My name is Link, and I am a Kokiri.
The Great Deku Tree tells me that I'm just like everyone else. And I look the same. We all look pretty much the same. But there's always something missing. The others, especially Mido, always tease me because I don't have a fairy. The Great Deku Tree gives us all a fairy when we are born, but I never had one. I don't understand why, and the Great Deku Tree won't tell me. He says I'll know some day. I wonder why I'm so different.
The forest is big, and that's good, because we aren't allowed outside. The trees close us in, like solid walls, but we can see the sky. There's a stream that runs across the field, and the trees that grow by it are hollow inside, so we live in them. We all have our own house. At night, we can see every star in the sky. But we can't see anything else. I don't even know if there is anything outside our forest. But we never get bored, and we're happy. The others play chase and race each other. Saria and me like to dance while she plays the ocarina. She's good at it, but somehow I could never get her song right. If she would just slow down, maybe I could play it, but she won't. I think she likes to tease me like that.
Her house is right next to mine, only mine is high up in a tree. We drew pictures on the bottom of it in charcoal once. They're still there, it doesn't ever rain here. I guess we don't need any, the Great Deku Tree takes care of us all without anyone's help but the Goddess's. The Great Deku Tree tells us many stories of the outside of our forest. He says it's not at all nice out there sometimes, and that's why we have to stay here. If we stay here, we won't ever get older. That makes us happy, because we don't want to get older. We're happy just the way we are.
He also tells us about the three Goddesses, Din, Nayru, and Farore, and how they made everything in the world. He says that even though the forest was of Farore's creation, we shound be thankful to them all. If it wasn't for Din's rich earth, and Nayru's sunny sky, the trees wouldn't grow. We all like his stories. They're just fairy tales, and some of them we never believe, even though he says it happened, out there in the world we never see. All the others seem content to just listen to his stories and stay here forever.
But I'm not. I want to see the rest of the world. Maybe that's why a fairy won't come to me. I shouldn't want to leave. I should be like all the others. They know that if they leave, they'll die. I don't want to die, but I still want to leave. But I'm afraid to ask the Great Deku Tree if I can. He'll say no for sure, and then I'll never get a fairy. I'll only get a fairy if I be like everyone else. But it's hard to. The only one that really likes me is Saria. I wish I could be like Mido; everyone seems to like him a lot. Maybe that's why the Great Deku Tree made him leader.
That day started out strangely. I had the dream again, for the hundredth time. There was a big place, made of white stone with lots of pointed parts on it, so that it looked like a tree. It had a weird symbol I had never seen before on the front of a big gate. It was open, but I couldn't see through it. The sky had gone all dark, and water fell from the sky. The Great Deku Tree had said something about that once. He had called it rain, and he said it only rained when a Goddess was crying. So I knew, if the Goddesses were crying (it must have been all of them, the water was flowing beside the castle) that something bad was happening. Then a white creature ran through the gate towards me, with two strange people on its back. One was big and heavy; she must have been one of the people of the world that grew old and died. And the other looked like a Kokiri, but she was wearing a white dress instead of our green clothes. What was she doing outside the forest? She looked back at me as the creature ran off, disappearing. And when I turned around, another creature, a black one, was heading right for me. And on its back was a big, strong person, not like anyone the Great Deku Tree had ever talked about before. I could tell he was chasing the Kokiri girl and the other person, and I wondered if he chased her out of the forest. But if she left, she would die…
And then I always wake up. I wish I knew what it all meant, but I don't want to ask. The others will only make fun of me, and the Great Deku Tree won't let me have a fairy if I act weird. I couldn't go back to sleep after that, and besides, it was really bright outside. So I went out to go find Saria. When I came out, she was right outside, waiting for me. "Hey, Link!" she called, "Good morning! Come down already, you're missing all the fun!"
Wondering what she meant, I climbed down the ladder, waving to her. "What d'you mean?" I asked her. She ran off, looking back at me. "The Deku Tree is telling us another story today!" she called back. I ran to catch up with her, and we raced to the entrance to the Great Deku Tree's meadow. But Mido was in front of the entrance, and he wouldn't let any of us through. Saria went right up to him, and his face turned a funny color. He likes Saria a lot, but she doesn't like him so much, she told me once. She thinks he was kind of bossy, and I do, too. "Let us through, Mido!" Saria told him. "The Great Deku Tree said he'd tell us a story!"
Mido wouldn't even lether through. "The Great Deku Tree isn't feeling good!" he told us. "So clear off! He'll tell us when he's better."
Everyone was sad, but they listened to him, going back to playing games. Saria stayed, trying to see over the trees to check if the Great Deku Tree really was sick. I thought that maybe if I could get by Mido, I could go cheer the Great Deku Tree up. He liked stories of the world outside our forest, so maybe I could tell him my dream. If it was just something I made up, he wouldn't think it was strange, and he might like it. So I tried to get by Mido while he watched Saria, who was standing on her toes to see the Great Deku Tree. But he saw me. "I said, no one's allowed in!" he repeated, stepping in front of me. "'Specially not you! You need a fairy to visit the Great Deku Tree."
"That's not fair, Mido!" Saria objected, glaring at him. "Link's been in there hundreds of times before!"
"But not by himself," Mido pointed out. "The Great Deku Tree gave us our fairies, so they're part of us. He wants to see them too! But he's just half a Kokiri without one."
I didn't say anything; I don't like talking to anyone but Saria and the Great Deku Tree. Saria didn't say anything to him either. She grabbed my hand, pulling me away from him. "Come on, Link," she said, and I followed her towards our place, behind Mido's house. When I looked back, he didn't look very happy at all. He looked mad at me, I guess because Saria likes me more than him.
Our place is a secret, and even Mido doesn't know about it. It's in the Lost Woods, another part of the forest. The Lost Woods are scary if you don't know them, and the Great Deku Tree always told us that if anyone but a Kokiri got lost in them, he or she would turn into a monster. I never saw any danger of that, because after all, there aren't people that aren't Kokiri out there. They're just Kokiri who grew up when they left the forest.
Saria first found our place, deep in the woods. It takes a long time to get there, and we always pass the weirdest places. There's a hole in the wall with rocks in front of it, and there's another hole at the bottom of a lake. It was too deep for me to dive to when I tried once, so I don't get why it's there. The woods are just strange like that, I guess. They're always echoing with Saria's song, because she plays it so much. And the song gets louder as we get closer to our place. In our place, there's a tree stump where we can both sit, and a slab of stone right in the middle of the meadow. There's a big hole in the wall above it, but the stairs are broken. I always wanted to go in there, but Saria never did. She said that it was the Forest Temple, and it was sacred. She said that she could feel it sometimes, and that right now, it was at rest. I never could feel anything, but I'm different from everyone else anyway. So I just always take Saria's word for it.
We raced each other to our place, knowing exactly where to go. Only we could find the way, and only we could get through the maze that came before it. We tied this time, and since we were tired and out of breath, we just sat while Saria played the ocarina. She played her favorite song again. I asked her to teach it to me, but she only laughed and played faster. After a while, we both got up to dance, and then we played for a while. Then we headed back to see if the Deku Tree was any better. Finding the way out of the woods is easy, because if a Kokiri got lost they would always end up at the beginning.
Mido was still looking mad, so we kept away from him. The others were playing chase, so we played too. But I got bored, because no one ever picks me, so I just sat in front of my door and watched them. And then something small and white flew right towards me.
It was a fairy.
"Link!" she said, in a high, cheery kind of voice. "Link, come quickly! The Great Deku Tree wants to see you!"
The Great Deku Tree wanted to see me? It was what I had wanted, but I had never expected this. "Who are you?" I said to her, making sure she was just the Great Deku Tree's messenger.
"I'm Navi, your fairy partner from now on! Nice to meet you!"
I didn't know what to say. A fairy had finally come to me after so long, and it didn't seem real. "You're my fairy?" I said, just to be sure.
"Yep! And we need to see the Great Deku Tree right away! He has something important to tell you!"
"Okay," I said, climbing down the ladder again. I didn't really know what else to do, so I just listened to what she said. And she had a lot to say.
"This is good! So now I've found you, and you're here, and you're coming to see him, and I've done what he said! Maybe you can do something to help!"
So that was it. She really was just here to take me to the Great Deku Tree. But I didn't say anything about that. "What's wrong with him?" I asked.
"I don't really know, he'll have to explain it to you. Come on, can't you go any faster?"
"I'm going!"
But Mido was still there, and he wasn't going to move. "Not without a fairy!" he said shortly, standing in front of me. Navi, my new fairy, came out from behind me and waved her wings at him. His eyes got really big.
"A fairy? You got a fairy?"
I nodded, trying to get past him. He still wouldn't let me through. "Hold on a minute!"
I shook my head, still not wanting to talk to him. He held up a hand to stop me. "So you have a fairy and all, but you still can't just see the Great Deku Tree! It can be dangerous sometimes, so you need a sword and shield first!"
I didn't know what to say. A sword and shield! No one had those in the forest. There was a shield in the shop, I knew, and the Kokiri sword was hidden somewhere. But we weren't allowed to use that unless it was an emergency. Navi flew by my ear and said, "Come on, let's just do what he says, it'll be easier. Do you know where the Kokiri sword is?"
I nodded and walked away from Mido, who had a smug kind of look on his face. The Kokiri sword was through a tiny little hole, but I had never been inside there before. One of the other Kokiri was practicing nearby, but he ignored me, and I didn't say anything to him. I went through the hole, coming out on the other side.
It was a long, narrow tunnel, and there was a rumbling noise all around. "What's that noise?" Navi asked me. I shrugged. "Link, be careful going around corners!" she warned me. I didn't see anything in front or to my right, so I went left. I looked around the corner like Navi said, and then I saw what was making the rumbling sound. A big heavy boulder was rolling around and around in a circle. I wondered why it was there, but mostly, I just needed to get past it. The Kokiri Sword had to be around there. I waited until the timing was just right, then I ran behind the boulder, into a little space where it couldn't go. Then I did it again, as it rolled past me again, and ran into another little space. There was a chest there, so I opened it. In there, resting on a pile of leaves to keep it safe, was the Kokiri Sword.
"Great!" Navi said happily as I buckled it on. I pulled it out of its sheath, testing it. I liked the way it felt. "Now let's go get a shield!"
It was close, but I got out without being crushed by the boulder. I went back to my house and found some rupees under my bed, where I hid them. Rupees didn't really matter much in our forest. They were almost like another game to us. But we collected them anyway. I counted out forty and went to the shop.
Our shop is right next to the pond, by the entrance to the Great Deku Tree's meadow. I went in and got the Deku Shield, which I could tell was made from the Great Deku Tree's bark. It was strong, and I liked the way it felt when I put it on my arm. Navi was happy, and so was I. I went right up to Mido and showed him the shield and sword. He couldn't believe it.
"You got the Kokiri Sword? You got it? How'd you do it?" He shook his head, still mad, but he didn't have any more reasons not to let me by. He stepped aside, grumbling to himself. I heard a few words, "Saria", "fairy", and "Great Deku Tree" mostly. But I ignored him, walking down the path. Even though I had been down it many times before, this time it was different. It was only me, and I had a sword and shield.
I was going to see the Great Deku Tree, and this time, I had a fairy.
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