Before the Game Begins...
The Death of the Queen
Chapter 14: Navi
She exploded out of the chest of the woman she had been, free at last from the mortal heaviness that had been her curse for the last 70 years. Now she understood why humans struggled the way they did. By Din, Farore, and Nayru, she knew at last what she must do. She slowed her carreening course into the heavens, and looked down upon Hyrule burning. From so high above, she could see from Zora's Domain to Lake Hylia, the Gerudo Hideout and the Haunted Wasteland. She could see the heart of the Kokiri forest, the Lost Woods and the Forest Temple. Far below, Death Mountain was a mere hump on the landscape...all these kingdoms in one glance!
She sped like an arrow to the Deku Tree. She laughed with pure delight. She anticipated the coming trials with great joy.
And it was all thanks to Ganondorf.
She laughed again. Oh, what a wonderful set up!
She chanted to herself: "Navi, Navi gate. Navi, Navi gate." again she laughed "NAVIGATE!" she shouted.
"Be thou quiet, thou most annoying fairy of all." said the Deku Tree.
Navi screeched and flew as fast as she could several times around the old tree. "I'm myself again!" she yelled as loudly as she could at the deaf old stump.
"Yes, yes." the old tree agreed. "Indeed, thou art thyself." he allowed himself to be amused by her reaction to the experience of human death, but his own reaction, as usual, was quite wooden.
Finally, she wound down, and hovered infront of the Deku Tree. "Oh, wise Deku Tree!" she exclaimed with all her heart. "The worst part about being human was having to endure the horrible pain of childbirth. And the best part about being human, was having a child to hold in your arms. The next best thing was having someone to share it with, and next to that, watching the children grow up in a world filled with parallel analogies."
The Deku Tree raised one bark eyebrow at this last puzzling statement. He wondered if she was quite sane. Maybe 70 years had been too long of a punishment for her. She had had no memory of being a fairy while she had been human, and although Hyrulians and Kakarikans were long-lived, she looked like a 20 year old when she had died. The King of Hyrule had not slapped eyes on her until 5 years ago, and she looked 20 then. He had been 30. Little did he realize that he had married a woman 35 years older than he.
"Dost thou knowest what must be done, Navi?" the old tree asked.
Navi nodded solemnly. "I do so." she countered.
"And?" the tree prompted.
"To denounce the evils of truth and love. To extend our reach to the stars above." she smirked.
"That is from Pokemon." The tree said, frowning. Indeed, she hast not quite recovered from the shock of death He tapped her hard with the nearest branch.
"Oof!" she exclaimed, ricocheting like a badminton bird. She realized that she had deserved that. She rubbed her head.
"I think that first, I must visit Link."
"That is quite impossible, and thou dost knowest this." the tree benignly said. "Perhaps thou must remain human a little while longer."
She became serious at once. Being human sucked. Everyone was so stupid. Well, except Ganondorf and Link. Even Impo had turned stupid at the end, and she had thought he actually was quite smart up until that point. She sighed. "Okay, O Great Deku Tree!" she intoned. "My purpose is to guide Link."
"Very good, Navi. Thou hast indeed become more settled." The Deku Tree and all the Kokiri had long ago been worried about her, for she was a fairy without a Kokiri, and unmatched fairies became mischief makers. In fact, it was she, long ago, that stirred everything up between the kingdoms. Even as a human, for the first 30 years, she hatched plot after plot to pit Gerudo against Hyrulian, since for the most part, all the kingdoms had lived in peace for generation after generation.
"I must atone for the evil that I have done." she said, pouting a little.
The Deku Tree cast another benign gaze her way. "Thou hast already atoned, Navi." he said gently. "Thou didst do heroic and mighty deeds while thou wert human. Dost thou not remember?"
She hung her head in shame. "But for a long time, I only made things worse."
"Thou didst atone for that as well, Navi." The Deku Tree said.
"When can I see him again?" she asked plaintively.
"When thou hast studied all the evil in the land that sprouts up, so that you may tell him what to do when the time comes."
She hung her head some more, and began to cry. "But when will that be?" her little fairy heart breaking at the prospect of being away from her boy for so long.
The Deku Tree did not answer for a long time. "Thou cannot speed time, Navi."
Navi gave the tree a sharp glance. Was he being stupid on purpose? Wasn't the whole mess started because of the Triforce, and the very fact that it could send someone through time? An evil thought came to her...What if she could trick the old Deku Tree into sending the boy out before he was old enough to weild the master sword? She clamped down on the thought and shook her head. That was the old Navi...
The Deku Tree regarded the recalcitrant fairy with some compassion. For someone immortal, 70 years really wasn't very long, but for humans, it was an entire life-time. It must have been a difficult life for someone used to being so light to become so heavy. He well knew, with his roots, that she had struggled with walking for many years although she knew not why, and had cried many tears. Yes, she had made many mistakes, mostly out of loneliness and mis-placed anger, but because of her power, her mistakes were big ones. At the same time, once she realized the value of human life, and how precious they were, her will to set things right was just as powerful. Yet the reprecussions of her mistakes lingered.
She roused the nasty ghosts in the Graveyard. She tricked the giants that lived near the Forest Temple into attacking anything that moved. She taught some bats how to attack with fire. The deku scrubs she teased so much that they automatically popped up and spit deku nuts at anything that moved. Deku sticks used to be easy to harvest before deku babas became so angry and afraid that they swung right at whoever had come too near.
She knew their names and she knew what could hurt them.
She did not know some monsters, however, like "the monsters on the ceiling" that drop down suddenly, or the wolves, or the boulders set in motion, or those weird lizard creatures or Like Likes or redeads or mummies or Phantom Ganon: all these things and more, she still had yet to discover and to study. When the time came for her to be assigned to Link, she would know every evil thing that crawled upon the land, and as had been her ambition when she had been on Death Mountain, she would guide him through it and tell him what she knew.
If she couldn't be by her boy until she knew everything that the Deku Tree knew in his roots, she had better begin as soon as possible. "Where do I go?" she asked the wooden patriarch.
The Great Deku Tree smiled. "Thou knowest all within these woods already. Goest thou into the next kingdom and workest your way thoughout all the temples and caverns. Seek out every nook and cranny. When thou thinkest that thou hast found them all, return here, and my roots will tell you if thou hast missed anything."
Navi nodded, then she zoomed away as fast as she could. She wanted to see her boy.