{{ Soul Shadow }}

 

Years passed, and slowly Link became aware that he was not like the eternally childlike people whom he had known since his birth. It simply could not be denied any longer, and as he reached his fifteenth birthday, his best friend in all the world –Saria- knew within her heavy heart that she would have to tell Link who he was and where he came from. Taking her tall companion by the hand, she led him to the clearing where the Great Deku Tree once lived, and where the Seedling Deku was now happily growing.

 

They sat together on the soft green grass and Saria told Link the story of how he first came to the Lost Wood as a small baby held in the arms of his mother, a woman whom fled the attacks that claimed the life of her soldier husband during the dark years of civil unrest in Hyrule. Link was not a Kokiri; he was a common Hylian. His mother had encountered the people who dwelt in the forest and given Link to them, for she knew of the legend that surrounded their realm: those who went in never came out again. This was indeed true of adults, and so Link’s mother was doomed the moment she chose the wood as her sanctuary from the enemy—but she was thinking not of her own life, but for the life of her son. With her last breath she passed her baby into the care of the Kokiri before her body took root into the ground and became a tree.

 

The childlike Kokiri sheltered the baby Link and raised him as their own. It was little wonder why he never felt like he fit in; he was the fairy-less boy, the outcast, the loner. Only Saria ever offered him friendship and care that could truly pass in the place of family.

 

But now it seemed that this was all going to change. With tears in her eyes, Saria took Link’s large hands in her own small ones and told him that he could not stay in the Lost Wood forever, that he must one day leave and venture into the world beyond, that that was where he belonged.

 

“But I… I’ll still be able to come back and visit you again, won’t I?” he asked hopefully.

 

Saria smiled sadly and shook her head. “Once you leave the forest you can never return. Once you pass into the world of adults you shall become one, and the ancient power that has protected the Kokiri does not differentiate friend from foe.”

 

“So… I-” Link swallowed down the knot forming in his throat. “I’ll never see you again…”

 

Saria nodded and placed her arms about Link’s broad shoulders, embracing him tightly; he held his dearest friend in his arms and together they wept in the sunlight-dappled clearing.

 

*                            *                            *

 

And when at last Link stood upon the bridge on his sixteenth birthday, gazing at the path that led through the thick trees to the outside world, he turned to Saria and said his last goodbyes, shouldered the small pack filled with all of his worldly possessions and a few rations of food, and thought he was going to be sick. He felt a small hand tug at his tunic, and he looked down to see Saria’s bright green eyes shining with tears as she held her small wooden ocarina out to him.

 

“Take this—it’s yours now.”

 

“But, but this has been in your family for generations! It’s the finest ocarina in all the village-”

 

“Link!” Saria was on the verge of either laughing or cracking down the middle. “It belongs to you now. When you play it –and I know you won’t forget all those silly songs of ours-”

 

Link laughed.

 

“-I want you to think of me. So you never forget.”

 

The tall young man kneeled down and gathered her into his arms. “I will never forget you, Saria. I promise I won’t.”

 

And then he stood, and their hands parted from each other’s clasp for the last time, and Link strode with bold steps across the bridge and down the path.

 

Saria watched and waited until his figure disappeared from view and his footsteps were lost among the birdsong and the soft whisper of the trees. “I know,” she said, clasping her hands over her heart and smiling sadly. “I know.”

 

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