Saria's Song- Chapter 1: Sage

 Chapter 1

Sage 

"Why can't we go inside?" asked the little blond-haired boy sitting beside Saria. Nothing in that blissful, sweet morning spoke of the events that would one day befall him. Events that would shatter the naive tranquillity of a child's world. They would change him, along with so many other things Saria held dear. 

Saria had been warned not to grow too attached. Great Father had said the boy's destiny would set him apart from the rest. He was special, despite what Mido thought.

The warm morning sun peeked through the forest canopy, illuminating the old stone edifice that dwarfed the Sacred Forest Meadow. Draped in a curtain of ivy, vines, and moss, the meadow was flanked on all sides by a stone wall, forming the temple's outermost courtyard. It still retained much of its former majesty, the ruins somehow resisting time's course, refusing to buckle beneath the relentless push of countless seasons. There was a strange magic to it that Saria couldn't place. A deep, rhythmic pulse thrummed from within the ruins, like the heartbeat of some enormous beast. She could feel it, as surely as she sensed the currents of magic flowing through the woods, emerging from the temple like some hidden spring. Sometimes, it almost sounded like music...

None of the other Kokiri could hear it. Well, almost none of them. She wondered if Link could sense it. If he somehow knew just what it would mean.

"Why can't we go inside?" he asked again, frowning as he realised Saria's attention had drifted off again. Something was different about that distant hum. She could hear the forest spirits, but the rhythm of their tune and the constant flow of magic had changed.

The little boy beside Saria sat perched upon a tree stump on one side of the courtyard, a single small hand pointing eagerly in the direction of the stairs that led up to the temple. Two towering trees stood on either side of the stairs, casting deep shadows upon the doorway and the ivy-covered columns on either side of it. His bright, happy eyes were filled with eagerness, and he swung his legs off the stump as if he were ready to dash into the temple at a moment's notice. This stubborn determination was something Saria adored, despite how tedious it could be.

"Only the Kokiri Elders are allowed inside. You know that," Saria said patiently. She, too, gazed up at the temple, feeling... something? She couldn't describe it exactly, but it was like something was pulling her towards it... It wasn't just that steady hum Saria could feel now. There was something else, too, and it made the hairs on her neck stand on end.

It had grown stronger these last few years, leaving Saria with an unsettling queasiness in her stomach.

She'd already been inside more than once, though she hadn't ventured into the temple in years. Nothing had seemed out of the ordinary then, but that strange pull had grown stronger with each passing year.

Above the doorway, there was a strange symbol carved into the frieze, large and easily spotted from a distance - three curving leaves twisted into a fan-like shape, so that they resembled the sails of a windmill, like the ones that could be seen in the hills beyond the leafy Kokiri groves. Saria was not sure of its significance. She couldn't remember the earliest years of her life, or indeed the first few centuries, but that was something she was accustomed to.

"I bet it's haunted," said the boy, in a voice that quite clearly said he wanted to find out. "But I'm not scared of ghosts."

"You know you're not allowed in there," Saria reproached the boy gently.

"I'm not scared!" the youngster declared, defiance clear in his voice. He was pushing her; he knew it, but Saria wasn't going to budge.

"Not even a little bit?" she teased.

The boy shook his head emphatically, his little green hat nearly falling right off his head. "I want to go inside. That way Mido won't think I'm a scaredy-cat."

"I don't think you're a scaredy-cat," Saria said, almost chidingly. Still, the young child - who was not even level with Saria's waist - kept looking at the temple. Perhaps he could feel it too. That pull.

"Who lived there?" Link asked. "Was it someone's house? Who needs to live in something that big?"

"A Sage," Saria answered. Great Father had told her about the temple's origins and the First Sages, but much remained unknown to her.

Link looked confused by her answer, not understanding what a Sage was.

Saria didn't expect him to; he was, after all, only six. She didn't even know much about the Sages, only that they lived long ago and that this temple was built in their honour.

"Sage?" Link asked, frowning.

"The Sages were people from all across Hyrule," she explained. "Sorcerers. One of them lived here."

"Alone?" Link asked sceptically.

"No. Other people lived with him. They helped build the temple and looked after it."

This little lesson was apparently lost on the eager young boy. His eyes drifted back to the stairs leading up to the entrance.

"I want to go inside," he said, jumping off the stump and tugging at Saria's sleeve. "Can we?"

"Someday I'll show you," Saria said gently, unable to help but feel a little disturbed by the boy's insistence. "But not today."

He pouted, but Saria didn't relent.

"I mean it," she said firmly.

She didn't want to deliberately upset Link by letting him sense the worry that nagged at her, nor did she think he would understand. He was still too young. Something still called to her, and Saria repressed a shiver. It was getting more insistent. She would need to speak to the Great Deku Tree, but that wasn't a promising option. The last time Saria had mentioned any misgivings about the temple, he'd been unusually vague. Her powers, as he called them, were simply maturing, and as they did, she was becoming more sensitive to the power within the woods. It was like he was trying not to frighten her, which worried Saria, because whatever he wasn't saying, it must be bad. She could recall countless years, much of it a blur, so she wasn't exactly young. Entire peoples had come and gone, few of them ever daring to come near the forest's edge. Villages and towns had sprung up amidst the verdant fields, only to vanish again as time flowed on. The ancient forest spirits, of which the Great Deku Tree was one of the oldest, protected the woods fiercely, letting the Kokiri live undisturbed by the troubles beyond their sacred abode.

 Saria's charge - the little boy, proudly attired in his green tunic - pulled a face, disappointed by her words.

"Nice try, but that's not going to help!" she told him. "Now you better stop asking me, or you'll have to pick all of Saria's herbs by yourself."

"What? No!" Link exclaimed, looking suddenly horrified. Saria laughed, giving him a gentle nudge.

"You know I'm not that mean."

"Meanie," Link repeated, but he wasn't serious. They both knew he was too young to go harvesting herbs by himself. He'd probably come back with a few pet insects again, having forgotten whatever it was she'd sent him to fetch...

That floppy green hat that he loved to wear so much was sitting lopsided again, making him look truly goofy, but he didn't care. Nor did Saria mind. Right now he was the happiest boy in the world, and it was a sight that made Saria's fears melt away.

"Tell you what..." she began, having decided to change tack. She grabbed her satchel, which was sitting between them on the stump, taking out a beige ocarina. "Why don't we practise the ocarina? I think you're getting pretty good at it."

The boy's eyes fell on the instrument, and he looked long and hard at it. "Then we can go inside?" he asked.

Resisting the urge to sigh or get annoyed, Saria shook her head. "No," she said, holding a finger up for emphasis. The boy wilted a little under her glare. "And that's final. Promise me you won't try to go in by yourself, okay? I don't want you to get lost. Can you promise me that?"

The young boy glanced at her again, his face suddenly serious, and then he nodded.

"Promise..." he said, before staring off towards the entryway again. "Is what Fado said true? If you go inside without a fairy, you'll get lost... and there are things in there that will gobble you up?"

"Do you really believe that?" Saria asked, resisting the urge to grind her teeth as she considered exactly how she was going to deal with Fado. That girl kept trying to give him nightmares. If it were up to Saria, she would be set to cleaning bird droppings for a very long time... a task that none of the forest children particularly enjoyed.

"Not really," Link answered. "But there is something in there."

"Like what?" Saria asked, feeling a sudden trepidation. "Did you see something?"

"Not sure," Link said with a shrug. "I just know it's in there."

Saria wanted to press the matter further. Had he seen something? Had he ventured off to the temple without her knowing? She suppressed a shiver and dismissed the thought. No. He wouldn't do that. Whatever Link had sensed, it seemed he understood it no better than she did.

And so the temple's secrets would remain. Saria had ventured inside before, long ago, before the troubles beyond the forest. That was when the sorcerers had come, seeking refuge in the temple's depths, never to be seen again. Did their spirits still linger there?

She hadn't been certain. The sorcerers hadn't been the only outsiders to seek sanctuary within its depths. Afterwards, the Kokiri whispered of ghosts and creatures moving in the shadows. 

Link had been certain something was in there.

But all that had been a long time ago.

Looking back, years later, Saria told herself that she really ought to have taken her own advice. The temple was haunted, and better left undisturbed, but what choice did she have? The forest was dying. The Kokiri had been torn from their homes, and all she knew for certain was that the key to restoring Kokiri Forest lay within those walls. 

It had been years since she'd sat outside the temple, blissfully unaware of the future ahead, with nothing to worry her except one very energetic child and that strange connection to the Forest Temple she couldn't quite make sense of. The boy wasn't a Kokiri, but that didn't make Saria think any less of him. He had still been her boy. And now? Nearly twelve years later, she was alone, cold, miserable, and more terrified than she had ever been in her long life...

Chapter 2