Chapter 9: The Hunt

The giant tree loomed over them, encircled by a meadow where its canopy cut off all light and its roots drew moisture and nutrition from the soil. Link could actually see the meadow beyond the two or three trees in his path when Machi abruptly stopped, sitting up on its hindlegs and looking around with a rapidity that Link felt suggested consternation.

"What's wrong, Machi?" he asked quietly, stopping a few paces behind the forest creature. It twisted to look at him, wringing its little hands in a mannerism bizarrely, disarmingly human.

"The air feels wrong, kwee!" Machi was keeping its voice down, but the odd squeak still broke through into its words. It turned back, black-ringed eyes squinting at the forest around. "And – and look!" The exclamation was accompanied by pointing, off to Link's right. He looked, frowning a little: the forest was huge, confusing, disconcerting. What was he looking for?

"There!" Machi squeaked. "Look, something has cut through all of the foliage!"

Now that he knew what he was looking for, Link registered the damaged undergrowth: broken branches and stems, the ends looking sticky with sap. Half cut, half splintered, he wondered worriedly what could have done it.

The next instant, Fi had vaulted lightly from the sword, her usual soft chime accompanied by a startled squeak. Machi flung itself face-down on the ground, immediately looking like nothing more than a tussock of grass, merging with the undergrowth.

"This damage appears recent, Master." She floated towards it, drifting above the undergrowth. A small part of Link's mind wondered whether she would push it aside or simply pass straight through it if she descended. "Closer inspection reveals that the majority of branches were cut, rather than snapped, but with a crude implement." She was almost perfectly horizontal, still posed in her usual floating position, the invisible winds that fluttered her hair and the fabric of her arms unaffected by her change of orientation but her almost metallic face nearly brushing the uppermost leaves of the bushes in question. "The damage extends a short distance above the height of your head. I calculate an 80% probability that it was caused by bokoblins, less than twelve hours previously."

"Kwee-eeee," the undergrowth wailed softly. Fi's head turned, focusing, Link thought, on the source of the voice.

"Having fully analysed the individual called Machi, I am now able to assist you in locating others of its kind." Her emotionless gaze turned back to Link. "I recommend that you continue to accompany Machi in search of the elder named Bucha. I calculate a probability of 95% that this being will have additional information regarding Zelda's condition and intentions."

Link nodded. "Right." Fi regarded him for a moment longer before drifting back towards him and vanishing into the hilt of his sword in a brief glow of light.

Looking around the clearing, Link focused on a likely-looking tuft of grass. "Machi? It's okay. Fi's a friend, and she's gone now, anyway."

The grass shivered, and a little brown-furred head almost seemed to detach itself from the soil, looking up without retracting its verdant camouflage. "Kwee… You keep very strange company." It sounded so disgruntled, Link found himself smiling briefly, despite their situation.

"I guess I do. Can you get up, though? Fi will help us look for your elder, like she said."

Slowly, Machi withdrew its tuft of grass and stood back up on its hind legs. "Okay, kweep. I'm really worried about everyone… They'll be really hard to find if they're hiding, kweek, but if we all look together we're sure to find them!"

. . .

Machi hadn't been exaggerating. Even with Fi's help, tracking down the elder proved to be a remarkably difficult task. The area surrounding the vast tree seemed to be home to a colony of the creatures – kikwis, one named Erla had told him – and not only that, but he'd run into more scattered bokoblins, which seemed to have been engaged in a disorganised search of their own. Despite several false leads as the kikwis he'd found had proven not to be the one he was looking for, Link couldn't really resent the little creatures. Defenceless and frightened, their main strategy when confronted with a threat seemed to be to hide from it and trust in their camouflage to see them safe. Even so, as time wore inexorably on, Link began to feel increasingly frustrated at the length of his search. Though he'd felt earlier that he could only be right behind Zelda, it now seemed more and more likely that she was getting further away from him all the time.

Link subconsciously braced himself for another disappointment as Machi scampered agilely up the tree Link had pointed out, poking his little head into a hollow where perhaps some long-ago branch had snapped off.

"Elder Bucha! Is that you?!"

A slightly deeper squeaky voice drifted down to Link from the hollow. "Great seasons, kwee-koo, it's Machi! Are you all right? I was worried about you. There were so many bokoblins out there this morning, kweee… everybody scattered, and I don't know if it's even safe to meet up again yet."

"It's safe now, Elder!" Machi's squeaky little voice sounded decidedly proud of himself. "I found another one of those funny creatures like Zelda from yesterday, and this one was looking for it. So he came with me, kweek, and he's been fighting all the bokoblins, and he found a bunch of the others and kept them safe, and he even helped me find you!"

Machi suddenly and effortlessly reversed out of the hole and partway down the trunk, not even bothering to turn around, as a second, slightly fatter head popped out of the hole, practically nose to nose with him, and stared down at Link.

"Koo-weep!" Bucha declared. "Is this the one? And he helped find me? He must be a master woodsman." He emerged from his hole, clambering down more carefully than Machi: he was distinctly fatter than the other kikwi, and didn't seem to move quite as quickly and fluidly. All the same, his descent was still nearly effortless, and he stood up on his hind legs at the bottom of the tree. "You've been helping us kikwis, stranger? You have my thanks. Kweee… What is your name? I am Bucha."

"I'm Link. It's nice to meet you," Link told him politely. "I-"

"Link, is it? And you're a human, aren't you? Kweee, and Machi said you were looking for the other human we had here last night, the girl one with the blonde hair, Zelda?"

Link nodded emphatically. At least Bucha had only interrupted him to indirectly answer the question he'd been about to ask. "Yes, Elder Bucha. Do you know if she's safe? Where she went?"

"I don't know if she's safe, kweee… She left before the bokoblins came through, so she's safe from them. She was a clever little thing, kwee-koo. I sheltered her for the night in a hollow, and she asked me about the forest, kweee… I told her all about it, even the crumbly old temples, even the one where those funny humans with the eye like to hide, and she ran right off to one of them before the sun was even up. Oho, I told her not to go, I did. The temple with the eye-humans has a nasty feel around it, and the other one is very dangerous, kweek. There are all sorts of nasty predators there. But she said something was calling her, koo-kwee, and she had to find a temple, so to a temple I suppose she went." Bucha pointed with one plump little forelimb. "That way, I think, kweee. That's the way to the temple she wanted to go to."

Dismay and worry twisted uncomfortably in Link's chest. "Can you tell me about the temple, please, Elder Bucha? I've got to catch up with her. She's my best friend, and I…"

Bucha blinked black-ringed eyes at him. "A best friend, you say? Well now, kweee…" He glanced at Machi, then back to Link. "All right, then, but you have to be careful too. I don't want to be responsible for you humans getting into more danger than you can handle, kwee-koo. But Machi says you've been very helpful to my people, indeed… in fact, let me see. Yes, this might help you. Let me just fetch something a moment." He turned around without another word, and scurried back up the tree and into the hollow, where Link heard a faint rustling sound and some muffled, grumpy-sounding squeaking before he emerged again with what looked like a thick stick protruding from the bud on his back. Link watched uncertainly as the kikwi elder climbed back down, then walked up to him with the same rolling gait Machi had when on his hindlegs, and finally reached behind himself to pull the stick from his bud, which unfurled just enough to let it slip free.

"This is my best catapult, kweee," Bucha said, holding it before him in his human-like hands. "I use it to scare off nasty birds, but maybe it will do you more good. You can give those horrible spiders a good whack, kwee-hee-hee!"

Link took it from him. It wasn't simply a forked stick at all, but a slightly overlarge slingshot, and the kikwi even seemed to have painted and carved it, so well-decorated that it wouldn't have looked at all out of place on Skyloft. Surprised, he looked back at him.

"Thank you very much!"

"Oho, you are welcome! Now, sit down, and I'll tell you about the temple, koo-weep!"

. . .

It had to have taken nearly half an hour to listen to everything the kikwi elder had to say, but Link felt it was largely worth it. He knew a lot more about the path ahead and the dangers he'd be likely to face, and the helpful kikwi had even sketched a suggested route on the map the old lady at the first temple had given him. Zelda would be well ahead of him, but with this information, he hoped he'd be able to catch up far quicker than if he'd just been following Fi's faint sense of her trail. Still, as he set off into the thick forest, navigating largely by the sight of the gigantic tree behind him and the direction the kikwi elder had pointed, he had to wonder why she was doing it. She couldn't know he was following her, but why was she so set on going to this temple? What did she think was calling her? What had Fi meant when she'd talked about her destiny?

He'd been walking for a short while when Fi abruptly and unexpectedly emerged beside him, drifting along at the same pace he was walking at.

"Fi?"

"Master Link, the lack of available information I have demonstrated is concerning. It seems that significant changes have occurred on the surface since my knowledge was given to me. Neither kikwis nor gorons previously existed within my database. I cannot predict what other relevant information may be unavailable to you."

Link smiled a little, relieved: he'd more than half-expected her to issue a warning.

"It's all right. Honestly, the fact that you know anything at all about the surface is amazing. I don't expect you to know everything."

"I do," Fi answered. Her musical voice still sounded emotionless, and yet… was there a faint hint of something else in it? Frustration, perhaps, or chagrin, or disappointment? Or was Link just projecting the feelings her words might have implied onto his sense of her, the being within the sword? "It is a part of my purpose. If I cannot adequately prepare you, my master, for the challenges you will face, then I have failed in my purpose."

Real or imagined, he couldn't just leave it there. "Well, I think you've helped me a lot. I've lost track of how many things you've told me about already. There have only been two things you didn't know, and you must be able to tell me about hundreds. That's less than a percent, right?" Mathematics admittedly wasn't his strongest suit, but something that simple was still instinctive.

"A failure rate of a fraction of a percent may still prove dangerous at a critical moment, Master. However, statistically you are correct. I recommend that you exercise additional caution in any situation where I lack data."

"I will," Link said, meaning it. Fi's eternally calm explanations had given some amount of order to the chaotic strangeness of the surface, so similar and yet utterly unlike anything he knew. She was guiding him even now, though so much had already happened that if he stopped and tried to think about it all he wasn't even sure he'd be able to.

He pushed the thought back, focusing on the task at hand: on Zelda, ahead of him, somewhere. Fi regarded him for another three paces before blurring back into light and back into the sword, and he glanced at it briefly before looking forwards again, picking his way through the undergrowth, past all the strange creatures, plants, birds.

Somewhere beyond it all, his best friend was wandering...

Patch Notes:
-Low-quality forcing replaced with legitimate delay; useful information added as reward.

Anyone still reading?