...into the central chamber. The floor sloped down, dropping almost to the basement level. The stench permeated the chamber, cutting into everything and weighing the air down. Link slowly drew his hand over his mouth and nose as his companions slowly followed him into the room.
As Link went further into the chamber, little, blue mushrooms started to glow beside him. Their divite caps bumped into one another, curling around into circles all around the room. Link made his way forward avoiding stepping into their perimeter.
Near the back of the wall was a particularly large mushroom cap. Its cap shone only faintly compared to the others around it, though the size of it allowed even its weak light to shine over a quarter of the room as Link approached. Beneath it, a large mound supported the mushroom up off the ground, but there were cracks in the ground where the fungi had damaged the floor.
"So this is the thing killing the forest?" Saruo asked, floating alongside Link. Stopping to study the plant, the skull kid grimaced. A snap cracked out of her wooden fingers. "Not for much longer."
Saruo's puppets dropped from thin air, the skull kid's snap still echoing through the dense, putrid air. They rustled behind her, but the sound ahead of them was far more foreboding.
The massive mushroom cap began to rise, free of any kind of stem. Just the cap, pulling free of the mound it hung over. At the mushroom rose, Link glanced at what had been beneath it. It looked like a large, round cradle, almost stood up on its end. Thin, wispy, white roots clung to the cradle, driving into the stone sides.
As the mushroom cap rammed into the ceiling, it began to twirl. The light around it began to glow brighter before funneling down into a stem. The light continued to spiral before six, long appendages lashed out from the core beam. Slowly, the glow began to recede again, leaving behind a pale figure wearing the mushroom cap on top of their head.
Giggling, the figure hovered above them, one of its four hands to its mouth. A pair of wings unfurled from the figure's back. For a moment, Link thought he was staring up at a Great Fairy, but the white and red dotted irises told him that this figure was not benevolent. Features on the figure were oddly bulbous in places they shouldn't have been, like on one cheek or the side of the neck and on the-
"Link!"
Drawing his attention back up to the monster's face, Link gripped the Master Sword a little tighter. White fibers curled around the strange fairy's form, draping her in a spindly dress with a hexagonal pattern. She raised her arms, reaching out and then snapping them back in a taunting feint.
As Saruo and Link took a step back, the fae woman smiled, giggling at a pitch too young for her form. She twirled her body around to face them, spores falling from her broad cap. Lifting her arms, she basked the room in a cyan glow. The rings of mushrooms began to glow brighter and brighter until it felt like distorted sunlight was reaching to combat the actual light of the sun above them.
Link shielded his eyes for a moment from the light, but as the glow began to dim a bit again and his sight adjusted, he regretted it. The fairy had vanished among the flash of light. Around him, the rings of mushroom began to shimmer with white particles of magic.
And then for a split second, Link felt the air disappear from within the ring.
Swinging his shielding wide, Link sent Saruo sailing backwards as the air cut back into reality, being with it the fae creature. Before Saruo could shout at him in anger, a long, pale arm of the monster grasped Link and started pulling him towards the ring. Pulling himself up by his core, Link swing his blade around, embedding it into the woman's arm. She released her grip on him, allowing him to scramble to his feet as she teleported into thin air again.
As soon as he was on his feet again, Link put as much distance as he could from the rings of mushrooms. "Stay out of those circles. I've got a bad feeling about where they go."
"How do we know where she's going to attack?" Saruo called back, backing up with her puppets.
Link wished he had one of Mirum's shards. The kind of true vision powers those gifted him likely would have helped him see through whatever glamorous illusions this monster was putting up to hide itself.
"I have an idea," Link called before he pulled his hood up over his head. A haze washed over the world around him, and the figure of the fairy woman appeared in front of him. She jumped, shocked to see him. Link watched her blink between circles before finally floating out from her rings.
The fae went a different color as she passed out from the ring where she had been hovering. A moment after she had completely changed colors, the fairy shuddered, collapsing over. Link turned to see Saruo's puppets rushing the collapsed figure as Wudhi wobbled atop Kephe and Mismawn's shoulders. The trio was going to join the fight then.
Throwing his hood off again, Link raced to join Saruo's puppets. He sunk his blade deep into the mushroom cap, watching it splitter as he drove his sword home. The fairy shuddered, taking the beating for a few more moments before it pounded the ground and started to push itself up.
"Move your puppets, Saruo," Link shouted, jumping back a few steps as the fae began to rise. He did not want to get caught in those puppets' clouds again, particularly when they were closed off from any boko babas to cure the toxin.
Fortunately, Saruo teleported her puppets back to her side, out of reach of the rings of mushrooms as they began to glow again.
"Does it see you then when you pull on that hood?" Saruo asked, skirting the rings to get closer to Link as best she could without teleporting. "It wandered out after you disappeared."
Keeping his distance still, Link answered, "I believe it's slipping into the Spirit Realm when it teleports from those rings."
"It's vulnerable when it steps out though," Wudhi called. "Pegged that ugly growth when it stepped out."
"Don't let it hit you back," Link replied, pulling his hood back up to search for the fae. The fairy was clutching her mushroom cap's wounds for a moment, before starting to teleport again. At first, she dodged Wudhi but as she studied Saruo and Link, she kept her distance for a moment. After floating away from her attackers though, the fae teleported back and forth, closer to Wudhi.
From his perch, the deku scrub launched deku nuts at the fairy, but the attacks did nothing while the fairy continued to hover within her ring.
"You wanna make her get out of there again?" Saruo asked generally to the air, unsure where Link was now.
Still invisible, Link watched the fae as she kept herself safe within her circles. She seemed hesitant now to step away from her shelter, and it seemed clear that none of her attackers were going to get close enough for her to hit them back.
As the fairy turned away, Link pulled a bomb from his pack. He struck the fuse over his wrist guard and tossed it underhand towards where the monster loomed before him. At the sound of a hissing fuse, the fae turned towards the sound and jumped, stumbling out of the her ring just for a moment. Long enough for Saruo's puppets to drag her the rest of the way out.
Letting his hood fall back as he ran, Link reached the collapsed form of the fae. Pushing himself upwards, Link arched his blade as gravity brought him and his sword back down towards the fae's mushroom cap. The fairy shuddered from the momentum of the attack, curling up as Link and Saruo's puppets continued to attack her.
Mushroom in ruin, the fae slowly lifted herself again. She floated up, her back turned to her attackers. Link motioned to his companions to wait. He wasn't sure what the monster might do, and they hadn't come this far for a surprise attack to take them out now.
Finally, the fairy brought her hands up to her face, running her arm over her eyes. Slowly, she turned towards Link once more, her eyes burning with rage. The fae woman vanished again, but as she disappeared this time, the mushrooms around the room blinked out. The room started to dim, only lit by the sunlight struggling in from above them.
With a dozen poofs of spores, the mushrooms reappeared. New circles had formed, circling Link and Saruo entirely and reaching to get to the trio guarding the seed pod.
As magic start to spiral around in the circles, Link shouted, "Get that pod to safety!"
The trio of forest dwellers shifted quickly as the fairy rings began to glow. Mismawn hoisted his companions and the pod up into the air, hovering above the room until he saw a safe corner for them to protect their unborn sage.
Saruo and Link however were trapped within the light of the fae's magic. Link watched as the skull kid tried to teleport free of the circle, but hit the edge of the ring. She panicked as Link threw himself against the invisible wall of his own trap. They had moments until the fae decided to attack either one of them.
Link drew his hood again, stepping back into the fae's reality. As the hood dropped over his head, he stumbled over the edge of the ring. Without worrying about the hood dropping back down, Link rushed to rescue Saruo. He reached his hand out, crossing over the line for only a brief moment before he pulled her back out from the fairy ring.
Trembling, Saruo clung to Link for a moment. Around them, the fae rings began to shift again. First, they blinked out. Link started running, trying to avoid falling into the rings' trap once more. No matter how fast he ran though, the edge of the circle always seemed to catch up with him.
He took a moment to look over his shoulder. The fae woman blinked in between the rings, watching and waiting for the magic to trap Link once more. As the mushrooms began to glow once more. "Saruo, I need to you light a bomb."
"Are you stupid? Do you know what that would do to me?" Saruo demanded, still shaking violently.
"I won't let it hurt you."
Saruo watched Link's gaze for a moment before grimacing. "Guess this is how you get back at me for the poison." She reached down and drew a bomb from Link's pack. Striking the fuse, she let go of Link and gripped the bomb in her hands, wooden joints chattering.
Link pulled his hood up, lingering for a second at the edge of the ring. As the air began to suck in, he stepped out of the circle. Extending his hand, Link shouted, "Saruo, drop it now!"
The skull kid didn't need any convincing. She let the bomb fall, grabbing out at Link's hand as he pulled her out. Link turned, putting his back to the ring as the explosion rippled through the circle, trapping inside just as they had been. The heat of the explosion licked against his back, but didn't touch him.
There was a heavy thud behind him and Saruo. Link turned as a deku nut's shattered remains tumbled away from the fairy's face as she collapsed. The fairy writhed, light pouring out of her bloated growths. Link let Saruo go as they watched the fae monster lash out. The lights began to fade from her mushrooms once more, but now they withered and turned brown. Her wings started to chip and flit away until the monster couldn't support itself up. It collapsed, breaking the floor as it landed.
Clutching its throat, the fae curled up into a ball. Finally, the form turned to black smoke and vanished into the air.
Silence hung over all of them. There was no cheer for victory. Link figured his companions were surprised to have survived the fight. He was surprised himself, to be completely honest. But then again, he found that he wasn't entirely either.
The rotos that had gripped that stone cradle began to wither behind them. Water pooled into the basin. The liquid shimmered with the light of fireflies, pure and beautiful and magic.
As the trio rolled the seed pod over to the basin, Kephe asked, "W-was that a real fairy?"
Link turned to where the fairy had fallen. The light that had escaped from her form had condensed back down into a glittering gold and red crystal heart. Link walked over the jewel and lifted it. Life broke from the crystal as soon as he touched it, weaving its way into him. He felt renewed as the magic made its way through him. Even his heart felt lighter.
"Ganondorf couldn't do that to a Great Fairy," Link finally said. "He can only imitate it. But all the illusions in the world won't make his phantoms and puppets real."
Yore cawed, preening himself from a broken shard of the floor. The hawk was waiting to fulfil his duty to summon the Sage's dragon. Link turned towards the seed pod, resting now in the basin. Water pooled over the sides, streaming through groves in the floor. The withered growth and ash were being purged from the greenhouse once more.
There was a sharp crack, like a deku nut splitting as it hit a stone wall. Link knelt in front of the seed pod as his companions clustered around him. The first forest dweller to be born in twenty years. No one said a word. Even Mismawn didn't taunt Wudhi. All four huddled around Link, equally excited for the family member about to join them.
The front of the pod fell, rattling to the ground. The child of the forest sitting there surprised them all.
Resting in her hands was a medallion of emerald, with a spiral of indents. Though her skin was tinted a faint green, it was skin, not bark that composed this figure. Wavy locks of green wrapped themselves around pointed ears. The child blinked, shifting the long leaf that swaddled her like a dress. Just born as she was, she was grown. At least, as grown as her kind could ever be.
"A kokiri!" All four of Link's companions exclaimed. Excluding Saruo and Link, they all clambered forward, cheering for the newly born member of their woods.
The child leaned forward in her pod. She rubbed her eyes, blinked a few more times, and then tried her voice. "Good. Morning."
Yore flapped his powerful wings, landing on top of the cradle. He tilted his head, studying the kokiri intently. The child clutched her medallion to her chest, looking between everyone in the room. "Who. Are. You?"
The punctuation her voice came from an uncertainty about the words she spoke, quite literally like a newborn gifted with the ability to speak immediately at birth. Each word was followed with uncertainty, but a persistence to continue trying. Still, fear clung to her as she clutched her medallion.
"We're friends!" Mismawn exclaimed.
"Family," Wudhi added.
"G-guardians."
Link smiled softly. As Saruo hovered behind him, Link recalled Endeavor's lecture on Sages and their Guardians. And Link knew this Sage had found hers.
"What's your name?" Link asked, bringing the kokiri's attention away from her beaming family for a moment.
Tilting her head to the side, she thought on it. She closed her eyes, pondering the question for awhile before opening her emerald eyes once more. "Tasma. I. Am. Tasma."
Placing his left hand on his chest, Link replied, "My name is Link. My bird friend there would like to borrow your medallion, if you don't mind. This place was badly hurt. He can fix it for you."
Tasma studied the damage of the room. She closed her eyes, thinking very hard. Link felt like some part of the kokiri understood what she had been born into, but for so much thought to be rattling around in a head so young must have been very difficult. Again, pained and still pondering, Tasma opened her eyes. "The. Deku. Trees. Trust. You." She winced. "They. Hurt."
The kokiri pointed towards Saruo. "She. Feels. It. Too."
Saruo floated away from Link. Shaking her head, Saruo replied, "I d-don't, but- but the Deku Trees are hurting. They need to be cleansed. That- you can help them with that."
"Why. Do. You. Ignore. Lady. Faro-"
"Can you please just give the medallion to him?" Saruo barked, tucking herself away behind her puppets.
Tasma watched Saruo for a moment longer as the skull kid sulked, before turning back to Link. She held her arms out, medallions resting on her palms.
Yore didn't wait for Link to pick it up. The hawk swooped down from his perching, grabbing the medallion and curving up into the sky. A long, wooden tendril began reaching from the hawk's back. Leaves sprung forth from the spine like branch, reaching around until the leaves curled together to form the body of a dragon. Other branches reached out to support limbs, in both forms.
Two slender whiskers trailed along the dragon as its forced itself up and up on wings made of wind and petals. Still, the dragon climbed into the sky until it left the crown of the Great Deku Tree behind. Even from the clouds where the dragon crested, the roar it released rippled through the woods all around. The marshes to the east rippled and the spires to the east echoed the call until it was nothing more than a whisper hours after.
A pulse of life cast itself out over the woods. Nothing immediate, but health and life was returning to even the darkest trees in the woods. A weight was lifted from the boughs, and everyone could feel that change.
Barely stopping to make sure his possession landed, Yore dropped the medallion in Link's hand before taking for the sky again. If the hawk had been exhausted from the transformation, he didn't show it. Link took it as a sign that Yore was off to find Zelda. They needed to rescue Endeavor as soon as possible.
Link extended his hand to Tasma, prepared to return the medallion as he had promised. The kokiri shook her head. "You. Keep. It. Save. Our. World."
Inclining his head, Link clutched the medallion to his heart. "I plan on it."
He stowed the Forest Medallion and rose to his feet. Behind him, he could hear the wind rustling leaves and boughs being jostled by the breeze. A portal had opened to the outside world.
Turning to the forest dwellers, Link smiled. "I'm sorry I doubted any of you. You'll keep her safe, I know it."
Wudhi, Kephe, and Mismawn exchanged a glance between each other and then nodded to Link. All of them seemed content in their role, and beyond happy to have the Greenhouse restored. Their peoples would endure. Kephe waddled forward. "C-come visit us, Mr. Hero."
"We'll look forward to seeing you again," Wudhi added.
Mismawn placed his hands to his hips. "We'll keep all the bad guys away!"
Link managed to laugh. The sound was foreign now. Somehow, in the middle of a war, he had found resilient good. He needed that. Not hope. He had hope he'd survive. What these small people had gifted him was belief that there was something good on the other end of this war. Heart lighter, Link turned to Tasma and inclined his head. "Be safe, my friend."
Tasma nodded in return. "You. Too. Hero."
"Hey..."
Turning at last to Saruo, Link studied her nervous expression for a moment. She started to say something, but stopped. Link replied, "You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to you. That doesn't make you any less brave."
Saruo blinked before turning away flustered. "If you want to- If you find any skull kids, send them back home for me. And- And come visit some time, ok?"
"Of course."
Link sheathed his blade and turned towards the portal. For some reason, the world outside seemed more daunting than this dungeon had been. Then again, there was still a threat out there.
Glancing back once more, Link waved. "See you soon."
He watched all five of the forest children wave back at him, smiling, some as best they could, others without a fear in the world. Link waved his hand once more as he stepped through the rip in the world...