Chapter 3: Outside the Forest
Mido ran over to the still stunned Zelda, looking at her with a newfound respect as she climbed down from the dead creature's back. Her new fairy was constantly asking her how she managed to do that, Zelda finally answered, "I don't know."
"You saved the Great Deku Tree, and you don't know how you did it?" Mido asked, "Your still weird,"
Zelda frowned and made a slight whining noise towards him in which Mido stepped back, realizing she has a sword.
"You… did well young Zelda." The Deku Tree said, still in a pained voice. Mido, Zelda, and their fairies turned to him in worry.
"Wasn't that creature the thing that caused you pain?" Zelda asked.
"Yes," The Deku Tree spoke, "however, the curse it laid upon me is still here, meaning it was merely transporting the curse to me. It was a minion of an evil one,"
Mido was worried, "Wh-what's gonna happen to you, Great Deku Tree?"
The tree was silent for a few seconds, before it said it's fate gravely, "I'm afraid I will whither and die."
Zelda and Mido gasped before Navi cried out, "NO! You can't die! What will happen to this forest without you protecting it?"
"It may fall prey to evil," The Deku Tree explained, "but that will depend on if the Kokiri can handle the change,"
There was silence for a few seconds until Zelda spoke, "Why did you summon me specifically?"
"It is time for you to go on a journey, young Zelda, a journey that could help us all," The Deku Tree said. After he spoke, he began to shake and the leaves started to part. A green jewel lined in gold linings fell down from the top and slowly landed in Zelda's hands.
"Go north out of the forest, take this jewel to the Prince of Destiny within Hyrule Castle. He will guide you to your next task," The Deku Tree moaned in pain, "I-if you wish for protection, carve a shield from my bark before it withers, may it help you in your journey."
"Great Deku Tree…" Zelda said this softly, almost in shock. She was being sent on a journey that could save the forest from evil. She could stop evil before it took the forest she knew and loved, she nodded then looked at the Deku Tree with determination, "I accept your quest!"
Mido looked at Zelda's newfound determination, he never knew Zelda had such courage inside of her. Then again he made it his job the last six years to basically torture her. He felt like he was a jerk.
"Good luck Zelda." The Deku Tree then said no more to save his strength for the shield that was to be made.
"Mido," Zelda called his name, making him look at her, "Would you help me make the shield?"
Mido was dumbfounded for a moment, but nodded.
After a few hours, the shield was complete. Many came into the meadow during the carving to mourn the Deku Tree's passing, but Saria only leaned against the tree and smiled, as if she knew something. Zelda and Mido told the Kokiri what happened, and what Zelda was about to embark on. Some Kokiri where skeptical, some were worried, and some didn't want her to go. But in the end all the Kokiri accepted the fact Zelda had to leave, but not without a proper farewell.
Once the shield was done, swirls that Mido carved into it were painted red to make it look nicer. Sibela and some others gave Zelda a huge sack, currently full of food and water. Zelda secured her slingshot around her waist and the Kokiri Sword on her back with what the Kokiri called the Deku Shield. For the first time in ages, the Kokri gathered around the north side of the village. Zelda said goodbye to many acquaintances first, then her friends publicly spoke their farewells. Mido went first of these friends.
"Zelda, I want to apologize for everything I've done to you, ever. And I mean it. You tried your best to save the Great Deku Tree, heck if I didn't see it myself I would have thought you killed him yourself!" Mido proclaimed, "But that's not the case. Just promise me one thing, kay? You'll come back, no matter what."
Zelda nodded, "I will"
With that Mido stepped back into the crowd of the surrounding Kokiri and Sibela stepped out, "Somehow, I knew this day would come when you would somehow leave us. This is probably what the dreams you've been having have been telling you, and that's why the Deku Tree didn't say anything about them. He wanted you to find out for yourself. Good luck Zelda, I know it's not goodbye."
Zelda gave her caretaker a big hug before she stepped back into the crowd. Saria then approached her with her ocarina in hand, "Zelda, this is going to be a big journey, I know it, so I want you to have this,"
Saria held out her ocarina to Zelda, and Zelda stared at it for a second then looked back at Saria, touched by this gift.
"Saria, I can't take this," Zelda said, "You love your ocarina! Fami gave it to you before she…"
Saria shook her head, "I can make another one. Please, take it! So you can remember the forest. So you can remember its song,"
Saria then put the ocarina to her lips and played the song she always played, the Kokiri called it Saria's Song and it fit her and the forest perfectly; playful, mysterious, and enchanting. After a few rounds of the song, Saria put the ocarina in Zelda's hand and closed Zelda's hand, forcing her to accept the gift.
"I'll take good care of it!" Zelda proclaimed. Navi flew closer to Zelda, "Come on we gotta go!"
"Yea, we do," Zelda was happy Navi wanted to come along, she'd probably not be able to survive alone. She also like the fact she would have someone to talk to along the way. Zelda slowly walked towards the north path out of the village with many Kokiri waving and saying their goodbyes to her. Zelda was touched, she didn't think they all cared for her that much, this proved her wrong and now she had to leave them in hopes of saving them from an unknown evil.
Zelda walked through the forest calmly, wondering about her new adventure and how it would be. After meeting the Prince of Destiny, she couldn't think of what could happen. I bugged her a bit, but she tried no to dwell on it. One thing she did dwell on was Navi, why was her fairy was so late, was she born just yesterday, or was it because of the Deku Tree that they did not meet until that morning, she did not know.
"You look really deep in thought," Navi said, sitting on Zelda's shoulder. Zelda took notice to Navi's observation and spoke, "Just kind of thinking why I couldn't see you until this morning."
"Oh right," Navi said, "Well, I was kind of away,"
Zelda shrugged, accidentally knocking Navi off her shoulders, Navi knew it wasn't on purpose. They eventually made it to the edge of the forest where Zelda suddenly stopped, gazing at the plains. Navi took notice immediately, "What's wrong?"
"Sibela told me that the Kokiri can only survive in the forest," Zelda said, "That if we exit the forest, we'll die."
"Navi was silent for a second, "Are you insulting the Great Deku Tree's last request?"
Zelda became wide eyed, "N-no! It's just that-"
"Just that either you're scared or you're insulting him!" Navi commented, "Now get out here before I push you out!"
Zelda stiffened up and nodded before she closed her eyes and ran out into the plains. She stood for a second then Navi said, "See? You're fine."
Zelda opened her eyes and saw that she indeed was fine.
"This must be why I was the only one who could help," Zelda said, continuing to examine herself, just to be safe.
"In any case, we have to continue north," Navi said, "I just hope we can find a place to sleep before it get's dark."
Zelda started to walk onward, "Come on Navi, its not like monsters are going to come out a night."
Zela motioned her arms over the plains as she spoke again, "We can see if something is coming."
Navi was still not convinced, but Zelda was inexperienced so she decided to let it go for now, "Ok then, so do you know where your going?"
Zelda continued her walking, "Deku Tree said north, so we'll just go north,"
"Do you know which way is north?" Navi asked. Zelda quickly looked up above her and then pointed in the direction she was walking. Navi didn't comment on how she knew how to tell direction from looking at the position of the sun.
Hours later it was finally getting dark and Zelda found a tree to sleep against. Thankfully at the bottom of the sack there was a blanket to cover her.
"Goodnight Navi," Zelda yawned then fell asleep against the tree. Navi quietly said her good night before she settled on top of Zelda's blanket. Navi looked into the distant night, as if she was waiting for something to happen. Eventually the fairy had succumbed to sleep as well. It was many hours until she woke up to strange noises, the noises sounded like rustling of harder objects. Navi tried not to make any sudden moves but it would be useless; to people at a distance she was just a ball of light. Up close she was a thin sky blue fairy clothed in only two dark blue tight sashes that covered her bust and her hips. Her long flowing dark blue went down to the backside equivalent of her bellybutton. Her eyes were also the same color as her clothes. It was kind of said people saw he mostly as a blue ball of light, it bugged her especially since she liked how she looked, Navi was Navi and that's all that was needed to know about it.
Navi decided to stay still and wake Zelda so she spoke in a hushed tone "Zelda, wake up."
Zelda moved around a bit and groaned in response, Navi did her same actions but spoke a bit louder. Zelda once again groaned but this time she stirred.
"What is it?" Zelda moaned, louder than how loud Navi was speaking. Navi quickly shushed Zelda, "I heard something,"
"You did?" Zelda sat up and tried to rub the sleep from her eyes, she then heard the same noise Navi heard.
"That was it!" Navi whispered. Zelda quickly found her sword and only gripped it, waiting for something to happen. Things went to hell quickly.
What could only be described as a skeleton of a child with a more frontal mouth popped up from the ground; Zelda screamed in response. She ran away but grabbed only the sack, leaving the blanket where it lay among the skeletons.
"YOU LEFT THE BLANKET!" Navi said, startled by Zelda's actions. Zelda wasn't listening; she just wanted to get away from the skeletons.
They didn't know how long they ran until the adrenaline had faded from their systems. All Zelda knew was that she was tired and that she had left the blanket back with the skeletons. Thankfully she had everything else with her, she was happy for that, and that Navi and her were ok.
"That was close," Zelda said, sitting on the plains.
"You had a sword," Navi said, "You could have beaten them,"
Zelda pouted, "I was scared, what would you have done?"
Navi didn't respond to the question, she only sighed.
"And now we're lost," Zelda said, gonna have to wait until dawn to find out where we are.
"What's that in the distance?" Navi pointed to what looked to be a hill. Zelda looked at it as well, "well, let's go see,"
Zelda shrugged before she walked towards the hill.
By the time they got to said hill, it was close to dawn; Zelda could feel it. The hill had a wall on it to they followed the wall to the entrance. Two poles suspended a sign, Zelda titled her head as she tried to understand what it said.
"Navi, what does that say?" Zelda pointed to the sign. Navi looked up at it and said, "Well it's kind of dark, we'll find out in a few hours."
Zelda shrugged and found herself in a very different place from the forest. What she saw was a house made by wood, but it didn't look natural. It was a wood cabin; she saw two more of them and looked at them in wonder.
"Are these houses?" Zelda asked, Navi responded quickly, "Yes, the world is a very different place than the forest. I flew around the world and this is the least of its curiosities,"
Zelda responded by making a curious noise then proceeded to inspect one of the buildings. She managed to open the door without much hassle and found herself opening a door to a bunch of white-feathered creatures.
"This must be a farmhouse," Navi said, "They sure do like cucoos*1,"
Zelda was too tired to care what they were, she ended up flopping onto the ground within a mass of cucoo feathers and falling asleep. Navi sighed and joined her after a while, realizing that she too was sleepy.
Two people awoke at the crack of dawn on the Lon Lon Ranch, unaware someone had snuck in to sleep with their cucoos. One was an old man with a baldhead and a brown mustache and the other was a girl with orange hair and brown eyes; it was Talon and Malon, the owners of the ranch, up for their morning chores. Talon was feeding the cucoos when he saw a blue glow and a green cloth among a pile of cucoo feathers. He lifted some cucoo feathers and saw that the green cloth was a small green dress being worn by a sleeping girl. Next to the girl was a blue fairy. The sleeping girl surprised Talon; he only decided to continue feeding his cucoos and then tell Malon about this. His little girl wanted to see her right away; and so she did. Malon approached the sleeping girl with curiosity, she had a feeling of what the girl was but she needed to see her to figure it out.
"It's a fairy girl from the forest!" Malon said happily, "I knew it!"
"Should probably wake her," Talon said, saying something he didn't think of the first time he saw the girl. Malon scolded her father for not doing the action in the first place. But she decided it was for the best, so she softly shook the sleeping Zelda who would in turn wake Navi the fairy.
Zelda groaned as she felt herself being moved gently, it felt like Sibela was waking her up after sleeping in too long past sunrise and was about to tell her to eat before noon came. But she didn't awake to her home, she awoke to feathers in front of her face, and a place that was made of wood, but it wasn't a tree. She then collected her thoughts and knew she was far north of her home, somewhere on a plain but inside a house. She looked up to find a girl with orange hair looking at her with a smile.
"Wake up there sleepy head," The orange-haired girl said. Zelda sat up and got a good look at the girl before she said, "Sorry I slept here, but there were some things on the plains and we saw this place. What is this place anyway?"
"You're at the Lon Lon Ranch!" the orange-haired girl said, "Famous for it's milk and horse breeding, we raise some real winners!"
"Horse breeding?" Zelda asked. Navi stopped Malon and said, "Zelda, trust me. You don't wan to know just yet."
Zelda became confused before the orange haired girl frowned and spoke, "I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Malon and this here's my dad, Talon."
"Pleasure to see you escaped the Stal Children," Talon said, only getting a blank stare from Zelda, "those creatures you saw last night."
Zelda let out an "Oh," then stood up, wiping the feathers off her dress.
"Well, we have to get back to chores, you can help if you like then we can send you on your way to wherever you wanted to go," Malon said. Zelda became wide eyed and spoke, "so, you know where Hyrule Castle is?"
"Hyrule Castle?" Malon asked, "Your in luck! Dad's gonna make a shipment of milk there tomorrow!"
"I wouldn't mind if you came along," Talon said, "Just don't drink the milk we're gonna deliver,"
Zelda nodded at the rule and decided to help Malon with her chores, but all she wanted to do was see the horses she talked about. Zelda followed Malon out of the barn and saw the ranch in daylight, she was surprised when she saw the fenced up horses.
"So that's a horse." Zelda said, surprising Malon.
"You've never seen a horse before?" Malon then thought about her origins then stated it, "Oh yea, you're from the forest."
Zelda didn't know what she meant by not seeing a horse before, but she decided to let it go and help Malon feed the horses.
After a while, most of the horses have been fed and Zelda was trying to feed one of the horses, but it seemed to refuse to be fed by Zelda. Zelda tried and tried again but the light brown horse refused her every time. Eventually the horse just ran to the other side of the horses' area of the farm.
"Oh that Epona," Malon said, slightly annoyed. She motioned for Zelda to calm down and then she did something Zelda didn't expect her to do, sing. She sung a song and the horse she called Epona came to Malon calmly. Zelda was wide-eyed for a second then fished Saria's ocarina out of her sack and tried to play the song.
"You have an ocarina?" Malon said, "Here, repeat after me."
Malon taught Zelda the song quickly then, after Zelda played it successfully, the horse came to her, making Malon laugh.
"She likes you now," Malon said, "Epona's pretty picky on who she likes but she's just trying to protect herself."
"It's ok," Zelda said, feeding Epona calmly. She then saw Malon inspecting both Epona and herself, Zelda had to ask, "What are you doing?"
"I'm thinking," Malon responded, "Maybe you could ride Epona,"
Zelda looked between Epona and Malon then asked, "Ride her?"
They then both heard a voice behind them, "That won't happen for quite some time, Malon."
Zelda and Malon then looked to see some short, pale man with a gigantic mustache. Malon didn't regard him as a stranger, "But Ingo, I think she could ride her, she looks like the right size. Maybe they could grow together!"
"Epona is still much to young," Ingo insisted, "Besides, I highly doubt Epona would allow anyone to ride her,"
Malon ignored Ingo and turned to Zelda, "Come on try it!"
Zelda didn't think this was a good idea, but then again it could be helpful on her adventure is she knew how to ride a horse. She told Malon she'd try it, in which Malon cheered and rushed off to find what she called a saddle. Ingo also stormed off, convinced Epona could not be rode. Zelda just stood there with Epona and decided to name the song she like Epona's Song, because Epona liked it and would come to the person who played it. She then decided to play that song until Malon came back with a brown piece of shaped leather. Malon strapped the saddle onto Epona's back, who didn't really seem to mind it.
"Ok, it's nice and tight, but not tight enough to hurt her," Malon said, "Use those foot hole things to climb onto her back, let's see if she'll let you ride,"
Zelda was hesitant at first but then she took a deep breath and grabbed the saddle and slowly climbed up on Epona. Epona was confused a bit but Malon calmed her down before Epona freaked out. Once Zelda sat down on the saddle Epona was calm, or at least not throwing a tantrum. She whined and snorted a bit, not happy about it but allowed Zelda to ride her. Malon confirmed this to Zelda, "She's not happy about it, but she's letting you ride her."
"If she doesn't like it she could always throw Zelda off," Navi said, seemingly coming out of nowhere, not to Malon's surprise. However, Zelda was surprised, "Where did you come from?"
"I was sleeping in your hair," Navi said then blushed, "It's comfy,"
Zelda laughed before Malon came to Epona's side and poked Zelda, "Well, since she likes you I'll give you the basics of riding a horse!"
Malon ended up teaching Zelda how to ride Epona until it was lunchtime, in which they gave Epona more food for being so cooperative. Epona seemed to like Zelda more and more during the riding, and Zelda felt a surge of adrenaline when Malon finally allowed her to ride Epona full speed. The surge lasted long after she had Epona slow down and stop moving.
After the long and hard day ended, Malon, Talon, Zelda, and Navi sat down to eat some dinner. It wasn't berries and fish, like Zelda first thought; instead it was a loaf of bread, a roasted cucco over a bed of rice, some fruit, and salad. Zelda nibbled on the fruit and the salad, but was still curious about the meat. Malon finally noticed Zelda kept glancing at the cucco and smiled, "If you wanted some, just ask,"
Malon then proceeded to fill a small portion of Zelda's plate with some white cucco meat and a large spoonful of rice. Zelda looked at the cucoo meat for a bit then finally asked, "What is it, exactly?"
"You know those cuccos in the barn?" Talon said, "This is one of them,"
Zelda was shocked, "You eat animals?"
"What do you eat out there in a forest?" Malon asked after biting into an apple. Zelda numbered off on the things she ate on a regular basis, "We usually just eat fruit and berries, but sometimes we find food in the ground. There's this one brown covered one but if you peel it, it's white! It's delicious!"
"That's a potato," Talon said, "I didn't even think the forest had any,"
"Do you fish?" Malon asked, Zelda nodded before Malon continued, "Fish are living as well."
Zelda wasn't that surprised, she fished but she didn't eat fish because she didn't like fish, "So, it's like fish?"
"It's different," Malon said, "Come on, one bite won't hurt!"
Zelda looked at the steaming piece of cucco, still hot and juicy, and slowly used the fork she had to pick it up.
"Come on Zelda!" Navi said in an annoyed tone, "If you can't even eat properly how do you expect to do anything else?"
Zelda knew what Navi was referring to, the Great Deku Tree's last request. She would need all her strength to do whatever was in store for her. She quickly put the piece of cucco in her mouth and closed it; what she tasted was probably the best thing in her entire life. She expressed this to Talon and Malon several time during dinner, which was finally silenced by Navi screaming in Zelda's ear to shut up about it. Zelda was quiet for the rest of the evening because of it. Malon thought it a little ridiculous, but she decided to let it happen so Zelda and Navi could bond; she thought they had such a long journey ahead of them.
*1:I decided to stick with Cucoos as the name for the chicken-like creatures in the Zelda world.
Yea, she's not in the market yet, but she will be in the next chapter! I'm pretty sure with how it's progressing she'll also meet Link! So look forward to that! I should probably make chapters longer; tell me if I should please!