Title: Hopscotch
Genre: General
Rating: K
Summary: Time is sometimes like a game of hopscotch . . .you bounce a little ways forwards, and then a little ways back.
Saria lazily tossed the small stone ahead of her, easily skipping on the other chalk-drawn squares, picking up the stone on her way back.
"Good job, Saria!" called Hoshiko, holding up his hand for a high-five.
Saria half-heartedly returned it. "Any of you guys want my rock? I'm gonna quit playing."
"I want it, I want it!" Cried Flora, "It's got a pretty pink stripe in it!"
Saria handed her the rock, and made her way over to the Lost Woods. For some reason, she'd felt more and more drawn to the place over the past few weeks, and for several days she'd done almost nothing but wander through its almost tunnel-like groves. She'd been so restless, she hadn't been able to sleep at night, hadn't been able to sit down and eat an entire meal, hadn't even been able to play any one game for more then ten minutes.
Instead she'd just felt an irresistible draw to the Lost Woods. When she'd asked the other Kokiri about it, they'd just shrugged and said it was a weird place. It didn't matter how far you wandered in there, you always ended up at the beginning again. For a little while, there had been contests to see who could get the farthest before getting lost, but the other children had lost interest fairly quickly and had gone back to their old games.
She wandered the old passage-ways, getting more and more turned around, but never reaching any sort of end, and never finding her way back to the start. The woods grew darker as the sun dipped below the tallest branches, and still she could not find her way to anything familiar. She continued to wander, even as the moon rose and shone overhead, until it, too, dipped below the tops of the trees.
She finally stopped next to a tall tree, sitting and leaning her back against its comfortingly-rough bark.
Sleep, little one, Saria thought she heard a voice whisper to her. Sleep, Saria, sleep.
It was very comfortable on the soft grass at the base of this tree. Saria yawned. She'd lie down for just a little while . . .just until she was rested enough to find her way back out of these woods . . .
Had anyone been there to watch, they would have seen an adorable picture. A little girl, lying with one arm curled beneath her head, beneath the gently drooping branches of some sort of willow, fast asleep. The moon no longer shone down upon the clearing, but it was well lit just the same, with fairies. There was first just one, Leiko, whom Saria had brought with her, but soon, others appeared. Green, blue, yellow and pink, all illuminating the young girl's face.
Welcome, Saria.
When Saria first woke, she did not open her eyes. It felt too nice and comfy here . . .she snuggled back down into the covers. Wait. She hadn't fallen asleep in bed. Even if she had, it wouldn't be this soft. She'd fallen asleep . . .in the woods. Out in the Lost Woods! She started noticing another odd feeling, too, as if her head was floating above her body.
'Is this what they call feeling light-headed? Maybe I got sick from sleeping out here . . .'
She blinked her eyes open, rubbing the sleep away from them, and noticed right away that she was not in the woods. At least, not any part of the woods that she had seen. She was in a small, round room made of stone. There were no windows or doors, except for the opening of this tiny cave, which let in a sort of light that didn't seem to belong to either the sun or the moon. She lay one hand on the bed to stand up and, feeling it's curious texture, looked down and noticed a few very unusual things.
Firstly, the bed seemed to be made out of one half of an enormous deku nut, curved almost into a perfect circle with rounded sort of points at either end, and looked as though it had been filled with gigantic dandelion fluffs. But neither of these things were what she was chiefly concerned with. Her hand was the green of new leaves, and it was glowing.
"Kyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah!"
Her little legs took her straight out the little cave and straight into . . .nothing. Robbed of her breath, Saria just crossed her hands in front of her face as she plummeted to the stone floor below. Luckily, she was saved, landing on a somewhat-yielding peach surface only slightly larger than herself. She raised herself on her hands and knees and saw before her four prongs leading off, curved and close together. One separated itself, and she grabbed it to right herself.
"Are you alright, little one?"
She turned around and saw that she was actually standing—barefoot. Where had her shoes gone?—on the palm of a giant hand, and was looking up into the face of a young lady with long blonde hair.
She managed to nod, despite her shock, "Where am I? What's going on? Who are you?"
The young woman smiled, "My name is Elonwy, but you can call me Big Sister, Saria."
"How do you know my name?" Saria asked, a little shy.
"We always know the names of our children, Saria, and the Kokiri are our children. It is true that the Kokiri stay children for a very long time, but they do grow up eventually. Only, they don't grow up the same way that Hylians, or Zora, or Gorons do. A Kokiri is actually an infant fairy. When a Kokiri grows up, it becomes a fairy!"
"So . . .I'm a fairy, now?" Saria asked, moving forward, hugging Elonwy's thumb. "Yes. You'll get the hang of those wings soon enough. Perhaps it will make you feel more at home to have your companion with you?" Elonwy raised her other hand and beckoned to another one of the small caves, which Saria could now see completely honeycombed the walls of the fairy fountain, and a fairy floated forward.
"Leiko!' Saria called joyfully.
And so it was, but looking very different then she ever had. Instead of being a ball of pink light and wings, she actually had discernable features. More specifically, she had blue eyes, a pert little nose, and pink hair flowing down to the small of her back, with short bangs in the front.
"Oh my gosh! Saria! You look so gorgeous!" Leiko chattered, flitting about her as she stood in Elonwy's palm, "Doesn't she look beautiful, Big Sister?"
"Yes, she does," Elonwy answered fondly.
"But, I don't understand . . .if the Kokiri are baby fairies . . .does that mean I'm grown up, now?"
"Well, sort of," Leiko wrinkled her nose when she smiled. Saria never knew that she did that. "You're kind of a teenager, I guess. See, it goes like this," Leiko started counting on her fingers, "Kokiri, Fountain Fairy, Guardian Fairy, Big Brother or Big Sister, Great Fairy. You're a Fountain Fairy right now."
"Oh . . ." Saria answered, feeling even more small and lost. Yesterday, she'd been the most grown-up of the Kokiri. Today, she was like a baby all over again, not knowing anything.
"Don't worry about being young, Saria," Elonwy consoled her, "We were all of us young once. I myself am many decades away from being a Great Fairy."
"How old are you?" Saria asked.
"3,749!" Elonwy smiled brightly. Saria's eyes must have bugged out of her head.
"But don't worry," Leiko stroked Saria's arm comfortingly, "Childhood flies so fast . . .I still remember my centuries as a Fountain Fairy . . ."
Saria sighed, swinging her feet from her perch atop the tree house where Billy had once lived. Billy was a fairy now, just like her. She'd felt bad about forgetting him when she'd first found him again in the Fairy Fountain. He'd been really restless the last few days before he'd disappeared, too, and had wandered into the Lost Woods, never to wander back out. The Kokiri, including herself, hadn't even been frightened by that; they'd just forgotten about him. He'd waved off her apologies.
"You were just a baby, so I can't hold that against you. Just don't expect any of the Kokiri to recognize you when you go back as a ball of light. Besides, by the time you're old enough to be a Guardian Fairy, it'll be a whole different group of Kokiri in there."
Billy had been right; none of the Kokiri recognized her when she returned. They couldn't even hear her voice—they'd needed their own Guardian Fairies to translate. And the Guardian Fairies either couldn't, or wouldn't, explain to the Kokiri that this little ball of light was their old friend, Saria.
She sighed again. It's not that it wasn't fun being a fairy. She was beginning to wonder how she'd ever gone without flying, and there were always plenty of other fairies to play with. But she missed being a Kokiri. She missed her friends, she missed swimming (couldn't do that with wings), she missed laying on the ground and feeling the grass tickling her face. She missed talking to trees . . .
"That's it!" She stood up. "I'm going to go talk to the Great Deku Tree!" Flitting her way over through the Kokiri village, she went, for the first time since she was given her name, to the Great Deku Tree's Meadow.
"Great Deku Tree!" She called with her shrill little voice.
"Saria," his branches swayed in response, "What bringeth thee to me?"
"Great Deku Tree . . .I . . .I miss being a Kokiri."
The Great Deku Tree looked about as concerned as a tree can look. "It is the natural way of things to change and to grow."
"I know that, Great Deku Tree . . ." Saria's wings drooped sorrowfully.
"However . . ." He sighed, settling with a creak upon his roots, "There is a power in you . . .a difference."
"A difference?"
"Yes . . ." the Great Deku Tree spoke, "I remember feeling this strength when you were first born, here in this meadow . . .I thought it might be the power to make you a Great Fairy . . .but, perhaps that power should be channeled somewhere else . . ." He seemed to sit in thought for a time. Saria nearly opened her mouth several times, but didn't want to be rude. Just as she was giving up on being polite, and about to ask if he had fallen asleep, he spoke again. "Wouldst thou like to be a Kokiri again?"
She jumped in mid-air, "Oh, yes, Great Deku Tree! I would, I would!"
His branches made a sort of nodding motion, "I can feel . . .the aura of this world is changing . . .perhaps I will need you here as a Kokiri."
"Oh! Thank you!"
"Go into my branches. Find the largest leaf you can."
She flew up to the Great Deku Tree, landing on one of his limbs and climbing out to the edge, where she could see a leaf the size of a Kokiri bedroll. "This one?" She asked, jumping up and down on it to give the Great Deku tree an idea of where she was.
"Yes, that one will do. Sit still." He moved the little twig until the leaf snapped off and went fluttering down to the forest floor, Saria on top like it was a flying carpet from a fairy tale.
"Now what?"
The Great Deku Tree reached down a branch and folded the leaf in half over her, "Sleep, Saria."
"But I'm not . . ." she yawned and fell asleep almost immediately.
" . . .And when you wake, you will be a Kokiri again. Leiko . . .come hither . . ."
Saria awoke the next morning, and found herself wrapped in one of the Great Deku Tree's leaves. "How did I get here?"
"Last night, you felt restless, so you asked to sleep here," yawned Leiko, who had awakened with her.
"Did I?" Saria looked around. She'd remembered she'd been feeling restless but . . .she could have sworn she was forgetting something. It must have been a dream. A dream about a place where there'd been the most beautiful light . . .she'd been flying . . . "I guess I did. Well, I feel much better, now. Thank you, Great Deku Tree!"
"You are most welcome, Saria."
She dusted herself off and ran out to play.
"Where've you been, Saria? We haven't seen you in forever!" Mido said, from his spot in hopscotch.
Saria just shrugged, found a pebble on the ground and joined back in the game.