The Legend of Zelda - Soul Song

Part Six

Part Six

He woke feeling dizzy and nauseous. The world was a black and green blur around him, and looking around, nothing really made sense to him.

He saw a fire he didn't remember starting, surrounded by flat, gray river stones, and a huge log from a long since chopped down tree. He heard the sound of rushing water he was already familiar with and looked in that direction. Were those his boots? And his belt? It looked as if someone had set them out to dry.

He couldn't remember doing any of this. He put a hand to his forehead, his eyes swiveling back towards the fire and the log.

He staggered to his feet as soon as he saw her, nearly jumping out of his skin in the process. She sat on the log, that had been unoccupied seconds before, in a leisurely way, he gloved hands crossed in her lap. White linen bandages covered every inch of her small frame, aside from everything nose up. Her hair was long and burning, fiery red, her eyes, more likely her most unnerving feature, were black and soulless, the whites of them nonexistent, as if all the light had been ripped away from them.

Her clothes were made up of large green leaves and ropes. She had a leaf skirt held up by a rope belt, and a matching shirt that only covered the top half of her bandaged torso.

He narrowed his eyes into a steely glare at her warily, trying to pretend his head wasn't pounding beyond comprehension, and his vision wasn't blacked out around the edges.

She whispered an almost mocking laugh, breaking the silence of the night. "Relax, I'm not going to hurt you."

He stared at her, his demeanor unwavering.

"I am a wood sprite, my family calls me Iredean. You may do the same." She said in a calm and almost soothing voice. "I live in these woods."

I wasn't aware anyone inhabited the forest. The wisp was suddenly beside him, it's childlike voice ringing delicately over the sound of rushing water.

The sprite narrowed her black eyes into slits and glared at the wisp. "That's because it is none of Hyrule's concern!" Iredean snapped, causing the wisp to cringe back.

"The only thing Hyrule and it's stuck up royal family has ever done for me is get me turned into this!" The sprite got to her feet, her hands balled into fists. "If they had just left us alone.." She trailed off as she turned away from them.
"What happened?" Link dared to ask.
She turned around, her eyes widening back to their normal shape, and looked at him as if she'd forgotten he was there.
"It was a long time ago." The sprite said. "A little over half a millennium to be precise.
"Back then I was a regular village girl. I lived with my family, both my parents, my two brothers and two sisters, and our family horse. We didn't have much, with my dad being a merchant, but we were happy.
"Everything changed when my father and eldest brother were forced into the war waged against the man from the Gerudo Tribe and his followers.
"When the war spread to the village I lived in, the Royal Family ordered that our village be evacuated. They relocated us multiple times, each time further away as the war spread. Eventually, they thought to hide us.
"They thought that if they were careful they'd be able to find us in the Lost Woods, and no one else would. To do this, they tried to construct a map of the woods, something said to be impossible. No one had ever attempted it before.
"The results were a half drawn map from the entrance of the woods to the place we were hiding, a tower in the middle of the known woods. It was the safest possible route. They made two identical maps, one for us to escape if needed, the other so they could return.
"We were okay with it, being in the woods, maybe even a little happy, now that we weren't being chased down by the war.
"What we didn't know was that time moves differently in the woods. What felt like days to us had been weeks, weeks felt like months, and pretty soon, months were years. The Hylian soldiers said they would be back in a years time, they should've been back after the first 'month'. So after twelve 'months' and they didn't show, it was just starting to seem suspicious. We finally decided to get ourselves out. We found a man on the outskirts of the woods, who told us what year it was. It had been thirteen years since we arrived there. The Hylians never came back for us. So, trying to do what was best for ourselves we tried to leave. We found out the hard way that getting too far from the woods after being in it so long ended in death. My closest friend died that day, the rest of us became scarred by the flames that combusted her. That’s why we wrapped ourselves in these bandages.
"We haven't aged a day since then."
The sprite still glared at the wisp that floated beside Link, almost as if she expected something from her.
Finally, the wisp spoke. Why did you save Link? He is of Hylian heritage as well.
Slowly, Iredean took her eyes from the wisp, her eye shape returning to normal. "I need your help."