Child Of The Forest - Judy Colella (popular e readers .TXT) 📗

Disproportionate. That was the only word the boy could think of to describe himself. He didn’t own a looking-glass – only the merchant had one, or claimed he did. No one had ever seen it, except Mido, who everyone knew was a big liar and braggart anyway. But the point was, the only references Link had for how he looked were the opinions of the others in the Kokiri Village, and his shadowy reflection in the the Pond. This was a still, clear body of water in the forested area called the Lost Woods. Located on the outskirts of the village but within the Kokiri Forest, the Woods were a strange place with maze-like paths that would either end in a clearing, or suddenly toss you back out into the village. Naturally, he didn’t feel he could trust what he saw there, since nothing in the Lost Woods was trustworthy anyway. Like the odd-looking individuals who seemed to live within its depths, and who appeared and disappeared without warning or explanation.

So he had to rely on what people said about him, and little of it was very good. From what he could both tell and see, he was the same height as the others, but looked too…big. For while those his own age seemed to have stopped growing and were basically younger-looking adults, he still resembled a child. One that was threatening to keep growing, too. That was what was disproportionate. It made no sense.

“Maybe that’s why I don’t have a fairy,” he muttered, brushing dust from the window ledge of his tree cottage. Everyone else had one of these diminutive companions, which appeared at the moment the Kokiri child took his or her first breath. Not him, though.

He’d been considering the question of his shape all morning, but wasn’t sure why. Could have been because of the bizarre dreams he’d been having lately, although honestly, he couldn’t remember any of them clearly enough to describe. Rather like his earlier childhood. His first sharp memory was of Sheru and Kora, the male and female Kokiri who had raised him. They were teaching him how to walk, and kept saying something about how brave he was for a one-year-old.

All of the Kokiri children his age had been able to walk long before their first year, someone had told him – Kora, perhaps. Thinking about this, he suddenly realized something, and finally knew why his appearance had been so bothersome. Frowning, he crossed his arms and made himself concentrate. When he’d woken up that morning, it had been to the sound of laughter. Several of the children had been playing near the hollow where his tree-cottage sat. Their game, Kiss-the-Fairy, in which the child was blindfolded and had to sense where his or her fairy was and successfully blow it a kiss, was extremely popular. Having no fairy of his own, Link never participated. Their game that morning reminded him sharply of this fact, and as he’d gone about getting ready for the day, had found himself thinking of the various ways in which the omission had affected his life. Which led to the opposite – that something about himself was responsible for the lack of a fairy.

For some reason, his inability to walk properly until he was a little over a year old was tied to all this fairy business. Sheru, a kind-hearted man, had explained to him once that he’d been a little too round to walk well when he was a baby. When Link had asked him what that meant, the man had smiled and ruffled the boy’s wild blond hair, telling him it simply meant Link’s feet were small compared with the rest of him.

The other Kokiri children, he now recalled, had frequently tried to get him to stand up, but his legs hadn’t wanted to straighten or something. They’d tugged and pushed, managing at some point to get him upright, but he’d fallen back onto his rump immediately and begun to cry.

That, he now believed, had been the start of all the teasing – funny at first, it gradually became more like taunting, something he sensed more than understood back then, but eventually recognized fully. The taunts had grown meaner every year with the increasing recognition that he was probably never going to have his own fairy. Mido had been the first to say this out loud. It had come out sounding like an accusation, like it was somehow Link’s own fault, and that was when the laughter had become smug giggles and sharp, single syllables of derision.

Then one day when he was about five, Mido had smacked him hard enough to make Link’s nose bleed, and the bullying had begun in earnest.

The sound of friendly laughter from somewhere below the window distracted him and he put his head out to look. Saria stood near the base of his tree-cottage, and was talking to another girl. Of all the Kokiri, she was the only one who ever treated him as an equal. She even seemed to like him – more than he was comfortable with, in fact.

She happened to glance upward right as he was drawing his head back in, and she waved. “Link!” She gave him a huge smile and brushed a stray tendril of green hair from her eyes.

He returned the smile, but wasn’t really in the mood to talk to anybody, not even her.

“Come down and join us!”

He considered the invitation, but couldn’t avoid noticing the sour look on the face of Saria’s companion, a girl named Dita. “I’m cleaning,” he called down. “Maybe later.”

Saria put her hands on her hips and shook her head. “You can do that any time, Link! Come on – we want to play Jump-The-Pathstones!”

He nodded. That was one of the few things he was good at – playing. Once he’d mastered walking, and a few other things that involved overall coordination, physical activity had come easily to Link, and he'd eventually grown much, much stronger than any of the others his age, including Mido. Yet another thing that puzzled him. As a Kokiri, he shouldn’t have been that strong. But there it was.

“Well?” Saria was tapping her foot now.

He gave up. “All right. I’ll be down in a moment.” As he ducked back inside, he barely made out Dita’s muttered complaint about having him along. Great. He shook his head, rinsed his hands in the wash bowl against the wall, wiped them dry on the hem of his tunic, and left the simple, circular room.

Once he’d climbed down the ladder from his cottage, he greeted Dita quickly before turning away to give Saria a friendly smile. Behind him, he knew, the other girl was getting ready to make some remark about him not yet having a fairy, her own fluttering like a tiny blue lantern by her shoulder.

“Still no fairy, Link?”

Yup. There it was. They couldn’t resist, any of them. Not even Saria, although when she remarked on it, she did so with genuine concern. He ignored Dita’s question, since an answer would have been both unnecessary and an opportunity for her to carry on about it further.

“How many rupees do you think you’ll earn?” asked Saria, referring to the jewel currency of the Kingdom of Hyrule. She knew the answer, of course – one. The big blue one, worth five of the green gems. Once in a while she’d earn one or two greens, but only Link was known to consistently win the blue.

He shrugged. Another question not worth answering.

“I don’t think I want to play after all,” said Dita a few minutes later. She’d jumped successfully over the gap between the first two pathstones, but totally missed the third, landing with an undignified thud on her stomach, one foot in the water, the other wedged painfully between the two stones. After getting her feet under her again, she limped carefully back over the two gaps, returning to the grass. “I’ll collect my rupee later.” She sat down and sulked.

Link, meanwhile, had made it cleanly to the other side, and a moment later, Saria joined him. “You did it! You got a blue!”

“So I did,” Saria replied, laughing. “You inspired me, I think.”

Link felt himself blush and turned away, clearing his throat. “Ah. Well! Let’s go get our rupees!”

On the other side of the pathstones was The Shop. Its owner, Frega, had a view of the stones from a small side window, so had seen the children’s progress. He was ready with their reward by the time they entered the building.

“I think if you ever fail, Link, I’ll faint dead away.” He held up the blue rupee with a grin on his round face. “Don’t suppose you’d care to buy anything today, eh?” Like all the adult Kokiri, he seemed fond of Link, although the boy had always sensed a vague condescension in their kind words.

“Not yet.” Link took the rupee, thanking the owner, and tucked it into a pouch hanging from his belt. He’d saved pretty much all of his rupees; the Kokiri rarely needed to buy food, since they each had a personal vegetable patch.

They also helped each other build furniture and every Kokiri had been instructed in sewing from early childhood. At the age of eight, a Kokiri child was given a huge supply of green material with which to make his or her own tunics. Water was free and abundant, too, so only the older members of their forest community ever spent the gems on weapons, potions or tools.

Frega took out another blue rupee and handed it over the counter. “And Saria, my dear! Congratulations! Here you go.”

The girl took the gem happily. “I’m going to save this to buy a new ocarina some day.”

“How’s the one you have now? Still working well?”

In reply, she took it from a fold in her dress, put it to her lips, and played a lively Kokiri favorite. The shop owner began tapping his fingers on the counter in time to the music, his head moving rhythmically from side to side as she played.

Link watched, fascinated. Eventually, he told himself, I’ll get the courage to ask if I may try it.

“I’m looking for a sword!”

The children turned, surprised. It was Mido, which wasn’t what had surprised them. He was always being loud and interrupting people. But never before had they witnessed him displaying the kind of courage needed to make such a bold request.

“A sword, is it?” Frega raised an eyebrow.

“That’s right. I’ve heard the Deku Tree murmuring about danger, and I thought it might be a good idea to start training with a sword. But since I, Mido, am no ordinary Kokiri, it seems I should have no ordinary sword!” He had puffed his chest out as he spoke, oblivious to how perfectly ridiculous he looked doing it. “What say you, shopkeeper?”

“What I say is that you’re getting a bit carried away with yourself, young man!” Frega looked neither impressed nor amused. Annoyed, yes.

Mido spluttered. He took a step closer. He pulled his money pouch from his belt and waved it at the shop keeper.

 “Put that away,” said the man, raising a dismissive hand. “First of all, the only sword available at the moment isn’t available at all! It’s the Kokiri Sword, and as our Great Treasure, it isn’t for sale to anyone, especially not a child!” He didn’t add the words “like you,” but he may as well have. “Furthermore, the only thing you’re capable of carrying right now is a wooden shield, but since you have no sword, there’s no reason for you to have that shield, either!”

“Is that so!” Mido glared.

The shop owner glared back.

Link left. If he hadn’t, everyone would have seen him double over in silent hysterics. Mido was already nasty enough to him without adding to the other