Hey look, the only reason I keep saying this is because it's a legal issue. Otherwise, I would shoot it and rid myself of it, really: Disclaimers in Ch. 1. Bit of a shorty here, but I hope I start making them acceptably longer here. Enjoy.
Ch. 17
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
-Theodore Roethke
The very trees seemed to recoil as a myriad of snarls and sharp barks poured in and around the two wagons. Rapidly, a handful of rough, slouching shapes came darting out of the bushes, surrounding them in a bristling circle. The Wolfos were the dirge of the forest, for not even the Stalfos or Stalkids would dare tread into their domain, and the Kokiri had a healthy fear of the creatures.
They were called the dirge for a reason, for they were hulkish in shape, dark furred and fanged, but in a way were almost Hylian, too. One lunged forward in a neat flip, and ended up at the edge of the first wagon. It's hand-like grasping paws sported sharp, clawed talons, and each one sank into the wagon side. Saria fell back in a stumble as it lifted itself into the wagon, and gave her the most malicious of grins, showing a mouthful of long, jagged teeth.
Behind them, Ichiro had stood up in his seat, unsheathing his long-sword to brandish it at two of the creatures loping forward on all fours. When they had reached the wagon, they rose up onto two hind legs, and held their paws out in a balanced battle stance. Two more approached from the wagon's other side, and one clipped through the ropes restraining the horses neatly. They would be easier to find later for so many hungry Wolfos. One of the guards, seeing this, sprang from his mount and drew his sword to rake a jagged line along the creatures back. The Wolfos sprang forward in surprise and pain, and turned, rising up also to deal the guard a blow to the stomach. The soldier fell back in surprise and agony at the sudden move, and another man came forward with a heavy spear to stab at the Wolfos who had sprang upon the fallen one.
Around them, there was a mad chaos as each Wolfos darted in at half-lopes to do some sort of calculated damage, and Link fought to hold onto the horses. He was finally able to drag them to a tree, where he looped their reins around it several times and tied it off. He then turned back to the battle, unsheathing the sword on his back to lunge and stab at the Wolfos above Saria. The Wolfos, seeing his intentions, back flipped of off the wagon, and came around to head butt him. Saria had risen in the seat again, and had taken the bow from her back to knock an arrow off at the creature.
The arrow found its mark in the Wolfos' shoulder, and the creature flinched under the hit, turning to narrow its gleaming eyes at her. It gave a spitting snarl, and leapt upward to attack her, but was tackled halfway up by Link. Both hit the ground in a tumble, and Link fought to grab his sword underneath them. The Wolfos retaliated by kicking all four limbs up at Link, and he was propelled back several feet away.
Ichiro, who was the top elite of Hyrule Castle, had managed to kill one of the skulking creatures, and shouted to Tappor to catch the horses who were struggling to untangle themselves and get away. Tappor had been staring in awe at the skirmish, but now scrambled up and tried to chase after the horses, managing to grasp one's bridle right as they loosed themselves, and galloped away into the forest.
"Heeeeeeelp meeeeeeeeeeeee!" The scholar called, and Ichiro turned to stare in amazement at the spectacle.
"Damn fool's got himself into a mess," He growled, turning to spit another attacking Wolfos on his blade.
*************
In a few more moments, several Wolfos had fallen, and seeing themselves outnumbered, the creatures fled back into the undergrowth with a chilling howl.
The travelers looked around, trying to collect themselves. Although at least all of them had been hurt in a way, there were no further casualties. Saria had started to tremble, as she realized how close she had come to killing a living thing. She sat down hard in the wagon seat, and looked around bleakly. Link stood panting, looking around to make sure none of the enemy was left. He turned to the horses, and raced over to untie their reins.
"It looks like we'll have to divide them up between the wagons," Ichiro called, resheathing his sword. Link looked around in confusion, his back protesting from where he'd hit the ground.
"Where's Tappor?" He asked, seeing both the scholar and the horses from the supply wagon missing. Ichiro sighed in irritation.
"He grabbed the reins of the horses when they escaped, and the fool was dragged off with them. I'm afraid we may see neither again."
Link was shocked by his tone. "What do you mean? We have to look for him!"
Ichiro turned back. "And risk all of us becoming lost? Don't be foolish. We have to press on."
Link looked around in helplessness as the guards started to mount their horses again. He let his eyes drift around for a moment, and then squared his shoulders.
"Fine. I'm going to go find Tappor, you can keep going." He said, and turned to disappear into the shadows of the trees. Ichiro looked up in startlement, then swore under his breath.
"Damn kid.... Let's go! We've already been here too long!"
*************
Link raced through the forest, heedless of the branches that whipped into his face, cutting into his skin. Around him, the scenery was starting to twist, and it wasn't long before the sun was blocked out by the trees above, and the whole world seemed to fall into darkness around him.
Link slowed to a walk. He forcefully kept himself from thinking, because if he had stopped to think, then he would realize he was lost, deep in the Lost Woods. Here only the occasional lights of wild fairies flashed in the murky, twisted forest, and Link wandered through helplessly. He kept his ears tuned in for any sound to help guide him, but nothing came, and he began to feel himself lose hope.
No, he ordered himself. To lose hope was to lose yourself. It was the quickest way to fade into the woods and lose your form. Link gritted his teeth, and kept moving. Above him the canopy of trees seemed to grow darker, and he had to wonder how long he'd been walking around. ...Too long? How long do I have?
After a period of more walking, Link caught site of something flashing in-between the twisted limbs and branches of trees. He paused and listened intently, and heard a noise unlike a fairy or forest creature. The distant shouting of a voice, and the clomping of hooves. His heart began to beat faster, but he stilled, and listened as it came closer. Soon, through the shadows of the overhead trees, a shape came into view, and he dived to the side just in time as the two tangled horses came bursting through the foliage, the unfortunate Tappor still hanging on gamely.
"Let go!" Link shouted, racing after them to try and stop the horses. The hapless scholar finally released the ropes from his death grip, and Link lunged forward, grasping one of the flailing rope ends. He dug his feet into the ground, and let the force of the moving animal's propel him around until he was stopped forcefully by a tree. Stars burst behind his eyes, but he gamely held on, and wrapped the rope several times around the tree, tying it off. The horses jerked about, and came to a stop, eyes widened and sides heaving. Link stepped back from the tree, still slightly dazed, and carefully walked around the horses, catching their reins and soothing them. It took a few minutes, but finally the horses settled, and Link rubbed their noses.
"Good boys," He said. The horse on the right snorted, and nosed his hand. Tappor, who had recovered, came up to stand by him.
"You have a gift with horses," The scholar said, seemingly over his encounter of being dragged bodily through the Lost Woods. Link nodded slowly, his eyes on the horses. He finally turned around, and looked at the scholar.
"Are you all right?" He asked, eyeing the little man's roughened front.
"Quite all right," The scholar responded, taking his surprisingly still intact spectacles from a pocket, and putting them on. "I'm amazed you found me. I thought for sure that I would be left behind."
Link shook his head fervently. "No, nobody gets left behind. We're all in this together now."
Tappor nodded at him with a smile. "Spoken well and truthfully." He turned to eye their surroundings. "Now, I don't suppose you know the way back?"
Link sighed wearily, and turned also to search the identical trees and trails.
"Not really," He responded, feeling the edge of uneasiness again. Tappor, however, turned out to be level-headed by nature.
"Well," He said. "I suppose we will have to start walking about and calling a bit, won't we? No sense in staying here and fixating on woes." Link turned in surprise, but nodded, stepping up to the horses again.
"I hope you can ride bareback," He stated, grasping the closest horse's mane to pull himself up onto its back. Tappor eyed the other one slightly warily.
"I suppose this is the best time to learn." He stated weakly, and scrabbled about for a few moments, finally able to climb the harassed horse's side. The two turned their horses in the direction that Link hoped he had come from, and rode into the dancing shadows of the overhead trees.
*************
"I do believe we are utterly lost." Tappor said thoughtfully, peering around. Link nodded.
"You're right. We've been lost for awhile now." He confessed, and shook his head in frustration. "If only I had something to guide me... something to follow, I could get us out of here!" Tappor looked at him curiously.
"Then you truly have been here before?"
"I grew up here," Link said distractedly, looking around himself in aggravation. It was as if he was trying to remember something... Something that was right before him that he couldn't grasp. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, and listened intently.
...Nothing.
So what was it that he was listening for? The woods were deathly quiet, only the stir of swaying branches and the darting fairies could be heard. Suddenly, he heard it, faintly, and for a moment he wondered if he had heard it at all. It was nothing, only a sound, almost in the back of his mind, as if it were something to be overlooked.
Link focused intently on it, and bade Tappor be silent. The scholar watched curiously as Link's brow furrowed in concentration. His eyes suddenly snapped open, and he swung down of the horse's back, handing the reins to the scholar.
"Follow me," He said in a low voice, and started to walk forward almost as if in a trance, eyes closed and head lowered in intense concentration. Several times Tappor thought he had lost him, for the woods were strange, and trees that had not been there a moment before would flicker into view. Shadows lengthened and shortened as if of their own will, and a thick mist sometimes hindered vision.
Link tilted his head to the side, his eyes tightly shut, ears trained almost painfully on the faint sound he could hear echoing. This was what he had been missing, and it was heartening to suddenly hear it. He followed it, willing it to grow louder, and slowly it started to. He trudged along, sometimes tripping over roots or rocks, into a clearing slightly ahead of Tappor.
Here he tilted his head forward, and stumbled on, holding his hands out to find the source of the song. His hands touched something solid, and his eyes flew open in startlement to see Saria several inches away. He blinked, and grasped her hands.
"Saria..." He said fervently. "I followed your song." Saria nodded slowly, her features sad and drawn. Beyond her, in the distance, the woods ended, and Ichiro stood impatiently with the wagons. Link was loathe to move on.
"How?" He finally said. "You guided me... the forest... it echoed your song... How?" Saria pulled her hands away, though.
"It's just one of those Sage things... I'm glad your back, now come on, we have to go." She turned abruptly, and headed back towards the wagons. Tappor drew the horses to a halt beside Link, who was staring after her dumbly. The scholar shook his head.
"Ah, magic. It's interesting how things operate the way they do, is it not?"
"Yeah..." Link muttered, shaking his head slowly. "Incredible. Now come on, she's right, we need to get out of here. It's already midnight." He took the reins of his horse again, and the two made their way out of the enchanted forest.
*************
For the remainder of the night, both groups made their fires on level ground, and Link was given the first watch until the early morning. It was well enough, for he didn't feel like he could sleep even if he was given the chance.
His thoughts were full of the forest, and of the song Saria had played, and lastly- of Saria. All along, lost in the woods, he had been searching for the song, putting his whole faith and trust in finding it. It annoyed him that he had become so lost looking for it... Yet eventually, he heard her playing it, and went strait to her. Thanks to her, both he and Tappor were still alive...
Link sighed, and wished he could have been thankful, but it made him uneasy, and put a new distance between him and to young woman he'd begun to value as a friend.
*************
Later, when soft streaks of gray began to paint the dark night sky, one of the guards came to relieve him, and he went back to his sleeping bag, collapsing back on the cold blanket with a sigh, his back aching. Soon the sun would be up, and though he needed sleep, his mind would not still. Eventually, close to dawn, his eyes drifted shut, and he slipped into an uneasy sleep.
*************
Morning came in the blink of an eye for the tired young Hylian, and he rose stiffly as someone shook him into wakefulness. It was Tappor, who gave him an apologetic look.
"The good Chief Ichiro would appreciate our setting out as soon as we find it possible, which, naturally means at a wretched hour such as this. Perhaps you could catch a slight repose in the back of the wagon while I drive?" He added. Link looked at him gratefully, but shook his head.
"No, it would be better to just wait it out until tonight. I don't want to mess my hours up." Tappor grudgingly nodded, and they gathered up their supplies into the wagon. Saria was already ready and seated in the one ahead of them, and Link watched her with a sigh, wondering who had hurt who more the day before with something as innocent as a wordless tune.
*************
The following days past uneventfully, their journey across the vast fields taking up the long days. Along the way, they saw few interesting sights as they went farther away from the Royal Castle, and deeper into unpopulated land, although at one point Tappor did claim he spotted a rabbit-hooded man sprinting headlong across the wild grass. No one else had seen the wonder, and Link hadn't been in much of a mood to discuss it with him, and so they pressed on, day-in and day-out, towards the Southwestern shores.
*************
By late afternoon of the twelfth tedious day, the terrain had begun to change drastically from anything that any of the traveler's had known, and they started to encounter stretches of flattened ground with a yellowish, strange grass that grew like a carpet. The horses, who had been accustomed to stooping every once in a while to catch a mouthful, now snorted and shook their heads at the strange, salty flavor of the flora here. Exotic birds overhead cried out in high-pitched drawn out noises, and several times an errant breeze would bring a sharp, salty scent to their noses.
"We're close to the shores," Ichiro called out at one point, and Link prepared himself for anything.
The sight, however, that greeted them over the next rise of the final grassy hill, was like nothing Link could have ever imagined, and his jaw dropped in utter amazement at the scene stretched out before him.
As far as the eye could see, the world that had been once flat, hilly fields suddenly became a place of deep, dark blue waters. Waves as high as a Goron's chest crashed in crests, producing foamy white streaks in the otherwise dark, deep water. The sound of the waves crashing surrounded them wholly, and even Ichiro was startled into an awe-filled silence.
They had come at last to the sea.