In Nayru's Palm

When Rue channeled our goddess again, the pair of us was sitting on the sandy floor of a cave, much like the one that Impa and I had taken shelter in seven years before. Water dropped bleakly from ceiling to the puddles below, where some hardy blue fish had been able to survive for Nayru knew how long.

CHOSEN.

I turned my head to my right, where Rue stood on four feet, ears up. When she met my eyes, hers were completely blue, with no pupil to mar the perfection of the color.

ONE OF THE OTHER SAGES HAS PASSED ON. WE MUST CONTACT HER QUICKLY, AND LEARN HER SIGNATURE.

“What’s the point, Goddess?” I groaned, leaning my head against the wall. Footfalls trudged through the sand, and a white head rested on my lap.

YOU KNOW WHAT THE POINT IS, CHOSEN, she told me. WHY DO YOU ASK ME THIS?

“We have all the time in the world to go get the signature of the Sage. The temple swallowed our Hero. There’s no point.”

THE TEMPLE WILL RELINQUISH THE HERO WHEN FARORE DEEMS HIM READY. WHEN THAT MAY BE, WE DO NOT KNOW, BUT WE NEED TO BE READY FOR WHEN HE IS RELEASED.

“Whenever that is.”

Nayru growled through Rue’s throat. DO YOU DOUBT ME, EVEN NOW, CHOSEN?

I sighed. “No, Goddess. I do not doubt you.”

THEN WHAT IS TROUBLING YOU?

I chewed on my lip. “After all this time, it is hard to imagine that he will ever come. Even when he is ready, it will not save the lives that have been already lost to Ganondorf.”

BETTER THE HUNDREDS OF LIVES LOST NOW THAN THE THOUSANDS WE’D LOSE WITH ACTION TOO HASTY. THE HERO MUST BE READY FOR US TO BE SUCCESSFUL.

I placed my hands on my knees and breathed deeply through my nose. After I had counted to sixty, I opened my eyes and looked down at the blue eyes.

“Where do I find her?”

YOU WILL KNOW IF YOU FEEL. With that, the inhuman presence left my companion, and Rue, red-eyed again, leaned up and licked my face. I petted her now-snowy fur before returning my hands to my knees and breathing again. And with a bit of focus, as if I mentally adjusted the glass of a scope, I thought to the gossip stone in the cave with me, and, as if that was the extra looking glass I needed, I was suddenly aware of the whole of Hyrule. I touched the vile souls of Poes, reached to Kakariko where I knew Impa resided, though I hadn’t spoken to her since before Soun had died. For her to be safe, she and I must remain parted. My caretaker walked the village with her father, discussing a shipment of milk from Lon Lon Ranch. Alive and well, and no Sage haunting the Shadow Temple.

I cast farther, gaining in altitude until I was at the peak of Death Mountain. Something evil was there, but evil was everywhere, and there was no Sage in the Fire Temple yet.

I avoided the market as I tentatively traveled west, hoping against hope that the sage I sought was not there. Even with Nayru’s guidance, I doubted I would be able to speak calmly to a Gerudo ever again. I knew in my heart I must do so eventually, since the Gerudo were the only ones to worship at that temple, but for now I rejected the idea even as I stumbled upon a blackness so deep I almost lost myself. I pulled out quickly, after I recognized a soul trapped in limbo among two of the darkest entities I had ever encountered. I doubled over in the sand, my mind back with me, and heaved, the pain and sadism so intense that I could still feel it in my gut. Rue whined, and I steadied myself. Stretched out to the south, I encountered a different sort of dark vibe than I had ever felt, but no Sage in the Zora’s temple of water. That left one temple for me to search, and it filled me with almost as much apprehension as the Spirit Temple would have.

For no person that was not of the forest’s and entered anyway was lost to its grasp forever.

The bridge to the forests was, for me, the hardest to cross. Rue stopped on the threshold of the bridge and whined, but the flashing in her eyes told me what she could not; Nayru wanted me to go alone.

I came to the other side and found myself instantly assailed by a giant plant, lunging against its stem as if it were a tether. When it could not reach me, it hissed and belched
noxious fumes at me. There was little doubt in my mind that it was poison.

I could see what could pass for houses clustered along the paths through the grass, but as far as I could see, there wasn’t a forest child in sight. Not a good sign.

The forest seemed already determined that I meet death for entering where I was not welcome, since just about everything I passed either shot at me, tried to bite me, or, in the case of a spider larger than me and decorated with skull patterns, tried to tie me up with webbing. Finally I found a vine to climb and got to the top of a rise where I could see the whole village beneath me. It was then that I found the sign behind me, and, upon reading it, steeled myself before entering the deeper forest.

Immediately I was shown paths everywhere. I could hear some sort of flutes playing, and voices, and laughter, and yet silence. The whole atmosphere immediately riddled my skin with goosebumps.

I stood, indecisive, at the crossroads before steeling myself and moving left, only to be shot in the arm by some sort of seed. I looked up, and a small imp stood on an old tree stump, watching me.

“Excuse me, can you help—” It raised it’s—flute?—again and shot another seed, which struck me painfully in the rib, hard enough to bruise. I backed off quickly, hairs all over my body rising at the pure malice in the creature’s eyes. Beneath the imp, I could see an emaciated figure at the base of the tree, but every time I stepped toward him, I was shot. It seemed that the imp had taken the human for his own, another fool to be eaten by the forest. Like me.

I ran, but it wasn’t the way I had gone in. I could see the bridge before me, but it was much higher up than it should have been, considering how high I had climbed to reach this altitude, and yet it was almost level with where I was standing. Beneath the bridge, glowing eyes watched, and bushes rustled. I backed away, and was rewarded with a seed in the back. The exit seemed ages away, but somehow I reached it with only a couple more sore spots on my body.

And then I couldn’t remember from which way I had entered. Panicking slightly, I trotted ahead and found a different scenery. More bushes rustled, and I leaned over the rail to see two more imps watching me with those hateful beady eyes. Even as I was wary of them, their flute music snagged at my ears, calling me to come down to them, to dance with them. No human seemed to be down with them, but as I shook out of the trance I reminded myself that I had no desire to fill the vacancy.

I turned right—back into the village. There was no way that that was possible, since it was the same entrance that I had just walked out of, but yet the way had been totally different. I scrutinized the way, feeling a bit alarmed, but I set my jaw and walked in again, this time going dead straight…to walk into the village again. Freaky.

My body was shaking, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Even as I looked, it was like the forest itself sent a mist that shrouded the village below, and I knew I would find no way out.

Against all contrary instincts, I walked back into the woods.

Forest. Woods. Mist. Seeds. Imps. Singing. Calling. Stumbling. Falling. Rising. Trees. Music. Left. Right.

Everywhere I turned, there was no way forward. A dread fell over me as I realized I could wander until I died here. If I grew hungry, would I be able to eat? Would anything I tried to ingest be poison, or would it be fairy fruit, to keep me here forever?

Forest. Woods. Mist. Imps. Singing. Calling. Trees. Left. Right. Despair.