Chapter 6: Saria's Song

Pure essence, and pure matter, and the two
Joined into one were shot forth without flaw,
Like three bright arrows from a three-string bow.

~Dante's Paradiso

"Well done, Link. Thou hast verily demonstrated thy courage."

Link came to under the Deku Tree's shadow, lying on his back in the grass with Navi. Mido and Pol were nowhere to be found, but that would soon be the least of his worries.

"I have yet more to tell ye."

He sat up, swallowing when he saw the drooping leaves, rotting bark, and sagging branches of the Tree in the morning light.

"Wouldst thou listen?"

He rolled onto his left side and found his weapons lying beside him. He closed his eyes. "How did we get here?"

"This matters not. Thou wast brought here by my power, and that is enough."

"Mido? Saria?"

"They are safe while my power remains."

This was little comfort, considering the Tree's condition, but Link was wise enough to remain silent on that point. "I'm listening, Great Deku Tree."

"Then listen carefully," said the Tree, his voice rising to encompass the scope of his tale. "A wicked man of the desert cast this curse upon me. This evil man ceaselessly uses his vile, sorcerous power in his search for the Sacred Realm that is connected to Hyrule."

Link fell back to the ground with a gasp. He could no longer see the forest around him. Instead, that same man with the red cape who had haunted his dreams was before him in a waking vision. All was black around the two of them except for a wall of fire that separated one from the other. The man rode through the flames unharmed, his black horse snorting beneath him. Thankfully, he didn't seem to notice Link.

"For it is in that Sacred Realm," the Tree went on, his voice heard from a distance, "that one will find the divine relic, the Triforce, which contains the essence of the gods…"

The vision changed. Now Link was floating in a sky so vast and so empty that it would have been impossible to tell whether he was facing up or down except for the rain, for there were no trees, no ground, and no mountains to help him fix his position.

"Before time began, before spirits and life existed, three golden goddesses descended upon the chaos that was Hyrule."

From somewhere above him, three streaks of light shot down through the void: one red, one blue, one green.

"Din, the goddess of power. Nayru, the goddess of wisdom. Farore, goddess of courage."

For a moment, Link thought he saw human shapes within those three lights. They were like women, but their bodies seemed made of gold.

"Din. With her strong flaming arms, she cultivated the land and created the red earth."

Now he witnessed landforms rising out of the void. Valleys, hills, plains, the basins of lakes, and the razor-sharp peaks of the mountains.

"Nayru poured her wisdom onto the earth and gave the spirit of law to the world."

A blue comet speared its way across the sky of newborn Hyrule, and Link felt ideas of right and wrong and good and evil in his heart as if for the first time.

"Farore, with her rich soul, produced all life forms who would uphold the law."

Creatures of the land, sea, and air paraded before Link's eyes, most of which he only knew of from the Tree's stories. The Gorons. The Zoras. The Gerudos. Birds and beasts of many varieties. A shiver of awe passed through his body. Could all this have really happened once?

"The three great goddesses, their labors completed, departed for the heavens—and golden sacred triangles remained at the point where the goddesses left the world. Since then, the sacred triangles have become the basis of our world's providence. And the resting place of the triangles has become the Sacred Realm."

As the Tree's voice began to fade, Link watched the three lights representing the three goddesses return the way they had come, their paths intersecting at a point so far from Hyrule as to appear unreachable. But as they came together, a light exploded from the heavens, shining down even to the furthest corners of the earth.

And the goddesses vanished, yet where Link had seen them only a moment ago, he saw it instead. Three golden triangles. No, he thought. Not three. Three in one. One in three.

The Triforce.

Link panted for breath, assaulted by images and ideas that would haunt him forever.

The rider. The flames. The creation of the world.

These things whirled about him, striking nerves and sealing their place in his memory; but he realized that the Great Deku Tree had more to say to him, even after the visions had ended and his prospect of the clearing had been restored.

"Thou must never allow the desert man in black armor to lay his hands upon the sacred Triforce. Thou must never suffer that man, with his evil heart, to enter the Sacred Realm of legend. That man, who cast the death curse upon me and sapped my power—because of his curse, my end is nigh."

Link had thought he was ready for this moment. After all, it came as little surprise. But how little he knew of his own nature, he thought, as the despair erupted in his heart. "That can't be true." A sob broke from his lips. "You knew it the whole time, didn't you?"

"Yes. Though your valiant efforts to break the curse were successful, I was doomed before you started. I will pass away soon…but do not grieve for me, for I have been able to tell you of these important matters."

"What about us? How can the Kokiri…how can we survive without…"

The Tree's voice came in a whisper. "Link, this is Hyrule's final hope: you must go now to Hyrule Castle. There, thou shalt surely meet with the Princess of Destiny."

Link paled. "What good am I to Hyrule if I can't even help you?"

"Your strength will grow in time."

The gravity of the small boy's fate nearly broke him. "I can't do it. I can't face him. That man."

"Link!" The Tree's voice grew strong for the last time. "Take this stone with you! It is the stone that man wanted so much, that he cast the curse upon me."

Link felt his hands go up, though he knew it was not his will, but the Tree's will that moved them. A greenish light seared his vision, and the stone landed in his palms a moment later.

It was an emerald cupped in a sheath of gold.

"This is the Kokiri Emerald, the Spiritual Stone of the Forest. You must guard it with your life. The future depends on thee, Link. Thou art courageous…"

"I…" Link's lips scarcely moved. "I'll try." In that moment, the only security he knew had vanished. The shock of that pricked tears from his eyes and nearly doubled him over on the ground.

"Navi the fairy, help Link to carry out my will. Be a constant companion to him, I entreat ye."

Both of them glanced up as a shudder rattled the Tree's roots, racing up through his trunk and out through his branches.

"Good bye, my dear children…"

Navi's wings failed her, and she fell to the soil just as an acorn broke off from the Tree and landed at her feet.

"Good bye, Great Deku Tree," she whispered, unable to take her eyes off the acorn.

Link wept, acutely aware of the silence around him as he stumbled away from the clearing. Nothing, not even the songs of birds or insects, broke the stillness.

His hand came away from his face stained with tears. His legs barely carried the weight of his boots.

"How could this happen?" he said, craning for a glimpse of the sky and those sacred triangles, to no avail. "If you cared enough to create this world, why aren't you taking care of it? You don't need my help."

He stopped, turned, and screamed towards the clearing where his world, as he knew it, had changed forever. "Tell me why!"

Silence. Then another voice from close by.

"Hey, Link! What did you do?"

His head snapped around. Mido.

"The Great Deku Tree." Mido glared at him. "Did he die?"

Link hung his head slightly but did not reply.

"How could you do a thing like that?"

Link scrunched his fists.

"It's all your fault!"

The punch came without warning, flipping Mido on his back with a broken nose.

Link ran, keeping to the woods as he headed north and west, out of the forest. He could see his house through the trees, but he dared not enter the village. He had to get out. Now.

Before anyone else saw him.

The bridge leading out of Kokiri Forest hung over a valley between the forest and the world outside. Every Kokiri had crossed onto that bridge at one time or another, but none had dared cross all the way.

Link tore out of the woods and onto the bridge at full tilt, determined not to look back. Navi struggled to keep up with him, but she never told him to slow down, because she knew why he was running.

They were halfway across the bridge when she appeared.

"Oh, you're leaving…"

Link ground to a halt. How long had she been waiting there? He turned, struggling to keep his expression neutral as he gazed back at the one person in his life he knew he could call a true friend.

"Saria."

Saria took a breath and stepped forward. "I knew that you would leave the forest someday, Link, because you are different from me and my friends."

"Because I'm not a true Kokiri."

"Yes, you are!" Her hands shook, almost imperceptibly. "It was never the fairies that made us so; it's our hearts. It's our relationship with him!"

She pulled something from a pouch at her waist. Link stared at it, her most precious possession: an oval-shaped instrument with seven small holes.

"The Fairy Ocarina," said Navi, unable to keep quiet any longer.

"You're different," Saria said, "because you're stronger. You were always meant to see the outside world for yourself. And that's okay, because we'll be friends forever, won't we?"

"Yes," Link whispered, ashamed he had doubted her sincerity even for a moment.

"I want you to have my ocarina. I know you'll take good care of it." She raised the instrument to her lips. "But first…"

Link closed his eyes to listen to Saria's song, expecting a melancholy tune that would remind him of the death of the Great Deku Tree, his leaving the forest, and other nightmares real and imagined. Instead, what he got was a lively tune, a symbol of what the forest had been once, a symbol of Saria's friendship and the stories of Hyrule that had been sown in his heart by the Tree.

When she finished, her hands reached out to his, slipping the ocarina into his grasp along with the pouch she had taken it from and a vial of water. "There should be enough there for your journey to Hyrule Castle."

"How did you know where I was going?"

"The Tree told me himself, just before you and Mido broke the curse." She sighed and withdrew her hands. "When you play my ocarina, I hope you will think of me and come back to the forest to visit."

The thought of leaving began to overwhelm him more than ever. Why was he doing this? To honor the Tree's wishes? To protect Saria? Did he even have a chance, or had the Tree been wrong?

Maybe this is our only chance. Link backed up slowly, shaking his head. He knew if he didn't leave now, he would lose his resolve, and that meant he would never find out if the stories were true.

Looking at Saria, he felt the tears beginning in his face again, and he couldn't stand it any longer. No. Whirling without a word of goodbye or a thank you for the gift she had given him, he crossed the bridge at a sprint and vanished into the last line of trees that marked the edges of the forest.

Saria's chin fell, and a lone tear dropped from the corner of her left eye to the valley below the bridge.

This week, I decided to upload three chapters instead of two. Chapter 6 just seemed like a better place to leave it hanging than Chapter 5. I remember reading a letter in Nintendo Power years ago from a gamer who said they cried when Link left Saria without saying a word. Gotta say that part always resonated with me, too.

Thanks for reading, and keep your eyes (or eye, if you're Gohma) peeled for the rest in the coming weeks!