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No one had visited the Forest Temple for decades. No one even remembered it was there anymore. Not even the Kokiri went there. The Kokiri never went anywhere these days. Some rumors said they’d all died out long ago. Some others claimed they had gone into hiding even deeper into the woods, protected by a forest guardian. But whatever the truth was, everyone were sure that they’d never venture out again. And so had also the secret of the Temple faded into the forgotten.
Though it wasn’t quite true that no one went there. Nothing living ever visited, no people, no birds, not even the fairies. The only visitor the temple ever got was not alive. He hadn’t been alive for many, many years.
He still enjoyed the peace and quiet of this place. It still looked the same, even after all the time that had passed, unlike the Kokiri Forest. What little could still be seen of the Kokiri’s houses were overgrown with weed and bushes, and the emptiness was a heavy reminder of times long gone and friends long lost. Even the treehouse, where he had spent his childhood years, was no longer as he remembered it.
But the Temple, by some magic he did not understand, withstood the years’ harsh bite. It looked abandoned, yes, but that was the way it had always been. His favorite place, however, was not in the temple, but rather outside it. It was an old tree stump. Perhaps it didn’t look very remarkable, and it wasn’t. Not really. It was the memories that made it precious. It was here that his best friend liked to sit and think about the world, just as he now did.
Saria.
He still remembered her name. He had forgotten many things over the years, but he held on to the names. Saria. Zelda. Malon. Navi. He often said them to himself, over and over, as if he feared they would disappear if he didn’t. Perhaps they would. In this age, no one spoke their names any longer. No one but him. It was a way to keep them alive, even just to himself. It was a proof that their lives had meaning, that once they had done so much for this world and the people in it, all in their own way. That once they had meant so much to a little boy, clad in green. A hero still unprepared for his fate.
The boy eventually grew up. He saved Hyrule. He saved Termina. He lost a friend. The fairy that had been his closest companion would forever leave the world behind, and the boy mourned her. At first he had refused to believe she was gone, had traveled as far as he could to find her again. It wasn’t until after a few years had passed that he had to accept that she was truly gone.
The boy became an adult. He took work as a soldier and became the young Queen’s personal guard. The Queen… He had always called her Zelda. He was one of the few with permission to do so. They had been closer than just a queen and her guard. They’d been friends, and they had shared a past that never existed. He watched her grow, becoming a magnificent ruler, leading Hyrule into a golden age. He had been her knight, her advisor and her trustee. It was difficult to come to grips with that she was no longer of this world.
Occasionally palace life had gotten too much, and at times like that he had entrusted Zelda’s protection to his best soldiers, saddled his horse and rode wherever the wind took him. He traveled all over Hyrule, from Zora’s domain to the Sand Goddess’ Temple. But more often than not he found his path leading to a little farm not too far from Castle Town. He enjoyed the slower pace there, and often helped the head of the rach, Malon, with whatever work needed to be done. He had known her since he was a child. She had been one of the first people he spoke to after leaving his home, and with her he could always be himself. With her he was no knight, no great hero. He was simply a boy from the forest, someone she could laugh with and play pranks on. By Farore, how he missed her.
And Saria. The Forest Sage. But before being a sage, she was his best friend. She had been there for him through it all, supporting him in his predestined journey and been the one he came to when he’d lost his way. He could almost still feel her presence out here in the Lost Woods. He knew that not much of what was once her remained, she was of another realm and even there she was no longer the Saria he grew up with. But she was in the Temple, on this tree stump, in the melody of an ocarina he could no longer play.
He had grown up, and she had not. He went from a child with a purpose too great for him, to an adult that had seen too much, shouldered the weight of the world for too long. He had gotten married, and those years had been the happiest of his life. In his wife’s eyes he had found solace, and when she gave birth to their son he had cried and embraced them both. The boy was beautiful, piercing blue eyes that already seemed older than they were, and hair in soft curls a shade darker than his father’s.
All hadn’t been well though. A disagreement with a neighboring kingdom had gotten out of hand, and once again he had to take on the role of the Hero of Time, Hyrule’s protector. It was a burden he longed to share, longed to train a successor to follow in his footsteps. Then he could retire his heavenly role and focus on his family.
But that never happened.
He never even got to experience his son’s second birthday.
As something less than a spirit but more than a memory, he had watched his wife grieve him, watched her pull through for their boy, watched the boy become a man and start his own family. And all the time he was waiting, waiting… He awaited the successor he hadn’t had in life, the next hero chosen by the Goddesses. Years came and went. Everyone he knew passed away, and he stayed by their bedside as they drew their final breaths.
Then one day, something shifted. Something in the very foundation of the world. And he knew what it was. The next hero had been born. It was only a matter of time now. The boy had turned sixteen, and he was sure that soon they’d meet. Soon he could do what he had never been able to and teach this new hero to protect Hyrule. Soon he could finally rest.
Soon he would join the ones he’d lost.