As Trivia in the full moon's sweet serene smiles on high among the eternal nymphs whose light paints every part of Heaven's scene...
- Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, The Paradiso, Canto XXIII
The Lost Woods, a mysterious labyrinth of trees carved with passages full of wandering spirits, sleeping shadows, and whispering fairies. The forest stands proudly ancient and endless one summer midnight, trees so dense they form solid walls of living wood.
The intertwining branches and canopy—the everlasting friendship of the trees who would never separate their arms—block the outside world and most of the night sky. Yet, shining through the occasional openings in the canopy, is moonlight, pale rays beaming ghostly spotlights.
For some, the darkness of midnight is no reason to sleep. Throughout the primal forest are many fairies, creatures of light tiny and adorable, reminiscent of shooting stars and glowing snowflakes. Like crazy fireflies, the fairies whizz aimlessly, a hectic presence that no shadow can overcome. The creatures of light whirl in a frenzy, bouncing into each other like a twinkling symphony.
Unexpectedly, innumerable fairies surged throughout the Lost Woods, illuminating the mysterious forest beneath the starry sky, the spectacle so ethereal that its light seemingly waved and rippled amid every tree.
A cluster of tiny fairies fly to a hole in a tree; an owl pops her head out with a hoot and the fairies flurry off. A few owlets peep their heads out to take a look, their eyes reflecting the dazzling spectacles. An owlet ruffles his feathers then notices a contrasting fairy down below. He leans out the hole and observes...
Black and four-winged, the contrasting fairy's dim purple glow scarcely lights anything, as if bleeding shadows instead of illuminating. But he is still a fairy nonetheless.
Although his aura makes him difficult to distinguish, he has shadowy skin, purple eyes, and a purplish tinge to his unkempt black hair.
His flight hastens as he zigzags through traffic.
"Pardon me—sorry—whoops, didn't see you! Excuse me! Hey! Watch it!" The black fairy is not the best flyer, but nor are most of those in his way.
It is nothing short of impossible for a flying thing to go through the Lost Woods without hitting, or being hit by, another flying thing. With so many flashing lights, zigzagging and crisscrossing constantly in all directions, confusion reigns supreme.
"Stupid kids," the black fairy grumbles.
The black fairy flies on and on, in-between trees and branches, through overturned hollowed trees or logs up to the size of houses.. He sometimes goes through overgrown arch-like rock formations, perhaps ruins from long ago?
"Where could she be?" The black fairy dodges a carelessly flying thing, sounding like a bell ringing angrily for a moment. "Watch where you're flying!"
The intrepid black fairy continues his search all night, but cannot find whomever he searches. Instead, many other tiny bodies in their ecstatic playing pummel him in all directions.
Hm, I gotta get out of all this traffic...
He reaches the canopy, where moonlight beams betwixt branches. He flies through and sits on the crown of a tree. He looks into the full moon.
What a magnificent thing the night sky is. How did it all get there? Where did it all come from? What does it all do? Mysteries he will never solve.
Stargazing, the black fairy recalls old memories, many years ago...
One sunset, all those years ago, he sat on a Gossip Stone near the Forest Temple, and just looked up, to wonder. He saw the first star appear in the sky...
"I'm going to fly up and touch it..." He hopped off the Gossip Stone.
Nearby fairies chuckled.
"Are you crazy? You can't."
"Patty's right. You can't touch the stars."
"Listen to Kayk. You'll never reach them."
"It's too dangerous to fly so high, too."
He ignored the other fairies' warnings. He flew higher and higher, the forest underfoot smaller and smaller.
"I can do this!"
He can't. Gradually, unable to fly any higher, exhausted, wings sprained, and body aching, he lost all remaining strength and stamina...
He cannot regain flight, wings too stiff and sore. Plummeting like a rock, he fell into a puddle of mud—splat.
Fairies flew by and checked their foolish friend. His wings flicked muddy drops everywhere, body bobbing. The black fairy appeared nothing short of an idiot. The others cannot help but laugh. He sat up, upper wings spread apart and dripping. He shook himself, barely any mud came off, tho. It wasn't often fairies got muddy; it blocked parts of his aura and revealed his body.
A blue fairy flew by and tilted at the muddy brat, though she never snickered. "Hey!" She flew down to him.
"I can pick myself up by myself thank you very much!" He lost balance and fell again—another splat.
The blue fairy reared. "Watch out!"
"No!"
"Hm. Roll over and crawl out?" she suggests.
"Shut up, Navi. You've never even watched over a kid. What would you know about getting things to work?" He stumbled and fell back in the mud, again.
"Speaking of watching over children... I am going to see the Great Deku Tree. He has something special for me...but I can't figure out what."
"He probably wants you to become a guardian fairy for someone, maybe that boy without a fairy. Go for it, let's see how far you get. You'll probably just leave him after a while then go back to do your silly quest, whatever it is. I don't even remember what it is and I don't care." He fumbled a third time.
"Oh, Kibou...you need to stop getting yourself into trouble. Just warp yourself out, or maybe you have not yet learned to do that even after all this time?"
"Go away!"
"OK."
Huffing and puffing, the black fairy's wings vibrated powerfully; he hovered while bits of mud flicked. A few times, he looked like he would plop back in the mud...but he made his way over the mud, something between flying and skipping, which looks pathetic but it works.
He waddled to a dandelion, pulled it over, and cleaned himself. He watched the blue fairy eagerly fly away. "She's always wasting her time..." Kibou mumbled to himself.
Kibou sighs, thinking about those words from all those years ago. She's always wasting her time...
Coming back to reality, and how much of it goes to waste...how much it is wasting him. A high-pitched tremolo whine sounds from him. He hops off the tree and flies on.
Above the canopy of the Lost Woods is quite a sight. Several other locations, like the fields of Hyrule, are way off, with dirt roads going in all directions of the compass. There's a ranch in the middle, the castle town in the horizon to the north with a river going across, and beyond the horizon are more mysteries hiding far-off lands.
"I wonder where those roads go… Maybe she ran away, down one of them…" His only goal is to find his beloved friend.
Kibou checks openings in the canopy, but he cannot find her up above.
"Where can she be?"
The howling of wolves echo. Praising the full moon? Their deity? Or something else?
"Howling wolves? Ah, now I will find her!" Kibou chases the howls...