As Trivia in the full moon's sweet serene smiles on high among the eternal nymphs whose light paints every part of Heaven's scene...
- Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, The Paradiso, Canto XXIII
The Lost Woods.
A mysterious labyrinth of trees carved with passages full of wandering spirits, sleeping shadows, and whispering fairies. The forest stands proudly ancient and endless one summer midnight, trees so dense they form living walls.
The intertwining branches and canopy—the everlasting friendship of the trees who would never separate their arms—block the outside world and most of the night sky. Yet, shining through the occasional openings in the canopy, is moonlight, pale rays beaming ghostly spotlights.
For some, the darkness of midnight was no reason to sleep. Throughout the primal forest are many fairies, creatures of light tiny and adorable, reminiscent of shooting stars and glowing snowflakes. Like crazy fireflies, the fairies whiz aimlessly, a hectic presence that no shadow can overcome. The creatures of light whirl in a frenzy, bouncing into each other as a chiming cacophony.
Innumerable fairies surged throughout the Lost Woods, illuminating the mysterious forest beneath the starry sky, the spectacle so ethereal that its light seemingly waved and rippled amid every tree.
A cluster of tiny fairies flew to a hole in a tree. An owl popped her head out with a hoot; the fairies flurry off. A few owlets peep their heads out to take a look, their eyes reflecting the dazzling spectacles. An owlet ruffles his feathers then notices a contrasting fairy down below. He leaned out the hole and observes...
Black and four-winged, the contrasting fairy's dim purple glow scarcely lights anything, as if bleeding shadows instead of illuminating. But still a fairy nonetheless. His shadowy skin, purplish hair, and dark aura made him difficult to distinguish, yet his purple eyes gleamed through the darkness.
He zigzagged through traffic. "Pardon me—sorry—whoops, didn't see you! Excuse me! Hey! Watch it!" The black fairy was not the best flyer, but nor are most of those in his way.
It is nothing short of impossible for a flying thing to go through the Lost Woods without hitting, or being hit by, another flying thing. With so many flashing lights, zigzagging and crisscrossing constantly in all directions, confusion reigns supreme.
"Stupid kids," the black fairy grumbles.
The black fairy flew on and on, in-between trees and branches, through overturned hollowed trees or logs up to the size of houses. He sometimes goes through overgrown arch-like rock formations, perhaps ruins from long ago?
"Where could she be?" The black fairy dodged a carelessly flying thing, sounding like a ringing bell. "Watch where you're flying!"
The intrepid black fairy continued his search all night, but cannot find whomever he searched. Instead, many other tiny bodies in their ecstatic playing pummel him in all directions.
Hm, I gotta get out of all this traffic... Ah, up!
He reached the canopy, where moonlight beamed betwixt branches. He went through the branches and sat on the crown of a tree. He watched the full moon, sighing.
What a magnificent thing the night sky is. How did it all get there? Where did it all come from? What does it all do? Mysteries he will never solve.
Stargazing, the black fairy recalled old memories, many years ago...
One sunset, all those years ago, he sat on a Gossip Stone near the Forest Temple, and just looked up, to wonder. He saw the first star appear in the sky...
"I'm going to fly up and touch it..." He hopped off the Gossip Stone.
Nearby fairies chuckled.
"Are you crazy? You can't."
"Patty's right. You can't touch the stars."
"Listen to Kayk. You'll never reach them."
"It's too dangerous to fly so high, too."
He ignored their warnings. He flew higher and higher, the forest underfoot smaller and smaller.
"I can do this!"
He can't.
Exhausted, wings sprained, and body aching, he lost all remaining strength and stamina...
He cannot regain flight, wings too stiff and sore. Plummeting like a rock, he fell into a puddle of mud—splat.
Fairies flew by and checked their foolish friend. His wings flicked muddy drops everywhere, body bobbing. The black fairy appeared nothing short of an idiot. His friends cannot help but laugh. He sat up, upper wings spread apart and dripping. He shook himself, barely any mud came off, tho. It wasn't often fairies got muddy; it blocked parts of his aura, revealing his body.
A blue fairy flew by and tilted at the muddy brat, though she never snickered. "Hey!" She flew down to him.
"I can pick myself up by myself thank you very much!" He lost balance and fell again—another splat.
The blue fairy reared. "Watch out!"
"No!"
"Hm. Roll over and crawl out?" she suggested.
"Shut up, Navi. You've never even watched over a kid. What would you know about getting things to work?" He stumbled and fell back in the mud, again.
"Speaking of watching over children... I am going to see the Great Deku Tree. He has something special for me...but I can't figure out what."
"He probably wants you to become a guardian fairy for someone, maybe that boy without a fairy. Go for it, let's see how far you get. You'll probably just leave him after a while then go back to do your silly quest, whatever it is. I don't even remember what it is and I don't care." He fumbled a third time.
"Oh, Kibou...you need to stop getting yourself into trouble. Just warp yourself out, or maybe you have not yet learned to do that even after all this time?"
"Go away!"
"OK."
Huffing and puffing, the black fairy's wings vibrated powerfully. He hovered, bits of mud flicking. A few times, he looked like he would plop back in the mud...but he made his way out, movement something between flying and skipping, which looks pathetic but it worked.
He waddled to a dandelion, pulled it over, and cleaned himself. He watched the blue fairy eagerly fly away. "She's always wasting her time..."
Kibou sighed, thinking about those words from all those years ago. She's always wasting her time... "I wonder what she's doing now...never seen her for so long..."
Back in reality, and how much of it goes to waste...how much it was wasting him. He hopped off the tree and flew on.
Above the canopy of the Lost Woods was quite a sight. Several other locations, like the fields of Hyrule, are way off, with dirt roads going in all directions of the compass. There's a ranch in the middle, the castle town in the horizon to the north with a river going across, and beyond the horizon are more mysteries hiding far-off lands.
"I wonder where those roads go… Maybe she ran away, down one of them…" His only goal was to find his beloved friend.
Kibou checked openings in the canopy, but he cannot find her up above. "Where can she be?"
The howling of wolves echo. Praising the full moon? Their deity? Or something else?
"Howling wolves? Ah, now I will find her!" Kibou chased the howls...