Chapter 22: Nature Corrupted

There's nothing half so pleasant as coming home again.

~Margaret Elizabeth Sangster

Link made the trek from the city to Kokiri Forest in well under an hour. What he had seen in his short time as a young adult had done little to encourage a belief that Ganondorf could be defeated now that he had gained the Triforce. Secretly, in spite of Rauru's assurances, he put the same faith in the Sages he had put in himself ever since his pathetic encounter with Ganon on the drawbridge.

So much has changed. As he climbed the peak of the last hill leading down into the woods, he stroked the hilt of the Master Sword to calm his nerves. Is there anything left to save?

The first sign that something was wrong greeted him on the bridge where he had left his friend Saria standing alone the day he left: silence, complete and profound.

There were no birds singing. No leaves crunching or branches blowing in the wind. No children laughing, playing, or even arguing.

Kokiri Forest was as dead as its guardian, the Great Deku Tree.

In the village where Link had spent his childhood, weeds had choked the grass throughout the clearing. As for the houses themselves, in the few cases where vines had failed to conceal the damage, the tooth and claw marks of wolves ravaged the bark. Some trees had fallen over, blocking the source of the pond at the far end of the clearing and stagnating the water.

"Where is everyone?" Though Navi kept her voice low, it still sounded loud in that environment. In any case, Link refused to answer her question, especially when they found what remained of Saria's house.

Another tree had smashed down through the roof, crushing everything inside. The only reason Link knew it was her house was because of where it had stood in the clearing.

He snarled and jabbed his sword in the ground, leaving it to wobble back and forth as he approached the wreckage. Hurling pieces of the house aside, he dug for any sign of his friend's body, even as he prayed he wouldn't find it.

How long he searched, it was impossible to tell. What he did know was that the first sound he noticed other than that of his own breathing was the cry of a wolf in the distance. That sound, combined with the sense of helplessness that had been plaguing him, woke him out of his trance and into a state of rage.

He sprinted for the Master Sword, but the first wolf had charged past the weapon and was already leaping for his throat. In a fever, he snatched up his old Kokiri Sword—scarcely half the length of his arm now—and drove it through the monster's heart.

With a careless regard for his own life, he kept the Kokiri Sword in his right hand and took up the Master Sword in his left as the rest of the wolves caught up with their leader. Fueled by his passions, he became the Master Sword.

In an effort to flank him, the wolves had split into two columns. The first pair came in close on either side, probably to intimidate him, yet before they could pass, he whipped the two blades forward in a scissor cut that left one wolf headless and the other bleeding from the stump of a severed foreleg.

Then the four remaining wolves overtook him.

One knocked him onto his back. Another snapped its jaws shut where his arm had been a moment before. A third tried to claw at his right knee, but the Master Sword skewered its throat.

Link tucked his knees to his chest and kicked the first wolf off. Then he rolled away to avoid a swipe from another wolf. The third wolf backed away, growling, a mistake that allowed him to pin it to the ground by stabbing down through the back of its neck with the Kokiri Sword until the point had firmly buried itself in the mud.

The survivors fled howling.

Link sprawled on his stomach, covered in sweat and blood and fur. The rage had satisfied his need to react, but Saria was still gone. The bloodshed had failed to bring her back.

What if they're all dead?

He thought of Zelda and Malon. He thought of Talon, Ruto, and the nameless child whose skull he had found in the ruins of Hyrule Castle Town. He thought of the Kokiri and the Great Deku Tree.

Even if some are alive, I can't save them all. I can't even save myself.

Crawling to his feet, he tugged the Kokiri Sword from the dead wolf's neck with a groan. Returning both swords to their sheaths, he leaned against a tree to settle his nerves.

Navi hovered at his side. "Link, we have to find the temple."

"I know." He shook his head. "But I need to know something first."

"How do you know where to look for her?"

There was no need to mention Saria's name. The memory of his last birthday party, of the night she had given him the Deku Shield, came back to Link as fresh as yesterday.

"There's only one place she could be," he said.

After the wolves fled, nothing else prevented Link from reaching the place where Saria had carried him the night of his twelfth birthday. Silence still lingered in the forest, undisrupted by Navi or himself until they neared the clearing.

Through the trees, they heard a snort and the soft rustling of leaves. Putting a finger to his lips, Link motioned for Navi to make a sweep of the area.

The fairy returned seconds later in a tizzy of excitement. "It's Mido!"

Mido.

For a moment, Link was in the past, remembering the insults, the blunt contempt for his very existence. At first, he was tempted to burst through the trees and grab Mido by the scruff of the neck. Even now, the words stung like a scar that had never really healed.

But then he realized what all the Kokiri must have suffered after losing their homes, their friends, and the Great Deku Tree.

"What are you going to do?" said Navi.

Link shrugged. "Say hello, I guess." He pushed through the fronds.

Mido saw him instantly. "Who…?"

Instead of a direct answer, Link reached for the Ocarina of Time and played the song Saria had taught him on the bridge seven years ago.

Mido hid his surprise behind a scowl. "That song. She used to play it all the time."

Link put the Ocarina back in its pouch and looked at his old rival. Physically, nothing about Mido had changed. His attitude, on the other hand, was that of an animal wary of being chased by predators.

"You're too old to be a Kokiri." Mido pointed at Link's chest. "Still, those clothes…" Recognition dawned when he saw the fairy peeking from behind the stranger's back. His breath hissed through his teeth. "Link?"

Link knelt until he and Mido could see eye-to-eye. "Mido, I…"

Mido spat. "If it is you, you're an idiot."

The suddenness of Mido's anger took him aback. "What?"

"You left her without saying goodbye."

Link flinched. "I know. I've regretted that ever since."

"You should."

"Is she alive?"

Mido clenched his teeth. "I don't know."

"When did you see her last?"

"A few days ago." Mido fixed his eyes on the ground. "She made me promise to guard the clearing for her until she came back."

"Why didn't you go after her?"

"I just told you. She made me promise to stay here!"

Link scowled. Only the thought that Saria would have told him not to stopped him from throttling Mido then and there. "Stay here and rot then. I'm going to find her."

"Hold it." Mido blocked his path. "She told me not to let anyone through."

Link seized a fistful of Mido's tunic and hurled him into the bushes. "You're not letting me through. I'm letting me through."

Link remained motionless, spellbound by the memory of that night, of the shield Saria had given him and her tender care of his wounds. Here, little had changed. The clouds obscured the sun, a subtle reminder of evil in the larger world—but the stump and the stone wall concealed in the overgrowth remained the same.

"I can't believe I never realized it." Staring at the ruins, he bit his lip. "This is the Forest Temple."

"Your sense of direction is impressive."

The voice jolted him out of his reverie. He spoke without turning. "I'd rather have your sense of stealth."

The boy, Sheik, made no reply. Link slowly turned to face him.

"Why are you following us?"

Sheik's eyes narrowed. "You have forgotten? I was sent as a guide."

"Then why sneak around? Besides, you already told me what I'm supposed to do."

"A guide at one's shoulder cannot spy a threat on the horizon, but a shadow sees what lies ahead and what approaches from behind."

"Fine. I can accept that."

"But there are things you find difficult to accept?"

"What do you mean?"

"You slumbered seven years and woke to find the Hyrule you knew gone." Sheik's face reflected an empathy beyond mere words. "The flow of time is always cruel, and often its speed seems different for each person. But few will ever experience the passage of time as you have."

Link nodded. "I've lost…much. Everything has changed."

"Not everything." Sheik stepped forward, holding his arms at his sides. "There are those things that do not change with time. A memory of younger days. The memory of a dear friend." So saying, he brought forth a golden stringed instrument that had been strapped to his back.

Link held his breath. The harp rivaled any relic he had glimpsed in Hyrule Castle. Without prompting, he lifted the Ocarina of Time to his mouth and joined in as Sheik began to pluck the harp's strings.

They played for more than ten minutes, repeating the same refrain many times over. By the time they stopped, Link had mastered it.

Sheik calmly lowered the harp. "That was the Minuet of Forest, a melody long used to evoke the life of the Kokiri."

Link stared at the Ocarina. "It felt strange…like the song was pulling me somewhere."

"The Minuet of Forest is one of several songs composed by the goddess Nayru and her sister, Farore," Sheik said. "Play it on the Ocarina of Time, and you will be brought back to this clearing instantly."

The boy began reaching for another object at his side that Link had somehow failed to notice. From the spike in the front of it and the trigger at the back, he guessed it was a weapon.

Sheik held the object in both hands, one palm under the spike, the other under the handle. "In Gerudo Valley, it is said there were four peasant girls seduced into Ganondorf's service who were slain and then cursed to guard this temple when he conquered Hyrule. You may encounter their spirits ahead; if so, this Hookshot—a tool my people used for centuries—will prove useful."

Link gripped the contraption by the handle. "I'll keep that in mind."

Sheik turned away without a word, his hand sliding to his waist, but Navi's shrill voice interrupted him.

"Now what are you doing?"

Sheik ignored the question. "I will see you again, Link."

Link started to protest, but whatever words he said were drowned out by the flash of a Deku Nut and the smoke of it coiling through the grass. On the ground, the broken husk rolled to a stop, but no sign of the boy who had thrown it remained.

"Let's see how this thing works, then."

Link shoved off from the stump and eyed the Forest Temple's surroundings, searching for a suitable target on which to test the Hookshot.

"Are you sure about this?" said Navi.

Link closed one eye and aimed at a tree with branches overhanging the temple's roof. When he pulled the trigger, the spike tore across the gap between himself and the tree, dragging a spring-loaded chain behind it. Like a rope made of metal, he thought. The spike gored through the branch, securing its place with a sharp click.

He smiled, still holding the Hookshot's handle but assuming it was finished. Naturally, he was caught unawares when the chain grew taut, yanked him off his feet, and reeled him into the air on a rapid collision course with the branch.

His forehead bounced off the hard wood, flipping him upside down with one hand stubbornly attached to the Hookshot. Swooning, he pressed the trigger again, and the spike came loose from the branch. Unable to kill his momentum, he tumbled through a hole—or a door, it was hard to tell which—in the temple's roof.

He finally slowed when he hit his head on something hard. Something cold. Something that growled.

Navi squealed. "Watch out, Link!"

The Skulltula dropped to the floor to face him.