Dark Sages: Saria's Tale

This is a one-shot story that tells a crucial chapter of Saria's life, inside the universe of the Dark Sages. It is set shortly after Link opens the Door of Time, in his effort to beat the King to the Master Sword. (So in the original timeline this would fall in the fourth year of Link's Big Nap.)

For those not familiar with my story (and virtually no-one is, very little of it is online): the King of Hyrule, rather than Ganon, is endeavoring after the Triforce, and his actions have cast Hyrule into civil war. He has already managed to steal the Spiritual Stone of the Forest, and kill the Deku Father as well, but he has yet to conquer the woods. To do so, the King has sent an army (mostly of Hylian soldiers) to raze the Kokiri...


"The Hero of Time will suffer his namesake. We cannot rely on his time being the same as our time, for it was never that way."


Horns blasted. Drums roared. Steel sang. The Hylian army was past the Wakened Trees.

Saria dashed down a forest trail, her breath coming raggedly out of the sides of her mouth. Behind her, her fairy desperately tried to call out directions, though she too was struggling to move this fast. The Hylians were past the trees.

The trail rounded and a small stream came into view. "Follow it!" screamed Saria's fairy, her usually lilting voice straining. "It will get you to the Hidden Deku, tell him that the Hylians are past-"

The fairy's voice cut off abruptly. Saria dared a glance back, only to have silvery fairy blood splatter into her eyes. A murderous arrow arched past Saria, streaked with fairy blood. Another flew by, this one intended for Saria. The Hylians.

The Hylians are monsters. Hissed Saria, with every fiber of her body. A wet splat haunted her ears as her companion collided with her shoulder, touching Saria one last time before she hit the ground, never to fly again. Saria's muscled sang with hatred and she ran faster than the wind.

The Hylians were past the Wakened Trees, and the nightmare had begun.


West XII was born Hylian. He was raised as the son of a Hylian guard. When he was twelve, he was singled out to be a Hylian Royal Guard. His sworn duty was to protect the Royalty of Hyrule. Then, when he was twenty-four, he was chosen to be a King's Hand- he became more than a Hylian, he became the essence of Hylian rule. He ate, drank, breathed, sweated, and bled Hyrule. It dwelt in his soul, fueled his body, and dominated his mind.

He was a Hylian in the deepest sense of the word.

He and a new Hylian officer were standing in front of a quickly pitched command tent. The officer was a good six foot tall, but seemed like a thin mouse next to the mountainous King's Hand. Weapons glinted on West XII's body, giving him a distinctly jagged profile, even though his armor was more leather and chainmail than typical for a Hand. Propped against one hip was his helmet- a design based on the Mask of Truth, topped and sided by a bloodthirsty hawk. The Hawk surrounded the Mask with sharp edges and seemed perfectly natural, despite the irony involved in having Truth on the face of the King's Hands.

"Captain Redwing, a word." His voice was deep, slow, and placid. Even as a child he had spoken like a sleeping giant. Now he sounded like a ReDead with an education. He did not turn from the scrying mirror laid out like a table before them, but rather let his eyes glide laconically across the images fading to and from the mirror surface.

"Yes, West?" replied the young captain he was addressing. The captain turned and leaned towards the Hand, moving his attention from the incoming visions to the towering warrior.

"Don't call me West. You will refer to me as either XII or sir. West designates a province, but we are on a mission, therefore it is extraneous and it relates to a common name. It is not a name." West XII had almost forgotten his old name- it had no relevance any more.

"Yes... sir." came the nervous reply. The captain was a significant shade lighter, and his shoulders had hunched defensively. It was easy to see that he had never worked with a King's Hand.

"As I was saying, bring me a horse and three of your best riders. Preferably of Rancher origin."

"Sir... the forest is too dense for horses. They'll sprain ankles and die." The captain was clearly worried about losing four horses on his first tour, and the ramifications it would have on his report.

A slow, unblinking gaze turned to rest upon him. The captain had a horrible moment in which it seemed that the weapons strapped to XII's back were lifting themselves out of their sheaths, like wings unfurling from a demon.

"... But if you really want them, I'm sure I can make them available," the captain stammered. "I... I'll go and tend to that..."

As the captain scurried away, a shadow of a smile crossed XII's features. I love that trick he thought as his broadsword lowered back into place. His arrows rustled as they lowered into their quiver, and he silenced them with another unspoken spell.


Panic had worn down to horrible alarm. Saria continued the mad dash towards Kokiri Forest, wishing that it wasn't so far, or perhaps that she had a Wakened Tree to ride, so as to recover her strength. She felt terribly weary, and desperately need a rest. All she wanted was to lie down like the Kokiri in front of her...

Disbelief ground her to a halt. There, sprawled on his back, lay Mido. What in Nayru's name does he think he's doing? fumed Saria, quivering in outrage.

It was then that she saw the blood beneath him. A growing pool of red liquid staining the forest path. She finally registered his labored breathing and gasps of pain. A tear worked across his face, the first tear Saria had ever seen him shed. His left hand gripped the earth sporadically, shaking when it was not tightly clenched to the ground. His entire right arm was limp and unmoving- a deep cut in his shoulder had cut through most of the nerves and muscle, though the cut stopped once it reached the bone.

Standing on his chest was his fairy. Not far from where he lay were both of her wings, crushed into the dirt. Saria could make out a thin trail where the poor fairy had dragged herself over to Mido, so that she could cry, not for herself, but for him. Her tears fell into a bloody hole in his shirt, through the damaged tissue to his exposed heart. As Saria watched, the tears began to steady the heart and heal the tissue above it.

For a second Mido's eyes focused a bit and he regained a bit of his labored breathing. His throat worked for several seconds before any words came out, and even then they were very faint. “…white gloves… he just punched me and… even the horse… was evil… Rifi, are you…” concern filled his visage, but then he lost what hold he had over his body and his voice strangled away. His eyes flicked about madly for a minute before they stilled, unable to see though his pain.

Mido was strong, and had grown fierce and noble in the war, but even he couldn't fight back such wounds without more. Saria dipped her head, praying that she wasn't losing to much time. She cupped her hands over Mido's arm and began to incant the strongest healing spells she knew.

The trees along the path leant inwards. Panic coursed through Saria once more, until she recognized what it was- the Hidden Deku Tree was here, or at least as much as he was ever anywhere. The trees which were filled with his essence stretched further until their longest branches met directly above Mido. A cool, quiet, but somehow painful sound began to whisper throughout the trees. It sounded like rain, but there was not water falling from the sky, and only blood wet the ground.

Light played at the meeting point of the limbs. A complex knot of energy formed and began to flow downwards, working slowly towards Mido. As Saria gazed upon it, the knot transformed into a great drop of blood, falling towards Mido at an agonizing pace. The drop touched his chest and he convulsed, throwing Saria away from him. He began to moan, and beads of sweat formed all over his body. A horrible crack sounded as one of his legs un-broke itself. Layers of skin fell from his arm, revealing pink flesh beneath.

The trees parted, dead leaves falling from all of them and their bark grey. The soft voice of the Hidden Deku Tree whispered through the wind, "It is not enough. I am sorry, Rifi."

The fairy was somehow still standing upon Mido's shaking chest. Her tear-drained face turned up, sorrow lining her eyes. "I tried so hard, but I couldn't stand up against them and help. The horse, it stepped on me and crushed my wings..." Her voice broke and her chest wracked with dry sobs.

"Shh, shh Rifi. You were brave, you were willing. I cannot ask more than you have already done."

"But I can do more. And I will, for him." The little fairy straightened up, the stumps of her wings steadying. "I can save him still."

Saria opened her mouth to protest, to try and stop the fairy. The wind also swept up to try and stop her, but without wings she could not be blown away. Leaning forwards, she struggled up to Mido's neck and threw both arm around him. Beams of light shot from her heart into his body, stilling his convulsions. His unseeing eyes suddenly focused, and a single word flowered from his lips.

"Sacrifice..."

As he spoke, Rifi fell to the right, her body dissolving into ash. Her feet left two thin trails of ash across Mido's neck, like grey scars. He rose to his feet and touched his neck, but the trails stayed unchanged. A new kind of pain wracked Mido's face as he gazed upon his unmarked hand. Something else changed as he gazed upon it, and he clenched it into a fist. The tendons in it flexed, followed by the muscles in his arm, and then his shoulders pulled back. He leant back and his entire body tensed, and then he let out a deep cry of vengeance. When Mido straightened, his body was no longer that of a boy, but an adult man, tall and lean.

The wind blew softly into Saria's face. "Saria, you are far overdue at the village. Fly child, fly to your kin, for I cannot help them... The man who did this to Mido will be there very soon, and three others are close on his heals." The wind at her back, she dashed once more towards the village, hoping against hope that Mido's life had not come at the price of others.


Saria gasped for oxygen as she approached her home village of Kokiri Forest. Her lungs begged for air, but there was no time, she had wasted it. She had to get home, she had to warn the injured and resting. Her feet ached and her hands rebelled from the tortuous run to the waterfall, which fell into the village. She hoped that the water streaming past her ankles would break her fall into the waterfall pond. Her vision blurred for a second and she hastily rubbed the smoke from her eyes so she could-

Smoke?

"NO! No No No nononono!" Saria screamed as she saw a thick cloud of smoke where her home village should be. Other screams echoed off the cliff walls of the community. Screams of horror from her sisters. Agony pealed from her brothers. A horrible groan from her patron, the Deku Son. In all of her years alive, Saria had never heard the faintest sound of discontent or pain from the optimistic tree. It broke her heart to hear him fatally wounded.

They were burning him alive, and her brothers had been cut down trying to defend him.

In the middle of the clearing stood a man wearing pure white gauntlets, his horse tethered near the edge of the clearing. Kokiri of all professions and philosophies charged at him blindly with weapons drawn. Even standing still, he seemed to be death itself, cutting down the enraged Kokiri like they were blades grass. And then he began to move forwards, and it was a dance from the worst of nightmares.

The gauntlets waltzed though a crowd of boys Saria had once had shooting contests with. They slung through a gang she had wrestled with. They glided through a group she had played hide-and-seek with.

The gauntlets murdered her childhood, and the horror lay in that he did it as if he was sleeping. Without even getting a drop of blood on his hands, he rent apart all that she held dear. He didn't even have his helmet on, and his eyes were heavy and lidded. His heavy boots bit into the grass, but didn't throw any dirt.

The gauntlets seized a boy by the neck, lifted him into the air, and snapped his neck with a single hand. A dagger appeared in his other hand and then flew into another boy. A long whip sprang off his leg and cut deep into a third boys' chest.

In the middle of the village he killed every single boy Saria knew. And as he did so, the three men with him did nothing but restrain the girls. If a girl attacked the man, he would throw her bodily in the direction of the other three men, who would tie her hand and feet together in a single knot. Even though the men obviously knew the knot better than their own mothers, they could barely keep up with the killer in the middle.

Saria collapsed to her knees, the water flowing around her. A gleaming pebble beside her knee tipped and rolled over the edge, plummeting out of sight. She wept bitterly, her tears falling with the waterfall before her, and despaired for her race. But the Deku Tree had other plans.

"Go! Fly, my children!" boomed the Deku Son. "Fly to the far woods! Save yourselves and fight forevermore! Do not rest till we are avenged!" Then, with a roar to be matched by none other, he was consumed in flames, his final wish echoing through his forest for untold miles. Magic, dark and angry, billowed from the flames and rippled in every direction. As the wave hit Saria she could feel it burn into her soul, full of need and hate. With a yell, she rose from the water and turned away, tongues of fire rising from the water about her ankles.


XII felt the magic hit him like a thousand swords, biting into his flesh. He grunted from the pain of it, knowing that it was meant as much for him as the remaining Kokiri. A new hatred for the forest sprung up in him.

Where is my army? XII wondered, irritated. Two fingers sprang to the spell tattooed into his jaw. The runes lit up under his leather-clad fingers, and all of a sudden he could hear dozens of officers, all written into the same spell. He was deeply irked by the slowness of their progress.

"ALL OFFICERS ARE TO CONVERGE UPON THE KOKIRI VILLAGE AT ONCE, ON PAIN OF TREASON." XII bellowed into the spell. "KILL THE BOYS AND CAPTURE THE GIRLS, METHODS ARE OF NO CONCERN. DO IT!"

Deep in the woods he could hear the lines of soldiers redouble their pace. In minutes they would arrive and begin to scour the area. If they didn't get lost.


Saria ran as though the goddesses themselves were on her heels. She flew through the treetops as fast as she could, her limbs a blur of motion. She had to get to the Forest Temple, and the safest way she knew was through the canopy of the forest.

Below her dashed four Hylian Scouts, moving unnaturally fast. Some sorcery propelled them at a rate no ordinary person could hope to sustain, and therefore they stayed just below her, their eyes darting up to keep track of her location. She could hear their curses and exchanges below her, and they spoke like wolves.

They were infused with passion magic. Magic that burned off their emotions to give them power, and consequently drained their emotions later, but threw them into them fully now. Not unlike adrenaline, though Saria sourly, noting her own impassioned state. But she was slowly tiring, and the path to the Temple was arduous…

Oh gods! Suddenly she was plummeting from the trees towards a rocky clearing. She tried to flail her arms, but nothing happened- they were just too tired. I can’t even manage a scream, she though absently as she plummeted downwards.

WHUD.

It hurt like the fires of the sun, but she was unable to do anything but roll over. She slowly forced her eyes to focus until finally she could see. And there, standing above her, were the four Hylian scouts. Anger, and something else, glittered in their eyes. Something she had never seen before, but it chilled her to the bone.

Cold waves of fear washed across her, clashing miserably with the warm blood on her. Something about their expressions, the set of the jaws, the way their eyes moved. She couldn't seem to figure it out, until one of them reached up and took off his breastplate-

Lust.

For a moment Saria considered passing out. She wanted to. But deep inside her, something fought against it. She watched in silent horror as the first of the scouts contemptuously removed his armor and tunic, and loosened his belt. Two of the others seized her arms and head, and the last one took up a sentry position nearby.

This isn’t real, Saria thought desperately. This can’t be real, there are no men, my friends are alive, everything is fine-

Suddenly a warm hand was thrust between her legs, and a hoarse sob escaped her lips. The scout smiled cruelly, and removed his belt completely, allowing his pants to drop. A tear slowly worked down Saria’s face.

The scout’s coarse lips found their way onto her bare flesh. Saria was in semi-human form, so the bark of her skin was clothes enough under normal circumstances. Suddenly she felt more naked than she had ever felt in her life. She willed herself to become more like a tree, and for a second her skin roughened into a thicker bark.

Suddenly rigid fingers were thrust into her, and her flesh softened of it’s own accord. Deep instincts fought against her intellect, and she found her flesh becoming smooth and soft despite her will. A new flow of blood worked down her leg as the offending fingers began to work deeper.

Horror welled up in her. She knew what was next.

The fingers were removed.

Her legs were forced farther apart.

A moment of pain and shame.

Saria felt the world bend in, hurting her soul.

…

…

Suddenly, the world exploded. Something inside of her lashed out. A horrible scream erupted from the man atop her, a scream no man could make. Superheated air forced itself out of his lungs and through his throat, burning his mouth. His skin turned a dark crimson, and then suddenly his blood literally boiled out of him.

He exploded screaming. The two holding Saria down were frozen for an instant in shock- that was all she needed. She ripped her arms free from their grasps and curled up. She could feel what to do, and knew she had an entire three seconds to do it. Three seconds which were long enough for her to walk to the Temple of Time and back, with breathers.

Her arms hardened, as was normal for any Kokiri that felt threatened or sad. Then they roughened up, like they were supposed to when a Kokiri felt anger and hatred. Then they did something she had never even heard of- they splintered and grew thorns. Giant, dagger sized thorns that looked to be serrated and poisonous. She meant to kill, and she had the right to. Her body changed to give her a weapon she had never even dreamed about having.

She thrust her right arm into the stomach of the man to her left. She solemnly watched the droplets of blood exit his back, until she saw part of his spine and bits of vital organs. Satisfied that he was effectively dead, she turned to the other.

Two of her three seconds were gone, and the man to her right had managed to turn a bit since the death of the first scout. Saria decided to uppercut him, letting her blades bit deep into his chest before her fist hit his face.

By the time the disembodied face had landed on the ground next to the body, Saria had gotten up and walked to the man acting as sentry. She stood in front of him and contemplated his face for a moment. She wanted to know her enemy. Finished, she placed her hands on his hips, left hand to right hip and vice versa, and let time resume its normal pace.

“Does your King know how to dance?” She asked the horrified man as he registered her presence and then her position. But before he could answer she ripped her arms up and across, leaving a bloody X on his torso. “Not that it matters, I doubt I’ll get to do the honors.”

I wonder if Link can do that. Saria wondered, remembering the timelessness feeling. Then she laughed out loud, her voice echoing emptily. Well, he is the Hero of Time. I suspect that’s the least he can do with time.

Her face now set, Saria turned towards Hyrule Field and began striding. Her kin had need of her.


Author's Notes: See Epilogue/Notes chapter.

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