Deepest Woods

Afternoon of Saturday, February 24, 2018, noted the same day, written and edited properly beginning Tuesday, May 29, 2018, and I am pained

I am so, so pained.

Deepest Woods

It had been too long.

Too long.

I started my game. David was with me.

I was on top of the Dragon’s Head, the giant tree breaking through. The Spring of Courage, that’s where this was. The soothing spring music played; some ringing, resonating, sustained thing that I cannot name—somewhere between harpsichord and glass armonica—only rolling through clustery chords that felt nevertheless.... unhurried.

It’s a restful fill for the air.

What was I doing here again?

I went to my map. The blue ribbon of the dragony river grinned at me.

Oh yes. I remembered. I was looking for Mister Hestu. Fooling myself he was in Faron Woods.

All right.

It was time to get serious and find him.

I had already completed a quest for pants; and now the game was late; I really needed to go questing for pockets before I had no room left for anything.

I needed Mister Hestu.

And I knew where to find him.

Somehow, in my heart.... I think I’d known for a long, long time.

I warped to the Woodland Tower in the treacherous bog, and paraglided thence down into the path running hard against Death Mountain’s foot, upward into the hills, into the trees, in between those grassy shelves where I had first encountered wolves....

And I passed through the grey-walled bottleneck, down into the grey-green, living softness, and the light dimmed with the curling mist, and the Piano came to heel.

It was quiet.

Although I was cautious, I proceeded with a slowness borne more of reverence than of fear. This was a momentous place.

The torches were in plain view and easy enough to see, clear and empty swaths of grass or bare earth between them as they led round tree and hill and boulder, twining deeper. I always followed the embers. The tiny, glowing specks from one torch always seemed to drift toward the next. I did not stray from their path this time, but was strict to adhere to the zephyred directions.

There were a few animals about, a fox, some deer.... Once I even thought I heard the yawning squeal a wolf makes when it stretches. But I dared not pursue any of these and risk losing the path.

And then I came to two torches standing near each other, their parallel embers blowing away into dank and tangled woods where there was no other light to be seen.

For how bare and sad and dead so many of the trees looked, stark and naked, it was amazing how dense the place still felt.

I walked on, following the course of the twin ember trails, and just tried my best to keep moving in a straight line. There were no more obvious borders to keep me in line, like rocks and banks. There was only the close circle of ground about me, defined by the mist, and.... the trees.

The terrible, terrible trees—

Brreep-brreep! went my Sheikah Slate! o_o Gave me a bit of a start, but.... well that was something good at least!

It continued to beep as I kept moving ahead. I thought about turning it off; the forest didn’t seem to like it. But.... I let it go.

The larger trees took on.... a terrible look. Great twisted cracks in their barrel trunks like grimacing mouths with teeth.

Then the mouths began to gape....

I hid in one of them briefly, all full of the willies.

After a moment I climbed out again, and came to a clearing.

Which.... direction was I going in? I turned....

“Are you lost?” said David with a grin in his voice.

I walked back to the maw-tree, tried to line myself up.... The mouth had been unseen just around the right side....

I walked to the clearing again.

Those two trees there.... looked sort of like a gate of some kind....

I kept walking, right beneath their touching boughs. On and on I kept walking, the incessant brreep-brreep from my Slate doing me no psychological favors in the listening dark.

The clock in my HUD told me that it was nighttime, but I wondered if a bright shining sun would have made any difference here.

I kept going. Straight line. Brreep-brreep. No deviation.

And then, as the morning came on.... perhaps the sun did make a difference. Or perhaps....

The fog at last began to thin, and there was music: the doppelganger of Faron Woods—Skyward Sword’s Faron Woods, the Kikwi Home—it sounded so similar but I just could not place how it was done.... or perhaps was only too bewildered and bewuthered to think about melodies and chord progressions.

Warmer colors began to appear, sun-yellows and honey-browns and flowers.... The wildlife was no longer furtive and afraid. The birds chirped and the leaves sang.

Korok Woods was this place; the name gleamed over the screen.

“Are you serious?” said David.

And there were Koroks in plain sight! Not hiding! :D

“Do you know how many tries it took me to make it all the way through?” Or some such words.

Apparently he’d been watching me the whole time just grinning with anticipation for when I would.... when I would....

Well I didn’t experience it, whatever it was, so I’m not sure how it would have gone. I just made it end to end in one go. But I guess he’d had a harder time, and kept being transported back to the beginning of the Woods. I remembered the screen whiting out, and that childlike laughter....

He told me it took him forever to figure out the embers. HA! But that was such a Zeldic device, David! If I may make up words. XD

Well, like I’ve said before: sometimes, where I suck, David excels, and where he sucks, I excel.

What a team.

A few steps more and I seemed to enter a new wood proper. The trees looked healthier here. And the Koroks were soon all around me—though any particular one would disappear if I ever got too close. Heh.

And a few steps more again, and I caught sight of the tall, bobbing figure of Mister Hestu over a rise to my right! I’d found him! It’d been so long since I’d seen him that I’d almost forgotten his face....

And I did approach him, and we did visit, and he was happy to see me again, as I was to see him. And I did upgrade my carrying capacity. I upgraded the CRAP out of my carrying capacity. Weapons, bows, shields.

But there was something else further up the path.

Just a few steps more ahead.

Over the little stepping stones in the water.

Right there.

Right there.