Chapter One
Morning dawned bright and cheerful on the Lost Woods. Rain from the night before had soaked everything and predawn mist had covered the world in a shawl of dew sparkling like diamonds. The storms from the night before had passed and today was a new day.
Saria turned her face to the warm sunlight and smiled peacefully. She was out gathering bluebell blossoms to dry for making tea. Early morning was the best time to search for flowers; the flowers had just opened to drink in the sun's light and the heat of the day hadn't caused them to wilt yet.
Dew soaked the toes of her dark brown ankle boots as she kicked her way through the short grass that covered the ground here under the forest's canopy. Shade tolerant grass was about the only thing the Kokiri could get to take root here, excepting a few types of shrubbery and some low lying flowers. In this particular part of the Lost Woods the ground was carpeted in dark grass, broken up occasionally by patches of soft violets and Creeping Charlie. Climbing up a slope and hopping across a narrow brook, Saria turned deeper into the woods to search out a meadow where she knew bluebells grew in abundance.
She stepped around a tree and stopped dead in her tracks. In the middle of a patch of violets, soaked in rain from the night before, was a body.
Saria's pulse jumped. She looked around the clearing, trying to see where the body had come from or perhaps find the killers, but found nothing in evidence. She could hear nothing, her ears twitching from the strain. With extreme care she walked slowly towards the figure lying still as death upon the ground.
It was swathed in a dark green cloak soaked with rain and blood and on the ground beside it lay the most peculiar weapon Saria had ever seen. It was essentially a staff with a two-foot slightly curved sword blade at one end. Saria was no expert on weapons, but it didn't look like it was from Hyrule. A pair of arrows stood out from the left shoulder of the figure, one just under the other, and the figure's arms appeared to be folded beneath its body.
Saria knelt down beside the figure and did her best to role it onto its side. She was met with the face of a girl, younger than twenty but certainly older than fifteen, pale as bleached death and very still. Rain streaked mud caked her face and matted her eyelashes. She'd been lying atop a bundle wrapped in dark material and thick twine tied in complex knots and sealed with dark red wax impressed with an image of a bird.
Curious, Saria reached out to pick up the package. A force of some sort stopped her. There were no lights or explosions or special effects; one moment she was reaching for it, and the next it was like her hands were stuck in jelly. She pushed harder and it was like trying to push her hands through a stone wall.
She sat back on her heels but jostled one of the arrows in the girl's shoulder and jumped at the tiny groan that escaped from the girl.
She was still alive!
Saria leapt to her feet and sprinted back towards Kokiri Village. This girl needed help and there was only one person Saria knew was big enough and strong enough to carry her to a place where she could get it.
Ten minutes of full out run and Saria made it to the base of the ladder that rose to Link's tree house. She shimmied up it and burst into Link's forest home. He was apparently already awake because he sat up in bed staring at her, the thin sheet sliding down his tanned, sculpted, naked chest, and Saria was glad her cheeks were already flushed from running so he couldn't see her blush.
"Saria, what in the world are you doing?" Link queried, shifting around in bed and putting his feet on the ground. "It's barely past dawn."
Saria shook her head and sank to her knees, heaving air into her tiny child sized lungs for all she was worth. Sensing something was wrong, Link rose quickly and moved about the cramped space that was his home, rummaging in cupboards and tossing gear on the floor.
Saria was relieved to see he'd at least had the decency to wear trousers to sleep in last night. Some nights Saria suspected he slept in nothing at all! How could he, when he lived in a village populated entirely by children? She suspected it had something to do with the fact that when he traveled, and he did much of the time, he basically had to live in the same clothes for sometimes weeks on end. It must be a relief to shed it all and sleep in the comfort of his home unrestricted.
After a minute Link joined her on the floor, pressing a pale wooden cup into her hands that was somewhat too large, so Saria had to hold it with both hands. She gulped the cool water down greedily and her panting slowed somewhat.
"Now tell me, Saria, what's the matter?" Link asked. His so-blue eyes were concerned behind their screen of golden blond bangs.
"I – I was out – in the forest," she paused to swallow, "And I – I found a body – only it's not a body – it's a girl – and she's alive, barely – injured with arrows in her back. You've got to come with me – you can carry her – I can't, I'm too small."
Link was on his feet again before Saria could blink. She composed herself and finished catching her breath as she watched him pull a dark green tunic on over the tan colored trousers he'd slept in, stamp his feet into his boots, buckle on his belt and the shoulder harness with his sword, snatch his hat off a peg on the wall and plop it on his head.
"I'm ready, let's go."
Saria pulled herself to her feet and led him down the ladder of his house. They ran back through the woods to the place Saria had found the girl. She lay there still, unmoving.
"Can you carry her, Link?" Saria asked, wringing her hands.
In response, Link squatted down beside the near-dead girl and lifted her bodily, one hand behind her knees, and one hand behind her shoulders, careful not to jar the arrows protruding from her shoulder. "Saria, grab that package and the weapon."
Saria reached for the dark package, but once again it was like trying to reach it through a wall; her hands stopped dead several inches from it. She picked up the weapon instead. Well, she picked up one end of the weapon, the end without the blade, figuring she could drag it.
Link glanced at her over the girl's shoulder. "C'mon, pick them up!"
"I can't pick that one up!" Saria exclaimed, pointing at the cloth and twine wrapped bundle. "It won't let me!"
Link rolled his eyes and squatted down again, easily picking the rectangle shaped package up with one hand, and tossed it onto the girl's stomach where he could easily carry them both. Saria stared for a moment, and then followed Link as he strode out of the clearing, dragging the odd spear-like weapon behind her.
They went back to Link's house and put her in his bed; it was the only one in the village large enough to hold her, and it was important that she be comfortable and warm. It took some creative work to get her up the ladder. Saria went up first, dragging the spear-like weapon after her, and then helped Link by pulling the girl from the top while he climbed up the ladder with her over his shoulder.
They negotiated her into the warm confines of his house and deposited her on his bed laying on her right side and facing the wall. Saria dashed straight back out to get Toia and her bag of medicines. Saria and Toia were the two Kokiri who knew the most about medicines and healing. While Saria went to get the other girl, Link went back outside and down to the ground to collect the cloth wrapped bundle from where he'd left it so he could carry the girl up the ladder.
He picked it up and stared at it for a moment, weighing it in his hands. Whatever was beneath the wrappings felt… warm. Frowning slightly, he carried it inside and put it on a corner of his kitchen table where he could examine it later.
To pass the time until Saria returned with Toia and some medicines, Link filled a bowl with cool water and grabbed a clean rag and set to cleaning his house guest up a bit.
"What on earth happened to you?" He asked quietly, keeping his voice low and soothing. He hoped that the sound of someone talking might revive her a little, and continued to talk as he gently wiped the mud and blood off her face. "You're in awfully rough shape. You're too young to have enemies, aren't you? Who am I kidding? I'm only eighteen, and I have more enemies than I can count. Well, I have been eighteen twice. And what's in the package? I bet that's what whoever attacked you was after. You should have just given it to them. Wow, that – that's an interesting tattoo…"
Under the dirt and blood on her now mostly clean face, Link had come across a tattoo next to her left eye. It was a dark blue/violet in color, a line that came out of her hairline and curved slightly near the corner of her eye, then hooked back and down the line of her cheekbone and tapered to a point above her jaw. There were various other smaller markings around it, one that traced the outer most edge of her eyebrow, and another that hooked behind the first and tapered higher.
Looking at her cleaned face Link noticed two things.
First, he noticed that her hair was black. Now, Link considered himself a fairly well traveled person; he'd traveled all of Hyrule, Termina, and various other lands between and around them both but he had never in his entire life seen hair the color of ink and raven's feathers. Her eyebrows were the same surprisingly dark color, and her eyelashes were long, resting softly against her cheeks. He gently pushed back the travel and blood stained hood of her cloak and pulled out a braid as thick as his wrist and also raven black, long enough that it would probably easily reach her waist were she standing up. As it was, it dangled off the side of his bed and nearly touched the floor.
Secondly, he realized that despite her injuries and state of filth, she was unbelievably beautiful.
Link sat on the edge of the bed again and rinsed out the rag. It was then that Saria and Toia walked through his door.
They were busy for the next hour or so. First they had to remove the arrows from her back, and that took some work. Toia and Saria held her stationary while Link pulled them out and deposited them on a rag on the floor. Saria then shooed him out of his house so she could sew the wounds closed, so on his way out he grabbed the cloth wrapped bundle again.
He sat outside turning the package in his hands. He couldn't seem to get the knots in the string to untie, no matter how he wheedled them, twisted, turned, and pinched his fingers. Frustrated he gave up and began pacing.
After about a half hour, Saria called him back inside. He ducked through his door flap to see the girl lying on her back. Her left arm was bound to her side to keep her from moving it and reopening her wounds. Her hair had been washed and spread out across Link's pillow to dry. It was a cascade of loose ebony curls and waves that gleamed an odd bluish violet and pooled darkly on the floor. Bandages wrapped around her forehead then down low on her skull holding a thick compress in place behind her left ear.
"It looks like someone clubbed her from behind." Saria told him. She sat on the edge of the bed and held the girl's right wrist in her tiny hands. "Probably with a rock. Her skull's not broken, but I'm not sure her brain isn't damaged. She's stable for now." Saria sighed, and placed the girl's hand back at her side. "Her pulse is very weak."
"I'll make a trip to Kakariko and pick up some red potion." Link offered. "That should bring her strength back up and help her heal faster."
"That would be good." Saria nodded. She pulled the blanket up under the girl's chin. "Be back as quickly as you can. I'll have Kita lend her some magic to heal faster, but it will take something as strong as a potion to heal her fully."
"I'll warp to the graveyard, and then back to the Forest Haven. I should be back by noon." With that Link pulled out his ocarina, not the Ocarina of Time admittedly, that was safely back in Zelda's possession. He played the Nocturne of Shadow and disappeared in a sheet of violet light and sparkles.
Saria turned back to the girl occupying Link's bed and smoothed her amazingly black hair away from her forehead. She asked her faerie to lend the girl some magic, and Kit did so, flying slow ovals above her prone body. Some color came back into the girl's cheeks and her breathing grew stronger. Saria felt her pulse again and shook her head; it was still very weak.
'Hurry, Link.' Saria pleaded silently.