Title: Homesick

Genre: General

Rating: K

Summary: The Chamber of Sages just isn't home . . .

"Gah!" Darunia roared in frustration as he lost yet another hand. "Somehow she's cheating! She's using her secret powers to make the right cards appear!"

Ruto sighed as she handed over her own pile of Rupees. "The Zora dignity is taking quite a beating here."

"The Sheikah don't have special Poker Powers," Nabooru argued, though she couldn't help but think Impa looked a bit too smug to be completely innocent. Perhaps there had been some sleight-of-hand somewhere . . . "Where's the little Kokiri kid?"

"Hm?" Ruto looked up distractedly. "Oh . . .that little girl . . .um . . .Sarah?"

"Saria."

Ruto shrugged, "She said she didn't want to play."

Nabooru looked up for the sun out of habit, before remembering that time was practically meaningless in the Chamber of Sages. "She's been gone for hours. I'm going to go look for her."

Nabooru got up from the table, taking what little money Impa hadn't already won away from her, and wandered out of the living room.

Once there had been more than one Sage, they'd created a sort of "house" in the Chamber of Sages. Rauru had explained that the area would change to meet the needs and desires of its occupants. Since he'd been living alone, the area had turned into something of a bachelor pad, but with the addition of each sage, new rooms had been added, creating a sort of rag-tag mansion. The living room was done in a more-or-less Hylian style (with some heavy-duty furniture for Darunia, and a chair with shorter legs for Saria) since that more-or-less suited everyone, but Ruto's chambers took on a decidedly aquatic feel, and going to Saria's rooms usually required boots and a jacket.

"Saria?" Nabooru called, walking toward the greener area of the Chamber of Sages. She thought she heard a scuffle as she pushed a bit of ivy away from her face, but she couldn't be sure.

"Saria?" She called again, feeling the tile below her feet give way to springing moss. Saria's chamber was directly connected to Rauru's, so she made use of the light to imitate sunlight peeking between branches. Early-morning mist still hung about the ground, though the sunrise had woken Nabooru hours ago. Stone walls, in various states of falling-down, wound their way across the mostly-flat ground. Apparently, this area had been some sort of maze or labyrinth once. Whatever, she didn't have time for this.

The desert native climbed to the top of the wall and navigated across these to a staircase. This time she was sure she heard a sniffle as she walked up the staircase. "Saria? Bikete?"

She definitely heard something this time, and picked up her pace, but nothing could have prepared her for . . .nothing. The grass was as green as ever, a log sat on the ground beneath what appeared to be a broken balcony. The ivy still climbed up the stone walls, the sun still shone through the leaves above, the moss was still spongy underfoot. And yet there was a curious sniffling sort of sound echoing in the small chamber.

"Saria?"

The sniffling broke into a full-blown sob, and a broken voice croaked, "Yes?"

Now certain of where the sound came from, Nabooru strode toward the northeast corner, where a small bit of the wall jutted out—whether it had been built that way or whether part of the wall had fallen at one point or another was unclear—and found a Kokiri with a tear-stained face hiding behind it.

"What's wrong?" Nabooru asked, pulling the little girl's green hair away from her face and smoothing it back in as soothing a manner as she knew how.

Saria gulped and wiped her eyes, "I-I-I . . .Link's going 'way!"

It took Nabooru a moment to remember that, yes, Link was the name of that kid who had turned out to be the Hero of Time. "Link isn't going away, Saria. He's helping us bring down Ganondorf, so everything can go back to the way it's supposed to."

"Nooooo," Saria wailed, "He used to live in the Kokiri Forest, but now he grew up and now he can't come back!" This brought on a new wave of tears, during which Saria said some things that were completely unintelligible. Nabooru sat in silence, stroking Saria's hair as she cried, trying to make sense of what the Kokiri had just told her. The kid had grown up in the Kokiri Forest? That explained the fairy. But if he had actually been Kokiri, he wouldn't have grown up . . .so he'd had to leave the forest and come to Hyrule.

"Was he your friend, back in the Forest?"

"Yes," Saria answered, able to control her voice a bit more, though fat tears still ran freely down her face. "He was different, like me. We could be different together. An' I thought . . .when he got a fairy . . .it would mean that the Deku Tree had decided to let him stay forever . . ."

"Oh, lelita . . ." Nabooru sat on the ground beside Saria and pulled her close, "It always hurts to say goodbye. But saying goodbye doesn't mean that you stop being friends."

"I know, but . . .I'll always be like this, and he . . ."

"You have a lot of time before you have to worry about that," Nabooru said. "And, besides, tomorrow's never certain for any of us. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't live today, right? Maybe, since he's Hero of Time and all, you can have him come visit you here."

Saria shook her head, "This isn't like home. There's no birds, no bugs, no fairies, no Skull Kids or Deku Scrubs . . .even the trees don't talk here."

"Trees talk?" Nabooru asked before she could stop herself.

"Usually about things like water and dirt and wind, but yeah, they talk. Just verrrrrrrrrrrrrrry sloooooooooooooooowly," Saria imitated the deep voice of a tree. She smiled sadly, wiping the last of the tears off her face, "I miss talking to the trees."

Nabooru just gave her shoulders another soft squeeze and looked about the clearing again. This time she saw what Saria saw; there was green, but no fairies floating through the air; there was wind, but it carried no birdsong; there was sunlight, but no children playing beneath it. She thought back to her own quarters, the rooms that should have held dozens of Gerudo warriors-in-training standing empty. Pools of water with no little girls splashing in the shallows, no chatting mothers standing nearby. A sunrise that came without the sounds of horses, or armor being put on, or tents being taken down. She leaned her cheek on top of Saria's head.

"I'm homesick, too, kid."