Big Dark

[shinon]

Fandom: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Characters: Mido, Saria, Fado, the Deku Sprout
Word count: ~15,000
Warnings: Existential horror
Notes: Existential Kokiri horror. That's about it! This is the story in its wall-of-text form. If you would like a version with chapter breaks, there's one here.

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Saria was the Great Deku Tree's favorite. Mido wasn't jealous, because Saria was his favorite, too. It made sense for the Great Deku Tree to agree with him, the boss of all the Kokiri. He didn't need to be anybody's favorite if someone as important as the Great Deku Tree had the same opinions as him, because that was proof he was right about everything all the time, and that was just as good as being liked. Mido's favorite used to be Fado, but he changed his mind. Saria liked to wear long sleeves and sing to the Skull Kids, which was very cool.

There was talk in the village that Saria had seen the Kokiri Emerald. The Great Deku Tree had shown it to her. "Well, so what?" Mido said. "Haven't we all seen it?" He'd never seen it. If anyone should've seen it, it should've been him, because he was the biggest deal around. But it was fine if Saria got special honors. He'd allow it, because of how cool she was. He said, "You know, the emerald looks different to everyone who sees it," in case Saria ever told anyone how it really looked. And then he made some stuff up. But he kept wondering.

He asked his fairy to put in a good word for him with Saria's fairy, and told the other Kokiri to do Saria favors and tell her who sent them. Saria did a thing where she looked at him sideways and covered her hand with her mouth and laughed – he was pretty sure this was friendship, but you couldn't be too sure. He tried going into the Lost Woods where she liked to go. Just the once. It was fine that he turned back. It was fine if everyone had different roles in the village. Like, Saria was the brave one, and he kept everyone else in line. People ought to respect him a ton for all this order he was maintaining. He couldn't afford to be the favorite because he had so many hard decisions to make, about who should do what and whose turn it was to paint signs or sew clothes or play shopkeeper.

He said, "Saria, do you like me?" and she said, "Of course." And he said, "Who do you like the most?" and she said, "The Great Deku Tree," and then he said "Of course" and didn't start grinding his teeth until she had gone away. She never said anything about how impressive he was. Wasn't he impressive at all?

Mido couldn't remember the last time there had been a new Kokiri. Plants grew out of the ground and got tall and put out new leaves and turned brown and shrank and stopped living, and you could make grass stop living even sooner than that if you pulled it out by the roots. But the point was, plants came from somewhere and went away, all the time. Kokiri didn't. Fairies didn't. It was just them in the forest forever.

Link happened, though. There didn't used to be Link and then there he was. And he was very little. Probably less than half the size of the rest of them.

"Tila used to be new," said one of the twins. "You remember when Tila was new."

"'Course I do," said Mido. "I remember when you were new. I remember when we didn't have Refa."

"Wow," said the other twin.

"You were both new at the same time, and that's why you're twins," said Mido, grandly. "You came from … two seeds. See? It's nothing to worry about if there's a new boy. I know all about it."

The twins went away satisfied that Mido was still their boss. In private he chewed on his lip.

And Link got bigger. And Link didn't have a fairy. And Link, even though he was like a plant more than he was like the Kokiri, and didn't have a fairy, and used the wrong hand, was the Great Deku Tree's favorite. The Great Deku Tree was always asking about him and how he did.

It was stupid. "Link" didn't even sound like a real name. Link, stink, don't you think? Saria used to be the favorite. A tree shouldn't change his mind like that.

Mido told her "You're still my favorite," and she said "Thank you, Mido, you're sweet," and that was a perfectly polite thing for her to say but he still wanted to go away and kick a big rock.

If Link was a plant, and the Great Deku Tree was a plant, maybe they had a special bond and maybe that was okay. And if Link was a plant – because he'd come from somewhere, like grass and weeds, and kept getting bigger, like trees and flowers – yeah. "Just between you and me," Mido said seriously, "Link's going to die someday. Hah! I'd feel bad for him if he weren't so annoying."

"I don't think Link is annoying," said Fado. Mido had thought of trying this piece of gossip on Saria, but he didn't know how she'd react. It kinda scared him, not knowing. Saria was weird about Link lately. Fado was leaning in closer and whispered, "Do you think Link has bones?"

"I know how to find out," said Mido. Fado clapped her hands delightedly.

But Mido remembered how the Great Deku Tree had scolded him, the time he dared Tila to jump off a roof and her arm broke. The fairies healed her. It wasn't even a problem. But the Great Deku Tree scolded him and made him feel small. Thou art responsible, Mido, he'd said, and Mido had turned that over in his head all day and all night. Responsible.

So he didn't break Link's arm. Or even one of his fingers. Since Saria and the Great Deku Tree liked that loser so stinking much.

Nights got longer and plants died. This was called "winter." Mido preferred "autumn," when things were red and yellow and you could grab a pear off any tree. You had to have "winter" sometimes. The Great Deku Tree said so, and Saria said so, and Mido told everyone who complained the same thing, even if he didn't understand. But they were having "winter" a lot, it seemed like. Yesterday had been "spring." Today was "winter" again. He had started carving marks into a tally stick to see how much "winter" there was. There were monsters on the path to the Great Deku Tree and it was "winter" for two hundred and four days.

And it was "summer" and Link was the size of every other Kokiri. He had a fairy now, too. Maybe…

Maybe he was normal after all. Maybe they'd all grown up in that way and then gotten fairies, it was just so long ago that everybody forgot. It was hard to remember long-ago things. Maybe Mido hadn't even lied when he'd told the twins where people came from. And maybe now things would be okay, once they forgot Link used to be a different shape.

He explained this to Saria. She did a sad half smile and shook her head. "No, Link's still not like us. He's special. You've always known that, and that's why you hate him." She slid down off the stump they were sitting on and walked away, singing a song.

Mido shouted after her, "I could be left-handed too! If I wanted to!"

Anyway, what's hate? Who hates anybody? He thought later that he should have said this instead.

Mido gave out instructions that everyone should explain to Link about fairies. "Be helpful," he said. "Be so helpful. Remember, he's not like us. He's dumb and he doesn't know this stuff." Except he thought some of them took it to heart too much. Timi and Resol, they were actually being nice on purpose. Resol was being way too friendly and Mido ordered him to go pull weeds.

Link wasn't like them. Link was collecting those faceted gems that washed down the river from the "city" where the tall people were, and from the tall people who died in the Lost Woods. What a weirdo. Sure, they were pretty to look at and fun to trade for things. Sure, Mido had a collection that he kept in boxes in his house and if anyone's collection got bigger than his he made them give him some. But it was weird to care that much about Rupees. "What, does he think he's leaving?" Mido scoffed. "Is he saving them up for a trip? So he can go to the tall person places and die?"

Saria looked sad and said nothing. Fado said, "If he dies I was hoping he'd die here. I want to see something like that." Mido remembered why he used to like her best. But he was loyal to Saria now.

The worst part was when Link showed up with the sword. Link wasn't supposed to get the sword. Saria said, "Why shouldn't he, it's a Kokiri treasure, we're all allowed to borrow it if we want," and that was true and fair, and being fair was one of the things about Saria that everybody liked. But Link had never bothered with the Forest Training Ground before, and now suddenly he was Mr. Big Man with his fairy and his summons from the Great Deku Tree and his shield? Now suddenly he wasn't too good to do normal Kokiri stuff anymore? Oh, okay. Sure. Normal. We totally trust you.

And it was right not to trust him. There was being fair and there was being right, and Mido would pick "right" every time. What did Link do with the sword, once he got it, but go inside the Great Deku Tree and hurt him?

Mido could feel it when the Great Deku Tree died. Probably every Kokiri could. Link did that. Mido was all ready to run him out of town but he was already leaving. Good. He knew what he did. It was only after that Mido realized he'd let him leave with the sword. He told his fairy, "Well, we don't need some dirty thing that he messed up anyway. We don't want the thing that killed the Great Deku Tree here." And it was only even later Mido remembered that he saw a green-gold shiny thing poking out of Link's wallet. And he thought, I've seen the Kokiri Emerald. And none of us ever will again.

But – the Great Deku Tree was really dead. Not dead like "winter," to wake up again in the "spring." Dead like the tall people died. Dead like wolves died. There used to be a Great Deku Tree and there wasn't anymore.

"We hate Link," Mido told the others. Saria wasn't there. That was why he could say it. "He ruined our lives and we hate him." But all the other Kokiri gave him were blank looks. What's hate? Who hates anybody? Haven't our lives all been pretty good? The Great Deku Tree won't really stay dead. "You're all so stupid!" he yelled at them, and fled.

Calm smiles and silly pranks and games, and fairy songs, and the feeling of the forest living under your feet and over your head. That was all they could imagine. But even if they'd never touch it, there was more than a forest in the world. There were things that a person should get upset about. Was it good that they didn't know how to care?

Lashed and bitten by Deku Babas he stumbled to the Great Deku Tree's roots. The Great Deku Tree's old kind face that wouldn't speak anymore, with bugs moving under the bark. Mido threw a rock at a woodpecker and missed. It was okay for bugs and birds and squirrels and monkeys and lizards to be in a tree that was alive. But the Great Deku Tree wouldn't grow and heal himself anymore. Every piece taken out of him would make him smaller forever. Mido started killing millipedes.

"Why did you make us this way?" he asked the Great Deku Tree. He said it rudely. He would have been polite if the Great Deku Tree had been alive, but there was no reason to be polite to a dead thing.

"Mido," said Saria.

"Help me kill these. I'm protecting his body."

"It won't work."

"You know what else doesn't work? Standing around not doing anything."

She was standing behind him. She said, "Link went away. Will you be happy again?"

He turned to her. She looked like something was hurting her. But why would she care about Link at a time like this? He grabbed her hand. She made a surprised sound. He pressed her palm against one of the Great Deku Tree's knotted roots. "Do you feel it? Do you feel how the sap's not moving?" She swallowed once and nodded. He sneered. "I'm so happy. It's so great that Link was here." He let her go. "Maybe if you hadn't been so nice to him –"

She looked away. A little part of him was proud of himself. He had finally made her understand.

"I gave him my ocarina when he went," she said.

No. No. That wasn't right at all. How could Link ruin everything and kill the Great Deku Tree and leave and still be important? Why was he special? How dare he? How dare Saria? Mido stamped his foot. "What do you mean? Get another one! Make the fairies make you another one!" She shook her head. He knew she would. He stomped around some more. He shook his fists. "Our tree is dead and I won't even hear you play anymore? Because of Link?"

"That's right. That's how it has to be."

He was crying. "But I like hearing you play!"

Saria looked like she was far away. "Poor Mido," she said. And he thought, Yes, exactly! Poor Mido! Why doesn't anyone think about Mido? And she said, "Shall we sing to the tree together?" And he said "I don't want to sing with you" and crushed a spider with his hand.

He slept among the Great Deku Tree's dead roots. In a dream the Great Deku Tree said Thou art responsible. It was going to be a long "winter."

When he returned home, someone had smashed open every box in his house. Rupees were scattered across the floor – most of them hadn't even been taken. He couldn't find his tally sticks, though. The ones he used to tell himself how long a "season" was. He couldn't imagine why that would be important. He stood a while in the shining litter of bright stones and couldn't even think straight.

Finally he left his house and climbed up on the ridge overlooking the village and banged on the old hollow log that called the Kokiri to meeting. He wondered what would happen when the log rotted through and didn't boom like that anymore. But it was no use wondering. The Kokiri came outside and squinted up at him and he said, "Who did that?" and pointed at his house.

Resol did a backflip. "Seemed like fun. Wasn't it fun?"

Tila said, "My fairy told me, 'Mido is sad. Mido is crying about the Great Deku Tree'" – Mido stomped his foot and pointed at her and said "Your fairy is a liar" – "and I thought about the things you like. You like yelling at people. So cheer up. Now you have something to yell about."

He stared down at them both. They weren't sorry. He thought, Is it because I made her arm break? Is it because I make him pull weeds all the time? But he imagined asking them that and he imagined them just blinking back at him and smiling. The Kokiri lived here in peace. They didn't hate or fight or hold grudges.

So why did Link make him so angry?

Mido thought about what to do. He put his hands on his hips and threw his head back and laughed. It sounded like the barking of a crow, but that was the best he could do. He said, "It was a good prank. Thanks. I'm normal now." Then he made himself look serious and leaned forward and wagged a finger at his villagers. "But the Great Deku Tree is still gone, and that means life will get harder. You have to keep doing what I say, okay? Start by giving me back my tally sticks."

But no one knew where all of them had wound up. He got a few, but he was pretty sure that wasn't all of them. In the long dark moons that followed he gave up on keeping track. Poor Mido, he thought, skipping useless Rupees across the cloudy surface of the stream.

One morning as he left his house, Mido had a completely new thought, and had to stand still and weigh it. He asked his fairy, "How long have you and I been together?"

It was your fairy's job to know things about you and the other Kokiri. She answered right away. "Three hundred and forty-two years, Mido."

He took a deep breath and held it. He blew out his cheeks. "Remind me how many days a year is."

She told him. He sat down in the green in front of his house.

After a while he said, "Do things change in the world in three hundred and some years?"

She sparkled with laughter. "In the world, yes. But fairies don't change, and Kokiri don't. We're not made to. We don't have to. Isn't it wonderful?"

Mido pulled up grass and let the blades fall through his fingers. "Saria is about as old as me?"

"Yes."

"How old is Link?"

"No one knows how old he was before his fairy went to him. Probably about ten."

Mido frowned. "Ten days? Ten moons?"

"No one knows."

"Well, no wonder he had to leave. He was growing so fast. Soon he'd be too big for a house. We wouldn't have enough for him to eat. What if he got too big for us to chase him out?"

"I'm sure you're right, Mido."

"Of course I am." He thought some more. Slowly he said, "We didn't have him very long, did we?"

"No, Mido, we didn't."

One time he said to Saria, "What do you know about the big dark shape?" It was in the meadow that he said this. He'd had to summon all his courage to make his way there through the Lost Woods. And he'd thought that would be the easy part – he'd thought it would be even scarier to actually ask her, once he got there. But when he did get there she gave him this look of surprise and annoyance. It was the way you'd look at a squirrel that stole your lunch. And that look made Mido want to be mean to her right back, and not care what she thought. So he just said it, exactly like that: "What do you know about the big dark shape?"

"What are you talking about?" she said. But she wasn't looking at him like he was a thief anymore.

"Come on, Saria, don't play games with me." He crossed his arms. He made himself stern and large and sarcastic, because he had every right to be here. "If anyone knows about it, it'd be you."

"Have you seen something?" she said softly. And the way she said it meant there was something to see, and it was a bad something. Mido stopped trying to look big. He'd sort of wanted her to tell him he was wrong.

Sometimes something moved under the mud in the bottom of the stream. When the Great Deku Tree was alive, you would say it was catfish and nothing to worry about. When the Great Deku Tree was alive and long heavy things with mad eyes and tusks like the crescent moon walked between the trees, it was okay, you just stayed home. But the Great Deku Tree was dead. And there was a stream and a forest inside you. In those places, things moved that you didn't understand, things it wasn't safe to understand. But no one would protect you from trying.

He couldn't figure out how to say any of that. He said, "I miss when it was quiet." Saria just kept looking at him, big-eyed with worry. He tried again and all he came up with was, "Something's going – in between me and the sun. Usually it's a cloud, but this time it could be a bird that wants to eat me. Do you see?" And then he groaned and looked at his shoes because that wasn't a good explanation either.

But Saria said, "The big dark shape," and put her hand on his arm. "Yes. I see. I'm sorry, Mido. It shouldn't have come to you."

He said "When does it go away?" and she said "Do you want to see it up close?"

Far away a cicada buzzed.

Mido said, "Would I... change? If I knew more?"

Saria said, "Do you like me?"

"Are you crazy?" He shook her hand off. "I like you the most! I like you more than anything! I want to always be your friend, the problem is you never wanted to be mine!"

"Yes I do," said Saria. "And if you like me, even the way I am, then the change isn't all bad." She didn't touch him again but she put her hand out, so he could take it if he wanted to. "If you come to the temple, I can protect you."

"Why shouldn't it have come to me?" he said suddenly. It was easier to argue than take her hand and easier to take her hand than tell her she was scaring him. "Because I'm Kokiri?" Saria didn't answer. "You're Kokiri." She still didn't answer. "We're Kokiri and we have to live in the forest and not worry about it. We're not big enough for serious things, so nothing ever feels bad. Is that why?"

He shouldn't have said it. The shadow was falling across him and a sleeping thing twitched in he mud. His fairy whispered, "Mido, let's leave this place." Twilight stretched over the meadow, very fast.

Mido didn't move. He didn't know if he wanted to or not. And Saria didn't help him.

Something strange happened then. Afterward he thought it must have been like this: his fairy talked to another fairy, in the fast and silent way that fairies had, and that fairy talked to another, until somewhere far outside the forest a fairy made a suggestion... And that was why the sound of an ocarina came to them in the sacred meadow. Faint and halting at first, but then – but then –

"Link?" Saria said, turning toward the sound. Mido wasn't too stupid to know he wasn't wanted anymore. He headed back down the hill and didn't even wait to see if Saria would bother with an excuse or an apology or a goodbye. He muttered to himself, "That didn't sound like your ocarina. I bet he got rid of it. I bet girls give him ocarinas all the time and it's nothing to him. You should've kept it." He pretended he'd have the nerve to say this to Saria sometime. He didn't pretend he would ever say, You should've given it to someone who'd treasure it. Anyway – who was to say he was remembering right, what it used to sound like? He'd never be able to check. It was gone like the Great Deku Tree.

On a different day there was a dead Deku Scrub in the stream. Its leaves were turning mushy and coming loose from its body and drifting away. The fairies said not to drink that water for a little bit until they cleaned it up. So Mido told the Kokiri that, like it was his own idea. He had to remind them who their boss was.

Link was seen walking out of the shop once. He'd bought a shield. "He already had a shield," Mido said when Fado told him this. "How could he lose it? Of course a useless boy like him doesn't take care of his things." Of course a boy like him went around breaking every Kokiri thing he could find. Mido would never forgive him the ocarina.

Saria was friendly to Mido after the time he went to the meadow. He didn't go again, because he was too busy. They didn't talk about... whatever they'd talked about then. It was probably silly.

That Deku Scrub wasn't the last dead thing to turn up in the stream. Mido put Fado in charge of finding them and helping the fairies clean anything too big for them to lift themselves. More Deku Scrubs, mostly. Pieces of Deku Babas. Once, half of a Stalchild. Fado said, "You're nice to me, Mido. I like this job," and he said, "Yeah, I know you like dead things," and the twins must've heard this conversation because for days the village was gossiping about how Fado was Mido's favorite. If anyone ever said it where Saria could hear he would've knocked their heads together. But Saria wasn't in the village much. Instead he practiced not looking angry so they'd get bored and shut up about it.

It was a cold and cloudy time. What "season" was it that smelled like smoke and wet? Big plants were growing up in between the houses. "Link had no right to take our sword," Mido said, and Refa, who was getting really good at the wrist-flick you used to make a Deku nut explode and repel monsters, blinked at him and asked "Did we used to have a sword?" Mido's throat stopped working. Refa said, "Gosh. I'd like to have a sword. It'd be useful now."

"Yeah." He cleared his throat. "That's what I meant. That's it exactly." He went and looked at the ivy on the tree that Link used to live in.

He thought maybe he hadn't gone to kill the bugs in the Great Deku Tree for a few days. When he got there a big branch had fallen off the Great Deku Tree and an eagle roosted in the jaggedy snapped-off part. It was black with a yellow tail and a crest that shone like metal. It was looking at him. He didn't stay long.

One of the tall people came to the village. Saria was in the temple that day and Mido had thought about going after her. He'd been thinking about the shadows that went over the moon, and the eagle that had looked at him, and the time he almost went with her into the temple. He thought he would casually go after her, or even just in her direction, and if she happened to ask him into the temple this time to learn about mysteries, this time he'd do it. For sure. But halfway there he remembered things in the village he should be doing. He hadn't decided whether to start back. He took a few steps in one direction and then another. His fairy said to hurry home and he couldn't say why he felt like spiting her. So he was pacing back and forth when the tall person was leaving the village, so that was how the tall person found him.

The tall person wore green clothes of a Kokiri make and had yellow hair like a Kokiri. Everyone in the village had seen scraps of tall people clothes and tools, because Fado liked to show them around. Everyone knew tall people had different hair and eyes and stuff. The "tall people" were a different kind of thing than they were, everyone knew that. But this one just looked like... a person who was tall. A Kokiri who was tall. He had a long sharp nose and carried lots of things strapped to him. He looked surprised to see Mido.

Mido bent his neck back to frown up at the tall person. He wouldn't act surprised at all.

The tall person said, "Mido?" in a voice that wasn't as big as you'd expect.

Mido said, "That's Great Mido to you, outsider. I'm the boss of Kokiri Village. What do you want?"

The tall person said nothing for a while. Probably intimidated. Maybe embarrassed. Maybe he thought, Oh no, I should have sought out the boss first thing and introduced myself. I'm being so rude. The Kokiri will never help me now. Maybe that was what he thought and that was why the look on his face was so odd. He looked like -

Like someone had gone into his house and thrown all his treasures around. Ha ha, great joke, everybody, now put them back.

He said, "I think Saria's expecting me."

Mido wanted to sneer at him, Well, she never said anything about you to me, so you can't go see her. But... if Saria really was expecting him, and Mido stopped him, she'd be mad. And it wasn't like Saria told him everything. Maybe she would have, if he'd gone with her that time, to look at the thing that moved in the dark.

Maybe this man's fairy and Saria's fairy had talked about it. Then Mido shouldn't get in their way. "She's in the temple," he said. "I'll let you pass, but you owe me a favor."

Only afterward he thought, Tall people don't have fairies.

That one had a fairy.

Kokiri have fairies.

Except for one.

His head hurt. He asked his fairy, "Did you see who that tall person was with?" and she said, "What fairy? I didn't see any fairy. I don't know her." Mido got a nosebleed and wanted to go home.

Some time later a white light went up from the temple into the sky. Mido stopped and stared. The light died, and there was a song in the air, until that died too. The clouds scattered and the sky was high and blue above the trees, and it smelled like "springtime." Mido couldn't remember the last time it had been "spring." His chest hurt so bad that he had to sit down. He felt that something had gone wrong and was always going to be wrong forever.

The tall person came again and Mido jumped to his feet and said - there were more impressive things he could have said, to remind the stranger of his place, but all he actually thought of and all he actually said was - "Saria?"

"She's safe."

Mido shook his hand. But after he took his hands back he stood still and waited and thought. And no. It hadn't gone away. The feeling of things being wrong still sat inside him like a stone. He said, "She's never coming back. Is she?" The stranger shook his head. Stupidly, Mido said, "What am I gonna tell Link?"

The stranger made that odd expression again. He said, "Do you think Link is coming back?"

"Do you know him?" said Mido. Maybe they had met, out in the big world, Link and this tall person. "He was Saria's best friend. He took all our treasures and killed our Great Deku Tree and she never stopped missing him anyway. If you see him, will you tell him what happened?" The stranger said nothing. Mido turned his back on him. Shadows danced in the Lost Woods. "And you can tell him... if you want... Tell him I forgive him. Even though he doesn't deserve it. Tell him just that, the Great Mido forgives him. He should know what for."

There was a long quiet, so long and quiet that Mido thought the stranger had gone away. But then the stranger said, "Great Mido, I think you should talk to the Deku Tree."

Mido snorted. "Didn't you hear me? The Great Deku Tree is dead."

"Try it anyway."

"Don't tell me what to do. You're not my boss."

"No. I never was."

In the village the Kokiri were going about their business humming a song to themselves. For days it was the same song, and it was a song Mido had never expected to hear again. For days it drove him so crazy he wanted to howl at the moon. Finally he said "What is that song" and Resol said "Do you remember when the tall person came? He played that song. On a big ocarina." Mido stalked off and punched the cliff face. "It's just a song," his fairy said soothingly while he sucked on his bleeding knuckles. "They'll forget it soon." A red wave rose up in him and he kicked apart the rotted old log that used to call the Kokiri together. The twins went into the woods to get a new one. Mido shouted after them, "I'll break that one too!" But they brought back a new log and no one sang the song anymore and he let it stand. Even though the wrong feeling never went away.

Fado said, "The Great Deku Tree had a baby." Mido remembered, sourly, that the tall person had said something about the Tree. He couldn't make himself be excited. He went and saw him, the Deku Sprout, and didn't like him as much as he liked the Great Deku Tree. But as the boss of the Kokiri, there were things Mido had to do. He told the Deku Sprout, "We'll have a festival for you," and the Deku Sprout said, "Wonderful!" and when Mido announced it on the ridge over the village the Kokiri said things like that too.

They'd sing songs at the festival. They sang songs every day, and a festival was supposed to be the best kind of day, so of course they had to sing. Mido overheard Refa saying to Fado, "But we can't sing the song that we heard from the tall person, because it hurts Mido's feelings."

"Feelings?" Mido snapped. "'Feelings,' nothing. You couldn't hurt my feelings if you tried. I just want you to show a little respect."

Refa said, "Respect for what?"

Mido started to say something, and then started to say something else, and then walked away. Fado said, "Yes, I see. Feelings."

A festival was supposed to be the best kind of day. In the end, it was just a day that was loud.

The Deku Sprout said, "Mido, you did a good job organizing." Mido said, "I miss Saria."

On another day his fairy told him the Deku Sprout wanted to talk to him, but he ignored her. In the afternoon the twins came one by one and said the Deku Sprout wanted to talk to him, and he sent them away on the most boring chores he could imagine. Separately. In the evening Fado came to his house and showed him a jagged metal knife kind of thing she had found beside a dead tall person. "Can this be our new sword?" she said, and he stared at her and thought, Okay, she remembers things from before Link, what else does she know? Is she changed like Saria? Is she changed like - and she said, "Oh, and the Deku Sprout -"

"The Deku Sprout can get in line," he said. "Everyone wants to talk to the Great Mido. I have to do all the thinking for everyone around here. You're all helpless." Fado laughed. "What? What's so funny?"

"I was thinking about the Deku Sprout getting in line. Walking around on his roots."

"Oh." Mido's shoulders went down from his ears. "Ha! That is pretty funny. He's so round. He'd probably walk like this," and they both had fun waddling in circles around Mido's house in the way that they imagined the Deku Sprout would move. Fado was an okay person. But as soon as she left, Mido's fairy started bugging him again about going to visit that silly baby tree, and he got in a dark mood again.

The Deku Sprout said, "Mido, is everything all right? You've been upsetting the other Kokiri."

"I'm upsetting them?" he said. "I'm upsetting them? There's so much to be upset about and you blame me?"

The Deku Sprout rustled his leaves thoughtfully. "What do you mean? Why else should they be upset?"

"The Great Deku Tree is gone. The forest changed. There aren't Deku Scrubs anymore and everything else got bigger and scarier. We don't have our treasures anymore, our sword or our emerald or anything. Saria's gone."

"Saria's prayers are keeping everyone safe," said the Deku Sprout. "And once I get big enough, in about twelve years, I'll protect the village and return the forest to health. Things will be normal again very soon! All my Kokiri can relax and be happy."

Mido looked at the rotting remains of the old Great Deku Tree. He said, slowly, the most awful thing he knew. "I don't think I trust you."

The Deku Sprout was quiet for a while. The breeze ruffled through his small pale branches. He said, "Mido, this is interesting. In the seven years since my parent tree died, you've become braver."

Mido pretended not to be surprised. He didn't know if he was being praised or scolded. The Kokiri weren't supposed to change. Maybe they weren't even supposed to change for the better. "Lot of good it's done me," he mumbled. "If it even happened."

"But you're just as greedy as ever. You want your sword and your emerald. Why? Just to have them? You can't use them. You want Saria to stop doing her important work for the whole world and spend time playing songs for you? Greedy."

Mido said, "What's so important about the whole world? She was my friend."

The tree said, "She's gone. She's not for you."

Mido stamped on the ground. "But I miss her."

"Mido, everything you need is in the forest. My Kokiri want for nothing. You'll be fine."

Fine? How could anyone ever be fine, in a world where the places you knew could change and the people you liked could go away forever? "Stop saying weird and stupid stuff! I miss our old Tree!"

"Would you like it if I said 'thee' and 'thou?' I'm sorry. I'm still learning."

"You can't keep us safe," said Mido. Something moved in a deep pool and there was light breaking across the ripples of the water. "Because you'll die too."

"That's a very long way away. I'll seed a new Deku Sprout before I go, and the Kokiri will get used to him like they're getting used to me. Kokiri Forest and Kokiri Village will go on forever. You don't have to be sad."

"No." Mido shook his head. "No, you can't say that to me. I saw the big dark shape. I know."

"The what?"

"The big dark!" Mido shouted at him. "The thing Link and Saria saw that made them have to go away! The thing that's always at the edges – the thing that -" It was hopeless. The Deku Sprout was just looking at him. "The big… you know…."

"Oh, Mido," the Deku Sprout said, and his voice was kind. Like the Great Deku Tree's voice used to be. Maybe. Just like Saria's ocarina, Mido didn't remember that voice anymore. "I'm sorry you've been so misled! Link didn't leave because of something he saw. Link was never a Kokiri at all. He was a Hylian child, and now he's a Hylian adult. He could never have stayed in the forest." A Hylian… adult. A tall person. Green clothes? Big ocarina? "Oh, dear, your nose is bleeding. Please sit down."

Mido sat down heavily in the moss, and wiped the blood off on his wrist. "But Saria," he said. "Saria is a Kokiri, isn't she?" He thought if Saria was something else, and not the same as him after all, he might scream.

"Of course she is! What a question! The Forest Temple chose her as its sage. It wasn't predestined that Saria leave the forest, only that the sage would be chosen from among the Kokiri. She had a natural affinity for the temple, so she was a perfect fit." Mido thought, So I was right, that's just like saying she left because she saw it. "If not her, another Kokiri, like Fado or Timi -"

"Or me?"

The Deku Sprout laughed. "Oh no, not you. The spirits of the temple wouldn't pick someone with your temperament."

Mido scowled and dug in the ground with a twig. This twig probably used to be the Great Deku Tree. "I could change my … whatever you said. 'Temperament.'"

His fairy said, "No, you can't."

The Deku Sprout said, "You have no need to. Here in the forest, your foibles are endearing and can't cause lasting harm to you or others." He paused. "You should know that my parent tree loved you very much, exactly as you are."

Mido thought about that a lot when he was alone. About "love." About "lasting harm."

The happy dreams were the worst. He'd hear a song coming from the Great Deku Tree's glen and he would go there, and he would see the Great Deku Tree smiling at him. He would think, Oh, of course, everything turned out fine. He'd remember that there was a time when he thought the Great Deku Tree was dead and gone forever, and he'd remember that he was wrong about that and had made himself sad for no reason. Poor Mido, the big dummy. The Great Deku Tree would say, "That was thy punishment, for lacking faith. Didst thou truly believe anyone could disappear?" And Mido would feel his wisdom and pity coming down like a sunbeam, and it would all make sense. No one really died, and the reason Mido wasn't important or anyone's favorite was that there was this big obvious thing wrong with him. Even that part was a relief, because it was fair. The world was fair and things happened for reasons. He'd wake up thinking, All right. I'm a bad kid who lost sight of the way things are supposed to be, but at least no one ever left me. And then he'd wake up the rest of the way.

The Great Deku Tree was still gone, and Saria and her songs were farther away than the moon. And still his fairy and probably everybody else thought he was a bad kid and lacked faith. Just for noticing things that were true.

The temple was big and built of stone. He'd never seen another building like it. He wondered if the tall people often made places like this, and it was the Kokiri treehouses that were strange. But wondering made his skin prickle and his head hurt. If he kept wondering, he'd totally wuss out and go home. So he stopped thinking and went ahead to the temple. He'd bought a shield, but surrounded by such big heavy stones it didn't feel like it protected him at all. It was just a shape cut out of wood, and you could find those anywhere. He found a way in through a hole in the wall. Saria had offered to show him around, once. Maybe this was the entrance she would have shown him. He pushed the shield through first.

Inside it was dark and still and nothing had the right sound. It sounded all dead and scuffly. The floors were gray and everything had all these corners to it, sharp and cut. He'd seen rocks get smoothed into shapes by running water, but it took a long time - how long did it take to make rocks into squares? And so many of them? Something big and alive and wolf-smelling was moving on the other side of the wall, snuffling and whining. Would it fit through that hole? Probably not, right? Mido shifted his shield to his back and hurried on. But it only got darker and stiller.

There was ivy, but it wasn't right. It was too dark in here for that, and the leaves were too dark and too small, and kind of squishy. It made his skin crawl. He decided not to touch it anymore. And that was a problem before long, because - whoever built this place, and stacked these stones one on the other, they'd been a lot taller than him. If he wasn't going to climb the creepy ivy he had to take a running leap and scramble up each step, and then stop and get his breath back. And it took longer every time, because it wasn't the kind of air you liked to breathe. It was thick and old and wet. There were torches, and they stank. There was no reason they should even be burning now, was there? Did people come in and keep them lit? His fairy said, "We don't need to be here." He said, "Listen for a song. If you hear a song, you have to tell me." He had brought a bundle of Deku sticks too. When he had passed the tall steps and thought the running and climbing was probably over, he lit one from a torch. It smoked more than it should, and when he'd gone about twenty paces it blew out and he heard someone laughing. He said, "No one laughs at the Great Mido," and forced his way on through the wet air over the stones. He lit another stick at the next torch. Soft wet bug shapes scuttled away from the fire. Just like the things eating the Great Deku Tree. This one didn't blow out until he'd gotten halfway across the room. Lucky he'd brought a lot of them.

On top of everything being so huge and square - there were wooden doors, with clear stones set in a pattern in them. It took him a while to understand they were doors. You had to turn a round metal thing to make a metal thing inside the door move, so that the door and the frame could separate and you could go through. There was so much in the world. The further he went in the colder he got. The more doors he opened, the more he felt like he was leaving something behind that he shouldn't. Some doors opened to hallways full of pictures and some opened to big ugly spiders, and some rooms had nothing but the wind. He came up with a plan: you twist the metal thing until the door is ready to separate, and then you pull it open just enough to shove the shield through. And if anything wants to hurt you it'll hit the shield. And then you just close the door and don't go there. Sometimes he waited a long time. Almost wanting something to hit his shield, so he could decide that door was no good and he didn't have to go in it.

There was no sky. He walked for probably most of a day. He could've asked his fairy for the time, because it was her business to always know, but she had been sulking since they went inside and he wasn't going to break the silence first. He was right, and even if he wasn't right, he was going to win. But he walked a long time, and hated all of it. With how long he'd been going forward into the stones, the temple must be bigger than the whole village. The biggest place he had ever been, all under one big evil roof. And this biggest place ever was still inside the forest. And the forest was only a small part of the world.

"Stop laughing at me," he said. He hated the sound of his voice in this booming hollow place.

He wanted to go home. His fairy could have told him how, but he wasn't going to ask. He wasn't lost. He wasn't tired or scared or feeling sick in his heart. As the boss of the Kokiri it was his job to look over everything in the forest, even this. Especially when they didn't have weapons and their sage was gone and the Deku Tree was young and unreliable. He opened another door.

And there was a stream, and a fresh green place. Leaves and trees. The temple must've ended, because the sunlight was there – he squinted up at it. It looked like morning. Morning of the next day? He decided not to worry about it. It didn't matter. He had found a special place in the temple, pretty and quiet. He took his shoes off and walked across the stream to make his feet stop hurting. He looked down the well built of stones that went down in the ground. He touched the moss on the ground and the ivy on the walls.

"Saria?" he said. He tried to call out louder, Saria? but in this place his voice didn't want to come out loud. He looked up and remembered the white light that had gone from the temple and said "Saria, is this where you went?" There were bug sounds. He had missed the bug sounds, inside the temple. He closed his eyes and listened. He tried to tell himself that the wrong feeling was going away and that he could feel that Saria wasn't far.

"I hear a song," his fairy said.

His eyes snapped open. "Where?"

"You're singing it. Where else? No one else is here."

"Shut up. You're so stupid. I'm gonna trap you in a shoe." He stalked away, across the green slope.

All he found was another wall and another door. "No," he said. "No way." He walked along the wall and found that it connected to another wall, and a third, and that wall took him back to the place where he'd left his shoes by the stream – "We're still in the temple?" He whirled on his fairy in panic and outrage. "They put some outside inside of it and then it just starts again? It's too big. It's not allowed to be that big. It's -" It's going to crush me. "We're going home." He put his shoes back on and stomped back to the door he'd come in by.

And back into the temple. Back into the dark twisty lonely places where he didn't belong, to walk all that long way back with shadows laughing at him, and to have to keep this whole thing secret from the other Kokiri and the Deku Sprout forever. He'd made that awful trip once and now he had to make it back, and for what? Nothing changed. The Great Deku Tree that had loved him was still turning slowly into soil and Saria was just as far away as before. She hadn't even heard him. He slumped down against one of the temple's tall horrible stone walls and pulled his knees up to his chest and sobbed, and the echoes in the temple were mocking him. After a while even his fairy said, "Oh, quit it. You're no fun anymore. It was better before Link showed up."

"That's – what I - always said," he choked. He found a loose pebble and flicked it at her. He missed, but not by much. He got up. "And I'm – I'm always right."

"That's the spirit," she said. "That's our Mido."

After a lot of thought, Mido said to the Deku Sprout, "You remember when you said that I'm greedy and a coward?"

"I didn't mean it as an insult," said the Deku Sprout.

"I know you didn't. You said it was fine the way I am. That's the way it's always been in Kokiri Village." He'd made Resol and Refa and the twins work together to carry a big rock here into the glade where the Deku Sprout stood in his dead parent tree's shadow. Now Mido tried to move the rock the last few inches himself, but he wasn't strong enough alone. Whatever. The idea was he would sit on the rock and look down on the Deku Sprout from a little above and very very close. Right up in his woody face. But he couldn't move the rock, so when he sat down he was a little above and two feet away and kind of to the left. Close enough. He said, dramatically like he'd been imagining, "We don't want for anything here. Right? We don't have to change. We don't have to grow."

"That's right. Mido, what's with the big rock? I hope you can talk to me without trying to make yourself bigger -"

"Shut up! Shut up, I had a speech, I'm getting to it. You're ruining everything!"

The Deku Sprout rustled gently. "I'm sorry, please go ahead."

"You said…" Mido had lost the thread of what he'd meant to say. He braced his hands on his knees and leaned in and scowled down at the Deku Sprout as viciously as he could. "You said I'm so mean that the spirits in the temple wouldn't want me, and I'm making everyone upset. And then you said that's okay and I don't hurt anyone and I never have to get better. Well. Ha ha. Too bad for you. I've changed already. And I decided I'm gonna change more." He felt stupid about the rock. The rock wasn't helping after all. He jumped to the ground and walked up to the Deku Sprout until his forehead almost touched bark. He said, "Starting today, I'm gonna get even greedier. I want treasures. I want my friends. I wanna know stuff. I want everything forever and I'll never stop."

The Deku Sprout was quiet. Mido went back to the rock and sat down, breathing hard. Finally the Deku Sprout said, "I didn't know you felt that strongly. Okay, Mido. What kind of stuff do you want to know?"

"I wanna know if we really die when we leave the forest."

"Mido!" his fairy said, horrified. "I'm sorry, Great Deku Tree, he didn't tell me what he was going to say. Don't listen to him. He hasn't been sleeping, that's why he's talking crazy. Mido -"

"The Great Deku Tree is still dead," Mido said in a level voice, looking at the ground under his rock. "This one isn't great yet. He's just a baby sprout."

"Mido!" His fairy zipped away like she couldn't be near him. "You horrible boy!"

"It's okay, he's right. I'm still only growing into my power. I'm not offended at all."

The Deku Sprout was a nice tree. He hadn't done anything bad, and he did things that were good. And Mido should have loved him, and he saw how the other Kokiri loved him, and he still could barely even like him. It must be the dark shape that did this. The dark shape got into your body next to all your bones and made you feel awful all the time.

The Deku Sprout said, "Mido, I think you'll be disappointed with the answer to your question. But if you're sure you want to know, I'll tell you."

There were Wolfos in the forest, closer to the village than ever. There were very tall ugly people with armor and clubs in the maze. When Mido tried to sleep he saw stone buildings and heard evil echoes, and someone laughing, and he smelled oily torch smoke and saw it make patterns in the air. And that was the world, and the world was in his head. The thing you half-saw prowling in the sunset, that made you tell everyone to go inside and stay inside until dawn – it was as big as forever and as far as the dead and as close as the ground where they rotted. And when it looked at you you didn't have a choice anymore.

Mido raised his head. His fairy said, "Let's go home, Mido. Listen. If we go home right now and drop this, I won't even tell everyone what a crybaby you've turned into." But Mido said to the Deku Sprout, "You heard me. I want everything."

The Deku Sprout said, "We don't really know."

Mido and his fairy said, "What?"

"Honest, we don't. Even my parent tree could only see so far outside of the forest. What we know is, if a Kokiri leaves these environs, their bond to the forest starts to weaken. After a certain point the bond breaks completely. I don't know if it's distance, or time, or both. But if you go far, or stay away a long time, then…"

"Then what?" said Mido. "If it's been done before, you have to know. Then what?"

"That's exactly why I don't know. Once the bond breaks, and you're no longer a part of the forest… The fairies and other Kokiri won't know you anymore, even if you come back. I think I would, but I don't know for sure. Other Kokiri have left the forest, but we just don't know what happened to them after that. That's why we say you'll die. Because even if you lived…"

"Even if I lived, I'd be dead to you. Okay. I get it." The Sprout was right – that was a disappointing answer. You could go away if you wanted, but you couldn't be missed. Mido heard a familiar ringing in his ears and there was a hot sharp smell, and he knew what that meant, so he leaned forward a little. In a moment blood started trickling out over his lip, and this way it would drip into the dirt and be absorbed instead of staining this rock and making people ask questions. He had a lot of nosebleeds lately, so he'd gotten a knack for this. He said, "Isn't that what happened to Link? Leaving and being lost. You don't have any proof he was a h…" What was the word? "Hylian. He could have been Kokiri all along."

The Deku Sprout fluttered a branch. "If you say so. But, Mido -"

"If I go out in the big world, and meet him there, will I know him?"

"I don't think you will."

"You don't think I'll know him, or you don't think I'll go?"

He wanted to talk to a Great Fairy. He wanted to ask her if she thought this was fair. The Deku Sprout was kind, but he didn't have any good answers, and Mido didn't respect him, so instead Mido pestered and threatened and bullied his fairy until she told him the smartest person she knew about. "But that's outside the forest," she said. "We're not going outside the forest. Remember what the Deku Tree told us -"

"Well, you don't have to go," said Mido. "I'm not making you. You don't have to be my friend. I don't need you."

She went still. She landed on a leaf. "Mido?" Her voice was small and hurt.

He said, "You talked bad about me to the Deku Sprout. You hate me now. You think I'm dumb. But that's fine, I'll find my own way." He thought, Poor Mido. Losing everyone and everything at once. No one even knows how brave I'm being.

"Mido, no. Don't you remember? I've been with you for hundreds of years. We did so many good pranks."

He said, "What does a hundred years mean to me? I can't tell years apart. I can't tell days apart. All of time was the same -"

"- and we were happy!" she said.

"And we were happy," he said, grim. "And now it's different, and we're not. How is that fair? That's what I'm gonna ask your Great Fairy. If we can only be happy when everything's the same, and things can stop being the same… why give us hearts at all?"

His fairy said, "Have you tried ignoring it? Ignoring how things change? The Deku Sprout is getting bigger. Eventually he'll look like the old tree, and time will be the same."

"And where's the new ocarina? And where's the person to play it?"

He was used to winning arguments. He was the Great Mido.

As he was leaving the village Fado said, "If you die, I hope you'll come back and do it here."

His throat hurt. Fado would be nice to his body, he knew. She would plant him in the ground and moss would grow out of him, and then he'd be in Kokiri Forest forever and never worry again. But she wouldn't know that it used to be him. And he wasn't sure it was actually a good trade, being calm at the cost of being dirt.

He said, "I hope so too. Take care of everyone for me."

"You're so silly. We don't need to be taken care of. We have our tree, and everything is going back to normal. And we'll never hurt, and we'll never die. Are you scared?"

"Well, fine. Don't take care of them, if everyone's doing so great. But boss them around a little," he said. She said, "But are you scared?" He said, "Someone has to keep them from getting ideas," and cleared his throat, and walked out onto the bridge. His fairy followed at a distance. As if she didn't know he never changed his mind.

The bridge trembled underfoot. "You are scared," said Fado, and Mido turned on her snapping "That's not me, I'm not doing that," because he wanted to leave with dignity and if anyone remembered him he wanted them to remember him being cool and tough. But also, it really wasn't him doing that. The bridge shook because something was coming from the other side. From outside. Because something in the big world was coming for Kokiri Village.

His first thought was to hide behind Fado, but he told himself Cool and tough, cool and tough. His second thought was this was his fault, because the big dark shape was coming for him, and if he'd gone out to meet it sooner it would have no business coming for the whole village. His thoughts after that didn't come with numbers on them. Barely even words. The bridge shook faster in the rhythm of pounding feet getting close and he imagined a big claw going into his chest or a slingshot bullet going into his eye and he didn't want to die and become dirt after all, even if that was where the Great Deku Tree was.

On the far side of the bridge a white point appeared, and got bigger. A tall person in white clothes. When he got into shouting distance he stopped and waved his arms and yelled in that weird deep tall-person voice – a Hylian voice? - "Hey, you kids! Are you Link's friends?"

Mido and Fado looked at each other. The bridge's rocking slowed and stilled. Mido swallowed his heart down from his throat and yelled back, "Why? What did he do this time?"

"Miss Malon sent me with a message to the fairy boy's friends. The Kokiri. You're Kokiri, aren't you?"

Mido and Fado looked at him. Mido's fairy said, "You don't have to talk to him," like she'd totally forgotten they were about to go out in the big world and have no other kind of person to talk to. Okay, so Mido had forgotten that too.

"There's a party at the ranch in two days," he said. "Ganondorf has been defeated!" he said, and Fado cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled back, "What's a gammondort?"

And Mido didn't leave the forest that day, because he had to go back and tell the others there was a party and see who wanted to go. And he had to hear the Deku Sprout say, "Mido, this will be good for you. You can try the outside world for a little bit with your friends, and then think about what you'll do. There's no need to rush any decisions. The ranch isn't far, and I'm sure that if a group of you goes and you don't stay out more than two days, your bond with the forest won't be damaged." And he had to see the Deku Sprout smile and rustle excitedly and say, "And I want to hear all about the party when you get back!" It was miserable. Everything was the worst. He'd made a hard choice once and then they took it from him and now he had to act normal and get ready to make it again. And after two days he led a group of Kokiri out over the bridge and didn't feel anything, just annoyed.

They walked out of the forest and the cliff walls came out of the forest around them. The fairies could talk to other fairies and find out where things were and the right way to go, so no one had to worry about getting lost. "There's going to be a hill," Mido's fairy told him. "And there will be more of those stone buildings, but with a roof made of wood. It'll smell like animals."

"Yeah, yeah, everyone knows what a ranch is," he lied. He kept walking, with the others behind him, and the two cliff walls overhead started to get farther apart, and shorter, and then weren't overhead at all, and then they sloped down into nothing and there, like it had snuck up on him, was the world.

It was all gold. There were hardly any trees. The sky was huge and bright. There weren't shadows anywhere. There was grass and dirt and rocks and shrubs and it was windy and wide open and far apart. There was no place for anything to hide.

What if he'd had it all backwards? What if the big dark shape lived in the forest and all he'd had to do all this time was push past it?

But how did the tall people live with so few trees, and so small?

"It's up that hill," said his fairy.

"Sh...shut up." There was so much sunlight.

There were so many people in the world. Some of the rocks were people, some of the people were fish, the fat deer with spots were called "cows", and the tall deer with soft noses were "horses." There were white birds that walked on the ground. All the animals were friendly, at least. Some of the people made Mido uneasy, but he recovered some face with the Kokiri by walking around all the buildings and showing them how doorknobs worked. Could you get used to stone buildings? Maybe he would try. One of the tall people, a woman with long orange hair, stopped him going into and out of buildings and pointed to the field where rock people were building a fire. "I'm glad you could make it. The party's out here, though. Don't stress out the cows." Mido frowned at her. "No need to be shy," she said. "The Gorons are sweethearts."

"Shy?" he said, disgusted. "Shy? Do you know who I am?"

"You're from the forest like Link! It's okay, he was confused at first too. But let's talk later, I have to finish cooking -" and she hurried away.

Mido's fairy said mockingly, "'Ooh, don't be shy, little boy. The Gorons are sweethearts.'" Mido said, "Well, we're not." And his fairy said, "The Gorons should be scared of us." He grinned. It felt good agreeing again. It was good to have their old swagger back. He remembered that the world was bright and kind and he was the boss of it.

He turned back to the other Kokiri. "Well? We're here. Don't expect me to decide everything for you. Split up, do what you want, just don't embarrass me." And he found some tall people to talk to, and got to work, trying to trick them into explaining what they were celebrating.

Two of the tall people, a fat man and a skinny man, were leaning on each other and stumbling around and yelling and holding cups full of a yellow water that smelled like rotting. Neither of them had hair on top. Next time he saw her Mido said to the orange-haired tall woman, "Are you the boss here? I think those men are poisoned."

"They're just drunk," she said, "it's something we Hylians do at parties." She frowned fondly at them.

Mido said, "The poison. Is that what happened to their hair?"

She bent over laughing. "You fairy boys are too much." Mido wasn't sure if he liked that or not. The sun was getting lower and the world was turning more and more yellow, and all he had figured out was that Link had done something, and there was someone called a princess, and a big pig, and now everything was supposed to be okay. "And the Sages?" he asked, carefully, and the woman he was talking to yelled "Nabooru and the Sages!" and then everybody yelled "The Sages!" and a lot of them held up mugs and took long drinks out of them. So that didn't tell him anything. The other thing he learned was that all of the people, not just Kokiri, liked to have songs and dancing. Resol twirled by with his face covered by a wooden shape and said, "Mido, look! I got a mask!" And it kept getting darker, and it started to get loud.

The sunlight had been so big, when they first came out into the field. But he saw now: the night was just as big. In the Forest there was fairy glow all around, bouncing off the leaves and the surface of the water, and half the time there were fireflies. Here there were only eight Kokiri and their eight fairies, which wasn't nearly enough light for such a big sky. Nothing to reflect the shine off of, just grass and air. There was the big white moon and the colored rings of the rock people's fire, and a glow from inside the ranch buildings, but outside of that, the dark -

The ground shook when the rock people danced, and they danced a lot. The Hylians got louder the more poison they drank. There were tall sharp women among them, also dancing, also drinking poison, but mostly playing a game that involved a knife. The fish people seemed nice, though. The fish people seemed quiet. Mido decided he'd rather hang around with them. One of them told him about a place called an "ocean," with water so deep you couldn't see the end. He thought about big heavy things moving hidden in black water and decided the "ocean" wasn't for him. Not this "field" place, either, with the wind and howling.

"There's cities," he muttered to his fairy. "There's mountains and caves. We'll learn about all of 'em and then think about it." She said, "They won't be better than our forest," and he worried that maybe she was right and he'd look stupid for fighting so hard to leave, but all he said was "Well, we'll see."

Some of the knife women came away from their knife game and did a dance with a lot of kicking and leaping in front of the colored fires. Then lots more Hylians wanted to do the knife game with them and somebody got cut and the orange-haired boss woman ran around getting bandages and telling people they should know better. Meanwhile Refa and two other Kokiri – Mido couldn't see who at this distance – had grabbed one of the other Hylians between them and turned him upside down and were rushing back and forth playing like they would throw him into the fire or a fence or a wall. A bunch of Hylians in matching blue coats, one with his hand all wrapped up in bandage, sang a song together, and all of them were bad at it. No one else seemed to mind that they were bad at it, except Mido and his fairy. At least he had her to complain to. Flames flickered orange and red and blue and the stars looked blurry and weak, and sometimes the wind would push all the fire and a big puff of smoke one way, and sometimes it would blow the other way and make everything smell like sweaty animal. And everyone was too big and moving too much until you couldn't even think.

And one of the rock people said, "Oh! Miss Malon, you sing so well! Will you help us with our favorite dance tune?" And the orange-haired woman spun around and laughed and said of course she would, and the rock person said, "It goes like this!"

But it wasn't their song. It was Saria's.

And there was dancing and singing and laughing and clapping and everyone loved this song even if they'd never known her. Even if they'd never seen the green places where she made the song or the temple that took her away. They loved the song and they were happy, and Mido stood still with his ears ringing while people danced past him, and he remembered the Deku Sprout scolding him. She's not for you. You're greedy. And he looked dizzily up at the rock people and thought, from very far away, that he'd like it if they died.

"Mido," said his fairy. Someone tripped over him and said rude words and apologies and kept dancing. He walked toward the fire because it was somewhere to walk to and he couldn't remember how to leave. "Mido," said someone. "Mido, hey," said someone else. He didn't listen.

"Hey, hey, do you know this song?" Tila was bouncing up and down on her toes. She wore a mask like a maple leaf with lopsided eye holes and she was shouting louder than she needed to and he tried to get away from her in the crowd. But she grabbed his arm. "Mido, come on, do you know this song?" He looked at her. His ears were full of noises and his eyes had the echo of the fire in them so he could barely see. She said "Because I know this song! I heard it a long time ago! Do you remember Saria?"

And she was on the ground. The fat Hylian was pulling Mido off her, saying in a blurry voice that smelled like the poison drink, "Violent… violent children. You don't like t'see it. C'mon, play nice, be happy."

"Take your hands off me," said Mido, and the fat man did. The skinny man and a rock man were bending over Tila and talking to her, and between their bodies Mido could see her pale face with her mask knocked half off and blood on her cheek and blood in her mouth. The rock man helped her up. She spat a piece of a tooth into her hand. Mido brushed himself off, spun on his heel, and went away from the fire. By the time the blood stopped thumping in his head and he could hear the music again, it was a different song. Under his breath he snarled to his fairy, "How dare she. How dare she. Do you remember Saria?" and his fairy said "Please calm down" and he said "I asked you a question."

"Fairies always remember," she said.

"Then why aren't you sadder?" His head hurt. "Why is it only me? I have to do everything. Disrespectful."

A very gray wrinkly person said "Young man, what's that on your face?"

He touched his forehead. There was a dent in it, shaped like the edge of Tila's mask. "Blood," he said. "What's it to you?"

"Don't be silly, that's -"

Mido showed the gray person his knuckles. "Here, too."

"How are children always covered in sap," the person said, sitting back, "when there isn't even a tree for half a mile?"

Mido sneered and went away. His legs weren't working right. His fairy said "Mido, please." He said "Shuddup." By the fence was the big shadow of a fat fish man, and Mido went that way. He wanted to sit down and not be bothered.

"I saw you attack that girl," said the man who was a fish.

"If you're scared of me, you can move. I'm sitting here."

The man who was a fish didn't look like he could move fast on land even if he wanted to, and he didn't move now. Mido sank down next to him on the ground. The cut in his forehead sent a new jab of pain every time his heart beat or every time one of the rock people came down hard in their spinning dance. He'd bitten his tongue. He saw two of everything. He squeezed his eyes shut and put his head in his hands.

"The party doesn't suit you, young man?" said the fish man.

Mido didn't raise his head. "You've got room to talk. You're sitting over here in the dark too."

"Perhaps. But one likes to see children happy. It's natural for adults to be wistful, but children -"

Mido started laughing, nastily, into his hands. It only made his head hurt more. "I've been a kid for a really long time, Mr. Fish. A really long time. It's not that great."

"'Mr. Fish?'" said the fish man, surprised. "I'm normally addressed as 'Majesty.'"

"Mido."

"Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mido."

"No it isn't." The rock people kept dancing and Mido's head kept pounding. He had to think of a way to make Majesty stop talking to him. He'd picked a bad place to sit and he didn't have the strength to find a new one. "What're you over here moping for? Is it just 'cause your legs are too short to dance?"

Majesty was quiet so long Mido thought it had worked. That was a relief. It was harder than usual to think of mean stuff to say. But then Majesty said, and his voice sounded distant like he wasn't looking at Mido at all, "My wife died – almost nine years ago now. Ruto was the only one of our eggs that hatched, and she became even more precious to me then… I spoiled her so. I let her do whatever she wanted. And despite that, she grew up to be…"

Mido said, "Is a 'wife' someone that you love a lot?"

"Yes. In my case, yes."

"I don't know how long ago our tree died. It was a while. Nothing's been right since then. And now Saria's gone to save the world or whatever." He didn't know why he was talking. It hurt inside his skull to talk at all. He would have stopped if he could. "I don't mind if the world is saved, but why couldn't it be someone I liked less?"

"Saria is one of the Sages? My Ruto, too. My condolences."

They stopped talking. Over by the fire all kinds of people laughed and shouted and sang. Like they had no idea. Like they'd never looked at the dark or it had never looked at them. Mido kept his head down and his eyes shut. When does it stop hurting? He remembered asking Saria, When does it go away? and he remembered that she never said it did.

"Mido," his fairy said. "Mido, look up." "No," he said. But she said, "No, Mido, really, quit sulking, you have to see this." He said, "I don't care." And she said, "You idiot, look at the sky now or hate yourself forever, what's it matter to me," and he could hear Majesty shifting around uncomfortably beside him and he said "All right, shut up, shut up, I'll look -"

And the light blinded him. Points of light raining down, sparkly as metal and as green as home. And he looked up further, to the place the light came from, an even brighter greener light shooting across the black sky in between him and the stars, and other lights followed in its trail and he should have told Majesty to look too but he couldn't speak, he just stumbled to his feet wanting to run after them and find the place where they went, but he was too dizzy and he blinked and they were already gone. It wasn't fair for a thing to go away from you that fast. It wasn't fair to go away at all.

Majesty said, "I hope they saw us, too." And then after a while, "Oh, Ruto."

Mido looked at him. "That's it? You're just letting go?"

"What else can I do? She gave up her place in this world so there would be a world for others."

Mido said, "Do you want a world without her?"

Majesty looked down at Mido. The light of the fire bounced around at strange angles in the jelly of his huge hopeless eyes. "It's the only kind of world on offer now. We go home. We carry on."

"We go home," said Mido's fairy. "We carry on. I think parties aren't really your thing, huh, Mido? It's okay. We'll go back to familiar places and forget all about it. It'll be safe again, and you'll settle right back in. You'll see."

Go back, and forget. Pretend Link never came, and Saria never liked him better – wait for the Deku Sprout to grow up, block off that hole in the Forest Temple wall, wait for all the stones to fall off each other and stop laughing at you and threatening you. Children should be happy. He had never been made for the places of the tall people, and nothing good came of looking. This was where change came from, the thing that ruined and killed. You could walk forever in a field and never see the ones you'd lost again. Or you could never see them again at home, and save the wear on your shoes.

He'd go home to his forest. He'd be Kokiri. Whatever had changed in him, he'd change it back, and stop for good. And everything would be how it was supposed to be.

His head throbbed. He should apologize to Tila first. He'd made her bleed kind of a lot. He would say sorry and the fairies would fix her and tomorrow they'd go home. In a few days she'd grow a new tooth. It'd be like nothing ever happened.

He looked at his Kokiri, still dancing around the fire. The light hurt worse than ever, like somebody was pushing all their fingers against his eyeballs, and the shadows of people swung around and flickered. Two of everyone, and there were no corners to anything. He kept looking for Tila and thinking he'd found her, but no one would hold still, and - all the Kokiri had those leaf masks now. They were all flat and faceless and pale green in the orange light. And tiny next to everyone else, with skinny arms and skinny legs, bending strange ways. Mido scrunched his eyes shut against the pain in his head. He opened them again and looked for Tila around the edges of the group. He'd hurt her, so she might be resting. His skull was at least as hard as hers, so if he was in such rough shape himself, he'd definitely given her something to think about. Might've scrambled her whole brain. If it was that bad, he might have to apologize twice.

But he didn't see any other Kokiri outside the main group. Just himself. They were all well away from the cold dark places. Dancing with each other and Hylians and fishes and rocks and cows. One of them – one of them, he thought maybe – it was hard to keep track of any one person with his eyes, just looking at stuff wasn't supposed to hurt so much – but there was shiny dark orange around one side of her mask. The way blood dried into a sticky shell before it got hard. The gray Hylian person had said he was covered in sap, but that was what came out of trees. It was blood when it came out of Kokiri. What were they supposed to have, water? "Do you bleed water?" he asked Majesty, and Majesty said, "Mido, perhaps you'd like to sit back down." But he'd seen Tila, so he had to go to her.

She said, "Mido, hi! Where's your mask?"

"What?"

"We're all wearing masks! They remind us of our tree. You should buy one too, did you bring your tall-people money for trading?"

"You stole my money. Years ago." Was it years? He had no idea. He never had any idea.

"That sounds like something I would do!" She climbed up onto the back of a cow, who didn't seem to mind, and hugged her knee and looked down at him. "You should get a mask. Your face looks really sour."

"Tila," he said. "I'm sorry I beat you up."

"What?" she said. "You're a bully. You hit. It's not that important."

"But – didn't it hurt? Aren't you mad? Weren't you scared I was never gonna stop?"

"Mido," she said, sounding bored, "we're at a party," and slid down off the cow's back and danced away.

He watched her go. He felt sick. He didn't ask his fairy, Is that what we're supposed to be like? He knew the answer. Forget pain, and want for nothing. The Deku Sprout was an okay guy, he'd do for a new Deku Tree eventually. Fado was fun to play with, she could go back to being Mido's favorite. And it would all be fine and good and peaceful and he should be happy about it.

Only -

A door opened up in his mind, into the dark blurry time when they sang Saria's song. He saw what had happened then. He saw -

He snapped his head forward and smashed it into Tila's face. Something went crack. Colors fizzed behind his eyes. She said "oh," soft, like she was too surprised to hurt yet. She swayed. None of the tall people had seen anything. They were singing. Everything he saw was red. He dropped a shoulder and tackled Tila to the ground. Her knee went into his stomach but not like she meant it. The tall people were singing and either they sang it all wrong, or the version of the song in Mido's head was wrong. He hated it. Hated. Hated. Hated. He put a hand around her skinny neck and pushed it down. And he punched her. Felt her head bounce off the ground. Punched her again and her mask went sideways into her jaw. There was blood. It shone in the firelight. Her hand grabbed his hand on her throat, bent his finger back until he yelled and let go. He would have bitten her, next. Or he would've gotten in her face and said, "Do I remember Saria? Do I remember the Deku Tree we used to have? Do you think? Do you think I remember how   NOTHING THAT I WANT IS EVER MINE?"

But that was when the fat man stopped him. That was when he went away and talked to Mr. Fish.

"I could've killed her," he said. His fairy didn't answer. "She doesn't know." He looked at his hands. They shook. "She doesn't know that…"

"She forgave you," his fairy said. "So it's fine."

"But… should it be fine? When there are things out there. And things…" His forehead throbbed. He touched the place. The blood was cooling and turning hard. "Things in me."

She said, "You're Kokiri. You don't have to worry about 'should.' You go back to the forest, and everything will be fine. The forest is the place where things are fine. Honestly, Mido."

She was right. Of course she was. The Kokiri would be safe back at home, as long as nothing changed. They would be happy, as long as nothing changed. The fire cut a shape out of the field's black night, and the dancers by the fire tore holes in the glow with their shadows and broke it up and made it black again. The shapes all jumbled together, and nobody saw it. The way there was only a thin wall of light between them and something else. The way that light would burn out by tomorrow.

The Kokiri looked small and strange and harmless and wrong, and nothing would bother them until the day the big dark snapped them up. And his head was splitting. And they scared him almost worse than the world.