Dark Sages

A tree creaked as if under the weight of heavy snow, or buffeted by strong winds. It was a very large tree by most standards, well over two hundred feet tall and thick-trunked, but in this forest it was unremarkable. Just an ordinary tree among thousands, its leaves the green of late summer and its roots covered in the light groundcover of an old growth forest. Aside from the noise, it was a scene of peaceful normality. But there was no snow at this time of year, and the skies were calm and quiet.

Another tree creaked.

With a small nod, Saria dropped from the tree she was in, just before it righted itself from a bent position. Trees all around her began to pull themselves straight and tall, until the still air was filled with a deafening groan.

Saria began padding down a forest trail, and the woken trees behind her slowly but unstoppably began to shift along with her, until she was engulfed in a river of tree trunks. With a nimble leap she latched onto the side of a fast moving Hyoi tree, and then she leant into the rushing tide. Bushes and rocks swept past underneath her, and she slid higher up the side of the tree, to avoid the plant life she had not set into motion.

She had gotten the trees to wake, and they were leaving their old undergrowth and soil behind.

---

Some miles away, two green-clad males stood quietly at the top of the Deku Father. Four of the mighty tree's branches had risen higher than the normal canopy, so that they could reach this massive height. They needed altitude for their task, and the Deku Father could provide it.

"Look there, to the north. That'd be Saria with the Kakariko Outcropping. Looks like she got the whole thing," noted Link, the taller and browner of the two Kokiri. "Would you say that's about twenty thousand trunks?"

"Perhaps. Maybe more, it's hard to guess those kind of numbers," returned Mido. "Dorai will be visible in the east soon, but I doubt she'll have half that number. Good thing she's already brought in the Border Growths."

"And if we're lucky, Tefa will manage to find all the glades to the south without any Zoran interference." Link glanced at Mido with a smile in his eyes. "After all, it's not like all the wood around the country is vanishing into the Lost Woods. In retrospect, secrecy seems to be a ridiculous idea."

Mido did not smile back. "Any word from the Scrub Kingdom?"

"No, but our Skull Kid spies tell me that the King has offered the Scrubs quite a business deal, which may tip the balance in his favor. All we can offer is clever workmanship and fun sports, not a prosperous market for goods. I'd count them out as allies, and maybe start to consider them foes. At least we can rely on the Skull Kids. In a fashion, that is."

"We can rely on them to defy the King and tolerate us. Some allies we have. Next we'll be bargaining with the Wolfos." scowled Mido.

"Too late for that, I'm afraid," rejoined Link with a complacent smile. "They're going to seek refuge in the Empty Ranches, in eastern Hyrule Field."

Mido shot Link a dark look. "And how, pray tell, do you know that? More importantly, why do you know that?"

"You shouldn't be so quick to judge, Mido. The Wolfos have been a solid defense for the Kokiri for centuries, despite their animalistic shortcomings. They have a complete language, a marital tradition, even a basic law system amongst themselves," voiced Navi as she flew up to the pair. "But yes, how do you know that, Link?"

"There were a series of Wolfos sightings in the west woods last week, but now, nothing. Listen for their howls at night... they aren't here anymore," answered Link. "Also, Kaepora mentioned sightings in the Empty Ranches during the daylight hours. A sure sign of Wolfos overpopulation, if they're so visible."

"That bird will get us all killed soon if it isn't careful. Every day it brings us a new situation one of us has to handle, at great personal risk."

"Hold your tongue Mido, we need his information and input," snapped Navi. "Besides, without his influence our skies would be overrun by the King's aerial forces. Now, the Deku Sapling wants you both in his clearing as fast as possible."

---

I quietly withdrew my magical senses from the scene. Almost all mature Liborum Owls could project their senses to relatively distant locations, and I was very, very good at it. Even from two miles away, I could see and hear clearly, and even establish some simple communication. As such, I had to be careful not to let my perceptive Kokiri friends notice my presence. The Kokiri were masters of the trees, and noticed virtually everything going on in them. Short of the demigods and their champions, we were the masters of the skies, and we owed it largely to this useful talent.

And I, Kaepora Gaebora, was the representative of the Owls.

Somewhere far above my head the Wind Tribe was fighting alongside my people to defend the people below from King Helmaroc and and his aerial horde. I hardly dared to imagine the battle above, and silently prayed to the Goddesses that none of the defeated warriors would fall near me. I knew that the battles above were just skirmishes, waiting for greater things to be decided, but the war in the clouds was still shocking in its brutality.

I had been monitoring Kokiri movement all day and was in no mood to listen to Mido or even Navi. If not for me, the Kokiri would have been murdered in their sleep, or besieged by monsters of the air. My people had no desire to die fighting for theses people, even under the request of our longtime ally and friend, the Deku Trinity. But fight we did.

"Relax my feathered friend," murmured the willowy tree I perched in. "We have endured civil war before."

I looked down at the shadowed tree. Though bent and twisted, it still brought me up a fair height. All around us even taller trees hid us from the outside world, concealing our presence. Unlike the Deku Father or Deku Sapling, this tree was rarely seen or heard by mortals, or even the semi-immortal beings such as the Kokiri and Fairies. From this deep solitude it drew its wisdom and knowledge, but sometimes it fostered some strange beliefs. "But no previous civil war has involved the direct power of the Triforce either. We have to protect ourselves and the Sacred Realm!"

"And we will, have no fear. The King may have worked his way into the hearts of the human peoples, but his ways and means have given us an equal opportunity."

"But first things first. If we are to have any kind of support base, we must first defend the Lost Woods. Our lupine neighbors, the Gerudo Thieves, share our opinion. They will try to hold their hand to themselves for as long as possible, but we know where the cards will land. However, our arboreal charges need assistance now."

"I've been working on that. According to the Kokiri scouts, the Eastern Hylian Army has encamped itself inside the Peahat grounds. They won't cover much ground tomorrow, so we can assume they'll be within arrow's range of the Lost Woods tomorrow night. So, we can gather the Glades to the north and south, while focusing the Kokiri and local trees near to the camp. If we attack by cover of night, there is a chance we can disperse the army with little damage on our side."

I could have sworn the surface of the tree creased into a smile. "Yes, such was our conclusion. Can you provide us with aerial guidance?"

"Yes. Now, I have some more specific ideas for the battle..."

---

It was unnervingly dark when we attacked, but it was not entirely due to our nighttime plan. A storm came, not terribly heavy but not to be ignored either- the Hylian soldiers were models of misery in their increasingly muddy camp. Even their horses, which were good Rancher stock and used to the field weather, looked and sounded miserable.

The Hylians could hardly be less aware of what was going on at the forest edge, which had come much closer to the camp over the last few hours. There was no such thing as a "normal" tree in the Lost Woods, but for this night, the largest and most mobile of them had been brought to the forest's edge. Because of that, rather than having the appearance of a peaceful and innocent wood, the Lost Woods now showed a solid wall of two hundred foot tall trees armored by thick, weathered bark. Even the bravest woodman would quail at the sight of them, their branches too high to be seen through the rain.

The Hylians huddled together, oblivious.

High in the boughs of the trees, Mido moved down the line in typical Kokiri fashion- leaping from one limb to another with his arms outstretched, not unlike some gargantuan squirrel. As he did so, he whispered orders to the Kokiri, who nodded mutely. With one final, gut-wrenching leap Mido arrived at the central command tree and flipped up to the nest we had prepared for him. This truly magnificent maple, a wonder in terms of it's size and responsiveness, would serve as the focus for our attack.

Mido gave a long, piercing whistle that cut through the rain, its shrill note reaching the ears of the Kokiri without being too different from the other forest sounds. All the Kokiri began to move at the end of the whistle, their young faces set. There was a long moment of hesitation, a few of them pretending to fumble with some ropes; but then they individually committed themselves to the battle, and began to withdraw long javelins from bundles behind them.

"Long" did not do the javelins justice. Each wooden lance was twenty to twenty-five feet long, massively longer than the Kokiri were tall, and they all had two curved barbs at the sharpened end. With a skillful thrust the Kokiri hooked the barbs onto the far ends of two branches, near to the front of the tree canopies. The, with great care, the javelins were pulled back so that the two limbs were bend backwards like an enormous slingshot. The Kokiri heaved mightily, small grunts of effort escaping between their low whispers to the trees. The trees responded and tried to relax the limbs as much as possible, but the Kokiri were still pulling with all their weight. It sounded like a small typhoon, but the tree language was easily covered up by the rain.

Mido let out another long whistle-

The world seemed to hold its breath-

The camp became suddenly clear as the rain broken for a split second-

And then the whistle stopped, and all Hades broke out.

With a terrifying scream the javelins flew from the Kokiri's hands, catapulted by the tree limbs. The lean missiles soared for four hundred feet before ramming into the Hylian camp. With sickening thuds they punched through horses, transfixed armored knights, wrent whole tents and wagons in two. A cooking fire exploded in every direction as a javelin blazed through it and deep into the ground. Javelins blasted off whole legs, arms, even a few heads with their furious flight.

Mido whistled again, louder, over the screams of the camp. The visibly shaken Kokiri nonetheless drew more javelins. They cocked, steadied, and the released again upon Mido's whistle. A second wave of death arched into the camp, followed by a third, and then a fourth. Destruction rained down in torrents unmatched by the weather storm.The screams and chaos in the camp redoubled.

But the Hylians were known for their cool thinking and ability to react to crises. Some clearheaded captain had already figured out the source of the attack, and was mustering his archers. Under the iron gaze of the Hylian officers and the Darknuts the soldiers began to marshal themselves and joined together to fight back.

It is not by accident that the Hylian crest is composed of a red hawk and a Triforce; they are the primary charges of the Triforce, and more importantly, they carry many of the attributes found in hawks. Keen vision, no fear of heights, a predilection for irreversible brotherhood, violent defensiveness for their homeland. They were the second best archers in the history of the world, second only to the Kokiri. Even the skillful Gerudo couldn't match their skill.

With this in mind, I watched in horror as they began to light fire arrows. Mido realized the danger soon after I did, and immediately started bellowing out emergency orders. By the time the fire arrows connected with the trees, the Kokiri had prepared their defenses.

Deku leaves, the Gust variety, had been folded together in an ingenious fashion and their stems braided. the three leaves formed a watertight package the size of a small Kokiri. As the trees caught fire, the packages were swung at the blazes in a certain fashion, and their watery contents were forcefully expelled. But despite this surprisingly effective technique and the help of the rain, the Hylian arrows began to take.

Soon, at least four trees had turned to horrifying infernos. Their inhuman screams, and the cries of the Kokiri trapped within, grated at my soul. Behind me, I could hear the forest groaning in agony, calling out to the tortured trees. The Hylians, with their keen hearing, visibly flinched at the horrible sound. But despite the horror that was occurring on both sides, the Hylians rallied more together and readied their bows.

One of the four trees collapsed in a screeching blaze, it's trunk burnt away. The other three lurched forwards, stumbling in a way only a tree can. I recognized one of the Kokiris burning alive inside. Dorai. She was largely responsible for the arboreal force behind us.

Mido was bellowing something at the top of his lungs, he voice straining to be yet louder. Three Kokiri burst from the tree line on foot, sprinting towards the burning trees. Hard on their heels came a tide of smaller, faster trees than the ones the Hylians had seen up to that point. As trees slowed and fell into a pattern as they approached the burning trees, until they formed into regular lines.

A curious roar, like that of a waterfall, rose up from behind us. The double row of trees bend inwards, their branches and leaves weaving together. In a remarkable display of coordination, great deluges raced down the leafy trenches, propelled by a rippling motion by the trees at intervals of two hundred feet.

The water must have come from a one of the small rivers which fed into the River Zora, far to the north, at least fifty kilometers. The Deku Trees must have begun the motion as soon as the battle began, and communicated the idea to Mido somehow. I glanced over- sure enough, a fairy hovered nearby that had not been their before. As I noticed the fairy, the water hit the burning trees with incredible force, spraying all over them.

The Dekus had brought us a river. More water arrived, and was set racing up and down the line, putting out smaller fires. In the meantime, I had a job to do. With a deep, resonating hoot, I took wing and flew right at the weakest point of the camp. I flew low with my wings fully outstretched, hoping that no stray arrows would connect with me.

Luck was with me. Just as I flew over the Hylians, startling the ones who had not noticed me, the Kokiri line surged. Mido and half the Kokiri stayed, firing away at the flanks of the army. Link and Saria led the faster half of the force and avalanched after me, the trees leaning forwards as they picked up speed.

The Hylians barely had time to gather their cavalry before the trees slammed into them. The front lines crumbled as the thick tree roots tore into the earth with terrible fury, rock and soil flying everywhere. The infantry wilted as the Kokiri bungied down on vines, slamming Deku sticks into the heads and faces of the Hylians, sending splinters and fragments into the air. I flew on, deeper into the camp.

Slingshot fire peppered the area. Deku nuts flashed everywhere. And then, the Kokiri unleashed one of their most ingenious weapons: large, violently uprooted Deku Babas. The furious creatures recklessly whipped around and bit at everything, particularly when slung from wooden cages into the Hylian soldiers a hundred feet below. The terrible hate and fury of the Deku Babas drove them to fight bitterly until the Hylians chopped them to bits, at great cost to the Hylian ranks.

When I judged that the chaos was at a sufficient height, I murmured an old, half-forgotten spell. A speck of red light formed perhaps a foot in front of my beak- with a slight addition to the spell, it's red color jetted out to bath across my feathers, coating me in harmless red fire. Within moments, I was a flaming reincarnation of the Hylian crest.

I swooped down, straight at the remaining Hylian officers. For just a moment, the Hylians took heart at seeing their symbol coming to them- but then I connected with the officers. Both of my taloned feet rammed into the armored officers, and one of my feet managed to dig in enough for me to lift a bloodied man off the ground. For six screaming seconds I hauled his body over the heads of his troops, before dropping him in the midst of the remaining cavalry.

A despairing wail set up and the doomed army tried to break and run. However, it was far too late for that, as phalanxes of trees swung around the back. One by one, I saw the Kokiri withdraw as the trees repaid the now surrounded Hylians for decades of logging.

The slaughter was over, for now.

---

Author's Note: I am following the OoT storyline in a very loose fashion, but all the characters have been added to and changed. I'm going to try to explain my version of Hyrule a bit with each chapter's A/N (there's plenty to explain). Note that in my rendition of Hyrule, each race is affiliated with an animal, and many of the animals and enemies from the games are sentient races now (such as the Wolfos). Some examples of the race/animal affiliations would be the Kokiri being like squirrels, the Gerudo being like wolves (and hence developing a connection with the Wolfos), and the Hylians being like hawks.

Yes, the Hylians will be portrayed as the enemy throughout the story, though this does not make them evil- as with all my bad guys, the Hylians and their King have a realistic motivation for doing what they do. Even the Nazis thought they were on the side of Justice. This will be a prevalent theme in the story, as the Gorons and Zoras, both of which are noble races, are turned against the real heroes by illusions of their own righteousness. Note that the less human a race is, the less likely it is to be deceived... the Kokiri and Gerudo are obvious exceptions, but most of the nonhuman races will either come to our side or try to avoid the conflict altogether.

If you happen to own it, I highly recommend you list to The Lord of the Rings soundtracks when reading these chapters, or perhaps the Narnia soundtrack. Many of the songs were set to loop while I was righting, which helps me set the mood for the story and characters. Speaking of which, notice Link's personality. This is an angsty story... Link's personality will change because of the events of this story. At least, I hope it does, that's what I have planned on my storyboard.

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