then it started to shake, and burst out of the ground with such force that it threw me flat on my back.

"Hi!" the little tree said. "I'm the Deku Tree Sprout!"

"Deku Tree Sprout?"

"Yes?"

"Cool!" Suddenly, things were looking brighter. "So you're, like, the Great Deku Tree's kid or something, right?"

"I'm, like, the Great Deku Tree reborn," the Sprout corrected. "Which means I know everything the Great Deku Tree knew. And that reminds me, have you seen your old friends? None of them recognized you with your grown-up body, did they? That's because the Kokiri never grow up, even after seven years, they're still kids! You must be wondering why only you have grown up! Well, as you might have already guessed, you are not a Kokiri! You are actually a Hylian! I am happy to finally reveal this secret to you!"

I goggled.

"Some time ago, before the King of Hyrule unified this country, there was a fierce war in our world. One day, to escape from the fires of the war, a Hylian mother and her baby boy entered this forbidden forest. The mother was gravely injured... Her only choice was to entrust the child to the Deku Tree, the guardian spirit of the forest. The Deku Tree could sense that this was a child of destiny, whose fate would affect the entire world, so he took him into the forest. After the mother passed away, the baby was raised as a Kokiri. And now, finally, the day of destiny has come!

"You are a Hylian, and were always bound to leave this forest. And now... You have learned your own destiny... So you know what you must do... That's right... You must save the land of Hyrule! Now, Link, break the curses on all of the Temples, and return peace to Hyrule!"

I nodded blankly and left.

So. I was an orphan. My whole life had been a lie.

I've got to tell you, that's not a good feeling.