DemonSong

The plains of Hyrule were a magnificent sight, golden, high sweeping grass covering them like a sea of bronze, waving with the wind and bringing the sound of rushing water as it clashed together. Above, a sea of blue and white made the sky, like frothing waves against a high cliff. To someone sheltered, such as himself, it was the first of many amazing sights he would behold in his lifetime. But right now, that was furthest from his mind. Instead, as he stopped to rest, he thought only of the multitude of knowledge now seated upon his shoulders,, buried in his mind and exploding all about him in a cloudy aura of anxiety and shock. His new guardian, given to him, undeserving of it in his humanity and mortality, was hovering about wearily, feeling strongly the negative emotion pervading the immediate proximity of her new charge. Unsure of anything else, she said only one thing.
“Link…”

He scowled, and glared at her. “Shut up! That isn’t my name.”

He knew he would regret the vehement anger soon enough, but for now he would vent it and satisfy himself in his despondence. His eyes, blue as the sky above, were just as cloudy and laden with too many emotions for him to handle in one moment. Fear, shock, anger, betrayal, sorrow, and even relief were held there. In the last day, so many novel events had transpired that he was hard pressed to choose which was the most earth-shaking to his young mind, and thought perhaps it was a tie on all accounts. His life was changed for good now; he could not go back to the place he once thought he belonged.
His guardian was still hovering tiredly and worriedly about. She observed him quietly, taking in his appearance that she had paid little attention to during all the excitement that had taken place the previous morning and early noon. His hair was a bright blond, revealed to be spiky and wild now that he had discarded the floppy hat and left it back. His eyes were blue, brighter than an aquamarine jewel, sharper than the blade now strapped to his back, and the marks on his cheeks helped one compare him to a Keaton kit, young, clumsy and overeager. He was still dressed in the green of forest. A short sleeved tunic with an open collar and plain, worn green shorts, ended at his knees,, giving way to bare leg, then to hard keese-leather boots protecting his feet. His overall demeanor was much more penitent than she felt it should be, but she too, was still young, and was very unsure how to comfort someone whose life had been shattered and rebuilt into something servile and violent. He ignored her; unaware of her thoughts, much less her presence, as he struggled to come to grips with everything that had transpired.

It had started nearly a week ago, really, now that his somewhat dull mind had thought of it, with a nightmare, a truly fearful and terrible one that he wished he could not remember. He had first seen an image of a dying woman, covered in the blood of herself and others, staring lovingly into his eyes and speaking so softly, so breathlessly, he could hardly understand that she was conveying her care for him one last time before she departed for the afterworld. There had been a flash, whiter than the snow that covered the clearings of the woods in winter, and he had seen a distant, blurry image of himself, running for all he was worth toward a wall higher than the hedges of the Sacred Forest Meadow where he and Sister Saria so often went to play. A big, wooden bridge lowered and a great white beast thundered forward, heedless of his presence and carrying two riders upon it. The smaller was a pretty young girl whose face was clear as day. Young, elegant and deep-eyed…and frightened. And then the beast and riders were away, swallowed by the downpour and the dark of night as they fled from what came next. Now, a beast like the other, but black as that night and with eyes as hot as embers, reared its ugly head as it came to a halt at its master’s bidding. The man atop, ugly faced and grinning wickedly, raised a hand.

And then all was black, and he was in the deepest, dankest place he had ever seen, buried in sludge and water up to his knees and standing before a gate two hundred times greater than the one at the Sacred Meadow, staring fearfully into the eyes of an unnamed beast. The beast, like a Keaton, orange and black, opened its maw, smelling of decay and fresh blood, and let out in a roaring voice a single sentence.

USE MY POWER, BOY.

He had backed away fearfully, afraid of this thig ordering him to use it.

CRUSH EVERYTHING THAT HAS CAUSED YOU PAIN. BURN IT UP. BLOW IT AWAY.

His knees shook.

I CAN MAKE YOU STRONG, WEAKLING. USE MY POWER, BOY. USE MY POWER!

And that was where it had ended for a week, with him jolting awake, in the middle of the night, to spend the rest curled in his sheets and shivering violently. He was sure it would continue forever, as he lived out his life in the forest alongside the other children. He would be plagued by these images of lost life and demons forever. And then he had been aroused impolitely on the seventh recurrence of that dream by the same fairy now flitting anxiously about his head. She had introduced herself as Navi, a young guardian fairy sent to be his guide, told him of the Great Deku Tree’s wish to speak with him immediately, that he must hurry.

The following hours had been hell on earth, nothing like the simple hallucinations of his dreams. He had rushed quickly to the Deku Tree’s Meadow, only to find it covered in thorny vines as if after a mage battle of momentous magnitude. His only weapon had been a simple slingshot, gift from Sister Saria the previous year on his birthday. Valiantly, he had fought his way across the meadow, depleting his supply of ammunition to half in order to come within range of the Deku Tree and hear him speak.
The Forest Guardian’s speech had been drowned out mostly, by his childish attention span, too short to pay rapt attention to the droning of an old man when interesting things like monsters and giant thorns were about. But in the end he had understood that something bad was inside the Deku Tree and he had to get it out or the entire forest would look like the Deku Tree’s Meadow.

He fought through a labyrinth of fang-carved tunnels for hours, slaying skulltulla, deku baba and keese until he could barely move. In the end, the thing within the Tribal Patriarch was a gohma of incredible size, three times his own, and he still was not sure how he had managed to defeat it, but it entailed, somehow, bullets from his slingshots and Stun Seeds from deku babas..

Despite that hell, though, he thought to himself as he gazed to his blistered hands, nothing could have crested what took place after. The two leaders of the Kokiri, Sister Saria and Brother Mido, had been in wait for him outside the tree, with scrolls and pouches and a strange blue headband. At theirs and the Tree’s bidding, he had set himself on the grass and suppressed shock and bewilderment as they explained to him his origins and all the lies they had fed him since birth.

His mother had been a simple human with only one form of energy within her, one her people used with prodigious ease. She had come from another world entirely with him in her arms, begging for him to be raised peacefully and away from the wicked cruelty of imperfect humans that would use him as a scapegoat. They had gone on to explain his father’s origins had been from Hyrule, the land outside the forest, and he had traveled everywhere, a prodigious mage who had eventually found passage to another world, the world of humans, where he had become leader of an entire great city and married his mother, brining him into the world. But on that day a terrible evil came upon them and it was subsequently sealed within he, at the sacrifice of his father’s life. His mother, knowing his father’s origins and the darkness of human hearts, had used the same path his father had to find her way to the Lost Woods, bringing with her what she believed must be givcn to him if ever necessary. With the request of his name to be changed and made something peaceful, she had died, bathed in blood and drowned in regret for the burden placed upon her son.

He was not a Kokiri.

His name was not Link.

He was neither human nor Hylian.

All he had ever known was either a half truth or a blatant lie. It was not the people who had told them that had angered him, no, but the lies themselves. He had accepted the Deku Tree’s last request right away; to take the stone that his curser had wanted so greatly and deliver it to a girl with the title of Princess, far from the forest and behind great stone walls. He had been desperate to leave.
It was as he began to dart for the exit of the meadow that Brother Mido grabbed his left arm in a grip of steel and looked at him with the same calculating intensity that most mistook for anger. “There are things that must be given to you. Aid for your journey.” He had said, and into his hands was thrust a short sword. It was attached to a simple bandoleer and neatly concealed in a sheath of death black wolfos leather. The hilt, and the handle, were fashioned from the wood of an oak and the hilt was encrusted with a raw garnet. Drawing it from its sheath, the blade was wickedly sharp and white as the sun on a hot day. It was the Kokiri Sword, a sacred blade, a key to the woods and guarantee of safety in them as long as he had it in his possession. Sister Saria had first pressed into his hands her ocarina, a token of memory and apology for the misleading words she had fed him for so long. At the end, they had taken a pouch of magical essence and fit the pouches and scrolls into it for him, explaining their contents as human spells called jutsus and projectile weapons called shuriken and kunai. He had taken them quickly and departed with all speed he could muster, ignoring Navi’s pleas for him to calm himself.

Which brought him here, at the edge of the forests and staring blankly upon the wide expanse of emptiness before him, only Navi by his side. He sighed, finally deciding that he would have to ignore the confusion and press on if he were to be prompt in his delivery of the Kokiri Emerald into Princess Zelda’s hands.
Finally, he looked blankly into Navi’s eyes, and she, reluctantly and nervously, broke the silence.

“…What…what shall I call you then?” she asked.

He turned his gaze to the setting sun, painting the sky the colors of fire and flame and blood and pain. He took a step forward, and then another, leaving the trees to stand behind him as he left the Lost Woods behind him, a mere memory in a past that was not truth, and he answered, voice rough as the road he would now travel.

“Call me Naruto.”