In a forest of wisps and gnarled trunks and roots, there was a tune; a whimsical melody flowing in a steady stream through every blade of grass and the beating wings of every insect. It rose up above the canopy and into the ether.

The fairies in the forest, amidst gathering berries and flowers, said to one another, “by the Goddesses she’s been playing that thing for days now.”

Saria’s ocarina reverberated with her own, personal song. The Kokiri girl rocked side-to-side on the tree stump she sat upon, in rhythm. Were this in the morning when she started four days ago the image she created would have been hung in an art gallery: a mystical girl surrounded by critters and magical beings, her jade hair curled and licked behind her pointed ears, eyes closed and lost in the moment.

Four days later her ass was on fire. Her fingers cracked with each change in note. The critters had since stopped pining for her music and had stuffed grass into their ears. Her jade hair had lost its lustre and had wrapped around her withered face, unkempt and unwashed.

Saria suddenly stopped playing. Licking her dry lips, she murmured, “he must’ve left Hyrule.”

“Oh, wow, you don’t say?!” echoed a voice from the Lost Woods.

She laughed at that. “Sorry everyone, I just had to make sure.” She reached her fingers down and snagged the leaf-wrapped ocarina case nestled against the trunk. The Kokiri slipped the instrument inside and draped its twisted-grass sling around her neck. She walked out of the Lost Woods in thought and said nothing else for hours.

It wasn’t until Saria had bathed, changed into fresh clothes and flopped onto her bed when she eventually said, “I should have gone with him.”

Link, now an adult, had since left Hyrule on a journey of self-discovery. At least that’s what the Princess had declared. Carrier birds dropped leaflets throughout the kingdom to inform the citizens, but Zelda had long-since informed the Sages of Hyrule through telepathy of Link’s departure.

She advised that they bolster the defences of their respective lands.

Saria, the Forest Sage, spun over on her sheets and clutched her pillow. She hadn’t wanted to believe Link was leaving. But four days of constantly sending out an unanswered message had made reality sink in. He’d said goodbye in person, at least. But Saria couldn’t see him leave as she was unable to leave the forest.

It meant death for a Kokiri to do so.

She sat up suddenly. “This is ridiculous. I’m a sage. The other Kokiri are looking to me now for solace. Imagine how pathetic I look...” Saria smiled self-assuredly, though she was anything but, and clapped a fist in a cupped palm. “I need to focus on protecting everyone.”

Early the next morning, the Kokiri found herself browsing the archives of the Forest Temple. The dilapidated mansion was so old that it was overtaken by fauna and flora alike. So old, in fact, Hyrule’s records had no record of the temple’s origin. The information stored within the tomes in its archives was equally mysterious in nature. It seemed like the best place to start for Saria if she were to “bolster” the defences of Kokiri Forest. Her emerald eyes flicked from the candle in her hand to the books glowing in the darkness.

“A lot of maps,” she said to no-one. “Not a lot of spells, though.” Her fingers smoothed over countless leather spines squashed into a shelf several tens of feet long. Suddenly, a spark emanated from a faded, brown book. “Gotcha,” she chirped, and pulled the dusty tome out with a deft tug.

Saria carried the book out of the archives and into the central courtyard of the temple, where the early morning light peaked over the walls. She sat on a stump and examined the cover.

“I...can read this,” she exclaimed. “Life Energy.” She opened the tome and covered her mouth as dust erupted in the air. Her eyes glanced at first page. “It’s written in a language close to modern Hylian. A...selection...of spells for the nature mani…manipulator.”

Nature manipulation, at its core, is the control of life energy. If one has the talent they are able to pull and push the life energy of a creature or plant into another. Removing illness, granting strength, being the Forest Sage certainly qualified Saria to be such a spell-caster, though she rarely dabbled in it, preferring nature to run its course. However, a kingdom without its hero meant the citizens had to adopt different priorities.

Over the next few hours, Saria stepped away from the stump, cast spells at the stump, cast spells at the grass around the stump; every spell she could decipher was tried and noted. “This is all quite basic,” she finally muttered, disappointed. “Though, what was I expecting from a book this old? Something forbidden...” Trailing off, Saria noticed a loose page sticking out of the last third of the tome, as if an apprentice had slipped it inside at the last moment. She carefully removed it from the pages and read it closely. “Life energy...ampli...amplification…?”

A chill raced down the Kokiri’s spine.

She had never heard of such a spell. Even in a modern book. Curious.

Saria chanted the words on the page, holding the leaflet in one hand and pointing an outstretched palm at a flower, a dandelion, sprouting up between the roots of the stump. She finished the chant and blinked at the flower. Nothing. She tried again, moving her lips slower, articulating the best she could. Nothing. Saria pulled the paper close to her eyes and squinted, straining the fingers of her outstretched hand as she read the spell again, even slower.

This time, a power seemed to flow from her feet to her hips, to her chest to her arm. To her finger tips. It filled her to the brim with each word, but she could handle it. At least, she was sure she could.

But just as last syllable left Saria’s lips, her body rippled. She gaped in pain but couldn’t find the air to scream. It was too much. Whatever ancient energy it was now pressed hungrily against the inside of her skin. It was too powerful.

However, her body, intuitively, found a solution. An eruption of power exploded from her fingertips and into the dandelion. The Kokiri yelped at the sheer force of the spell, flying backwards and landing heavily on her rump. Before she could curse or process the forbidden magic coursing inside her, the ground of the courtyard rumbled.

The whispy little dandelion thickened all at once, now resembling a fat bonsai.

Saria leaned back in shock.

Another rumble and the stem of the dandelion quadrupled in thickness, its petals puffing up like cotton balls.

Saria’s heart caught in her throat as the ground rumbled again and the dandelion erupted from its rooty cage, overturning the stump like it were her bedside table. The roots of the flower bulged out from it and dislodged the stone walkways that circled the courtyard. A mere dandelion was now about 20 feet tall and still growing larger. The Kokiri stumbled to her feet and backed away, tripping and falling as the monstrous flower overtook the centre of the courtyard, thickening to 30 feet in diameter.

Saria, back against the wall of the courtyard, held her hands in front of her. “That was...me?” she spluttered. “What kind of magic have I absorbed?

The Forest Temple stopped rumbling after twenty seconds. Though, if one stood outside the entrance, they could see a white afro, a hot-air balloon-sized dandelion petal, poking out above the walls like a hat. Saria slumped to her knees, in awe of the Deku Tree of a dandelion. The courtyard river was slopping against the roots and changing course onto the grass, drenching the ground and turning it into mud.

Saria, though, ignored the damage and found herself lifting a finger. The power inside her chest seemed to have calmed. Still present, but no longer trying to escape. She gingerly curbed the magic toward her pointer finger and launched it at a tall blade of grass. The blade pulsed and pulled and groaned several inches at a time, but over five seconds levelled off at a more manageable 3 feet in size.

The little Kokiri breathed and gulped for several minutes. Then she, giggled, cackled, even, snorting a few times before returning to her usual, calm air.

She could do it. She could protect the entire forest with this power. Link would be amazed at her abilities when he returned. Saria’s mind whirred with possibilities. First, she would create a gate system at the entrance of the forest with vines. Giant vines, thicker than tree trunks. Next, she would grow a wall of thorns around the Forest Temple itself, protecting it from those seeking to seal her powers away.

However, in her excitement, Saria failed to notice her fingers digging into the grass by her knees. Before she could control it, her zeal sent a deluge of magic into her hands and into the foliage under her.

Saria didn’t have time to gasp before the plants beneath her legs exploded in size, firing into the air like a geyser and taking her along for the ride. She squeaked at the wind rushing past her ears and the g-forces crushing her body. The towering dandelion was soon below her as was the entire Forest Temple.

Suddenly, she was flying solo. The plants had stopped growing but Saria was still flipping higher into the sky, another 50 feet at least. A sickening panic took over as her eyes took note of the spinning, shrinking mansion below.

But it was another, dreadful sensation that left her truly terrified. Saria felt something leave her. She didn’t know what that something was, but now the world seemed to slow down and turn grey.

And all at once her eyes rolled back into her skull. In being launched several hundred feet into the air, Saria had effectively left the protective force of Kokiri Forest.

Saria, the Kokiri, died at that moment.

Her seemingly lifeless body then tumbled back towards the earth and plunged into the soft, thick dandelion petal, making it sway to and fro before it rested once again.

All remained silent and unmoving in the Forest Temple that morning.