Link’s classic adventure, with an original character sidekick.
23 Chapters.
Chapter 1: Darkness in the Morn
The sun rose, normally, casting veils of light through the Kokiri Forest. Dust motes and the ancient spirits of fairies long gone transformed them to quivering theatres of radiance.
The enchanted children of the forest, the Kokiri, who could never grow old, woke up with the sun and ran out of their tree houses to play and run on the green grass. One, a brown haired girl with a round face, and another, a sweet-looking green haired girl, played together. The brown haired girl was trying time after time to accomplish a handstand, but never balanced properly, even when the other girl tried to help her. They looked often towards a small, dark house tucked away behind some trees.
“Navi.” A deep mahogany voice called, unheard or ignored by most of the laughing children. “Come here…”
A tiny ball of light bobbled back and forth a few times, and then flew to the speaker, floating just in front of his face.
“Have you not felt the darkness in the air? Once again, malevolent forces are mustering to attack our broad land of Hyrule… The Kokiri Forest, which has stood for ages as a wellspring of life, is faltering. Even my power is as nothing…”
“I am sick, Navi. I need your help. It is time for the child of destiny to begin his journey. Do you understand?”
“Right!” chirped the fairy.
She whizzed off, fluttering frantically for speed along a path, meeting a particularly small, pouty child on the way, and through the village, calling greetings to some of the Kokiri and fairies she saw there, and then she looked around. There! The little house in the back was her destination, and she bruised herself in her haste to get there.
Inside, the curtains were closed, and it was dark. A small form was huddled under the blankets.
“Um, excuse me? Wake up!” the fairy called. The body shifted, and a blonde head emerged, tousled, sleepy, and unhappy. When he saw the ball of light with butterfly wings, his eyes widened ludicrously. The dream he had had went right out of his head.
“Hi! I’m Navi. I’m your new partner!”
“Really?” the boy asked, a wide smile lighting up his face. He had been waiting for so long! All the other Kokiri had fairy friends except for him, and he didn’t know why, but he’d been waiting for at least eleven years.
“Yeah! You’re Link, right? I’ve got a message for you from the Great Deku Tree!” The Great Deku Tree was the guardian spirit of the forest.
“Really? Yes, I’m Link. What kind of message?”
“Uh, uh, I’ll let him tell you. I’m just supposed to say he wants to see you.”
“Right! Can my friends Saria and Rana come too?”
“Yeah!”
Link got up, put on a long green cap, and walked out of his door. He looked down off the balcony, and saw the brown haired girl and the green haired girl.
“Hey, Link!”
“Hello,” Link called, and jumped off the balcony instead of using the ladder.
Standing upright after somersaulting on the ground, he saw the two girls were laughing at him.
“Is that a fairy? Really? That’s great, Link!” said the brown haired girl, her face smiling as if the whole world were full of laughter.
“Thanks, Rana.”
“You’re finally a full Kokiri!” the green haired girl said, smiling with her big grassy green eyes.
“Yeah, Saria, and now Mido can’t make fun of me!”
“Whoo!” yelled Rana, dancing around in circles. She was two years younger than Link.
“I’m Navi!” Navi squealed, introducing herself to them all, the three Kokiri and the other two fairies: Rana’s Naeri and Saria’s Nanci. The fairies bounced up and down and Navi and Nanci talked very fast.
“Rana, Saria… I just remembered. I had a dream last night,” Link said in a low voice, feeling cold as he remembered. “It was… disturbing… I was outside a town, and it was dark, and two girls on a white horse galloped past me.”
“That’s odd,” Saria said. “I had a similar dream, but it was mixed up with the three Goddesses and things.”
“I didn’t dream about the Goddesses, but a… humanoid shaped monster in black armour threw… something like dark light at me, and it hurt.”
“Weird,” Rana said. “I didn’t dream anything. Well, I dreamed I was hungry. Is that a premonition?”
Link smiled and beckoned. “Anyway, Navi told me the Great Deku Tree wants to talk to me.”
“Why didn’t you say so? We’re wasting time! Come on!” Saria chided them.
As they came to the path that led to the Great Deku Tree’s glade, a short, orange-haired boy stepped out in front of them, blocking their path.
“Excuse me, Mido, but I need to see the Great Deku Tree. It’s urgent,” Link told him.
“I was just to see him, and he told me not to let anyone in unless they have a weapon! Go get one, Linky-poo, and then go see him!” Mido taunted him. “You may have a fairy now, but you’re still not a Kokiri!”
“Mido!” Saria shouted. “Shut up!”
Link ran back home, while Saria and Mido argued. Mido, the second oldest Kokiri who was bitter at anything strange, never accepted Link, and Saria, who was the oldest Kokiri, took it on herself to defend him. The other children didn’t like to fight with Mido.
Link clambered up the ladder of his house and pulled a small wooden shield from under his bed. When he came out again, he saw Rana with another shield from her house.
“Well, we have defence, but we still need a weapon!” Navi reminded them.
“Weapons,” Naeri said softly.
Nanci came fluttering over to them. “Saria knows where you can find a sword. Follow me!”
She led them to a cliff with a tiny crack in it. “In here, if you can get through. Link, this one’s for you. I’m supposed to ask the Wise Brothers for one for you, Rana.”
“Okay.” Rana sat on a nearby fence and waited for Link to come crawling back out of the crack.
Five minutes later he came out with a short sword strapped to his back with a brown belt. He was grinning cheerfully.
“Well, that was easy,” he told Rana.
“What was it?”
“There was a boulder in front of the sword. It’s the Kokiri Sword!”
“Oh. I went in there a long time ago, and I was scared. …What? The real Kokiri Sword?”
“Yes, see? …I remember when you went in.”
“Really? I was only four.”
A boy with orange mop-hair jumped out the house near them, ran all around, and finally found Rana.
“Here you go; I knew we had one of these somewhere. Found it in one of our old chests, I did.” He held out a long dagger with a leather sheath.
“Thanks, Bov.”
“Well, we’re all set, so let’s go!” Nanci called to them.
Link ran off, and Rana hurried to catch up, but tripped.
Saria was seeing off Mido, dusting her hands in a satisfied fashion even though she had only yelled at him, when the other two children ran up to them. The small boy saw the swords.
“Well, I give up! Try to protect people from themselves indeed! May as well go jump in a river!” Mido stalked off muttering.
“What’s a river?” his fairy Nati asked him.
“Okay, Saria, we can go now!” Rana waved at her. “Wait, what about you? You’ll need a weapon! Are you just going to use magic?”
Saria smiled. “I’m not going with you. I’d only get in the way.”
Rana sat down beside Saria firmly. “Well, then I’m not either.” The girl knew that if Link was a hero, he would have adventures, and she didn’t want Saria to get left out of them.
Link, some ways ahead of them, stopped and turned around slowly. “Won’t at least one of you please come? I have a fairy now, but I’ve heard that heroes are very lonely people, and I want to have my friends as much as possible…”
“Go on, Rana,” Saria urged. “I’m no good at that physical activity stuff, but you’re almost as good as Link.”
“You are, too!” Rana cried indignantly.
“Rana, it’s okay. I’ll always be here. You go on.”
Rana sighed, and stood up. “You win. Will you come next time?”
“Maybe! Have fun, and don’t get hurt, please!”
“Thanks, Rana, Saria,” Link said. “I wish you could come, Saria, but I know better than to argue with you.”
Saria winked and walked away to her house, humming.
Link took a deep breath and walked down the path.
He heard rustling and looked around. The noise wasn’t Rana; she was trying to be silent and not succeeding very well, but she was making a clumping noise. The rustling was from the bushes beside the path…
A large round thing shot out at him from the left and he brought his right arm with the shield around to meet it. Rana jumped back. It was the head of a plant, a plant with teeth.
“Deku Baba,” Naeri said. “Carnivorous plant with a primitive brain. That’s funny; there haven’t been any of those around here recently.”
Link chopped it in half with the Kokiri Sword.
More rose out of the bushes. Link cut down three of them, and Rana managed to get two.
Both children were rather shaken and nervous after that, but nothing more happened until they stood in front of the Great Deku Tree.
“Navi. You have returned?” The tree spoke in a deep voice, and although patterns on its massive trunk gave the impression the side facing them was a face, the voice spoke into the air from nowhere. The tree itself did not move.
“Link, and Rana. Rana has come? That is well, and yet you must be particularly careful, my child.”
“Why? What do you want us for?” Rana asked innocently.
“I am sick, children. I have been cursed, for the ancient darkness threatens to rise again. Link, this is your task you must break the curse with your courage. Do you accept this mission?”
“Yes,” Link said firmly. Was this why Saria had advised him to become strong when he didn’t have a fairy? It couldn’t be; that was long ago.
“Then, enter, brave forestlings, and fortune be with you…” A door, an opening appeared on the side of the Great Deku Tree, looming like an enormous mouth.
Link hesitated for the barest second, and stepped inside.