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You will die if you leave the forest.
Saria had said those words before. To small children with blonde hair who will not listen. To Skull Kids who gambol and play in the whispering fallen leaves under the trees. To the fairies that follow her siblings around as they bob overhead.
To herself as she stares at the opening in the trees. As she stares out into the sunny, grassy field.
I will die. She knows it deep within her soul. We all will die.
She tells it to a boy without a fairy, young and full of cheer. He nods, blue eyes wide and full of memory. Memory that the Kokiri do not have. Maybe he'll keep the knowledge inside him the way the others don't. Maybe she doesn't have to lose anyone else.
The boy changes. The Great Deku Tree dies. He says he has to leave the forest and Saria presses her ocarina into his hands, knowing that he will not come back. A Kokiri cannot leave the forest or they will die. Tears drip down into her hands as she sits in her house and doesn't wait for him to return. Her fairy coos comfort in her ears.
He does not come back.
The hero is dead but evil is gone. The news is shouted into the forest but it doesn't matter. She was right, as she always is. People who leave the forest die.
You will die if you leave the forest.
Saria says those words, repeats them a million times. She said them before to a young boy without a fairy, or maybe she didn't. Has she said them before? The boy, Link, looks up at her with cheer in his face and it's so, so familiar but not. She tells him that the Kokiri will die if they leave the forest.
"Okay," he says. "I won't leave the forest."
The Great Deku Tree dies. Has this happened before? He dies and he tells Link to leave the forest. The ocarina is already wet with tears as Saria gives it to her friend, her brother, the youngest of them all. He has a fairy now, a blue one that shouts Listen! and Hurry! and does not know that a Kokiri will die if they leave the forest. The fairy scoffs at her concerns.
Link leaves and he does not return. He must be dead. No one can leave the forest without dying.
And then…he comes back.
She finds him, or does he find her, in the tree-shaded temple and somehow she knows it is Link. But he is not a Kokiri now. He is a man with a sword and a shield and the weight of duty on his shoulders. That would explain why he never had a fairy, wouldn't it? He could always leave the forest. He will leave them behind and carry on into the bright future and he won't die!
Not yet, at least. Hylians all die in good time.
But now she has left the forest. Does that mean she will die?
Evil is vanquished. She leaves the forest far, far behind to celebrate with sages and hopes to see her friend, her brother, once again. The other Kokiri leave the forest and do not die. They can all be together now, basking in the glow of success.
But Link does not come back.
It is true, then, that a Kokiri can not leave the forest. He traded his life for theirs, she is sure of it. She will never see him again. People who leave the forest die.
You will die if you leave the forest.
Echoes of the present haunt Saria. Link has left the forest. He will never return. That is what happened before and will happen now and she doesn't understand why she remembers things that haven't happened yet. Her hands ache for her ocarina but she gave it to him. He needs to use it. He left the forest.
He will never return.
Boots tread on the hollowed stump that marks the entrance to the village. A light sound, a tired one. Saria turns and sees a boy in green without a fairy walk slowly into the clearing and look around in wonder. Where is his fairy? He had one when he left. But she doesn't care, it doesn't matter. He has done what no one else ever has. He left the forest and returned!
There's a smile on his face when she runs into his arms but it's sad. "Hi Saria, I told you I'd come back."
"No one ever comes back! The Kokiri will die if we leave the forest! I…I know it's true!"
"Well, I came back." He takes her hand and holds it. She looks down and sees scars that criss-cross the young skin. He hadn't been gone that long; what had happened to cause those marks? He doesn't say anything about them and they walk into the trees, quiet and happy in each other's company. Saria's mind claws at questions she doesn't ask but she can't help but wonder at the metal shield on his back or the weighty silence he wears on his shoulders.
Link wasn't gone that long but he has changed.
"You know, Saria, I think it's just a myth, the thing about Kokiri and the forest."
She turns to him when he stops and gives him a curious look. "What do you mean?"
"I don't think you'll die. I think you are all stronger than that." The boy chews on his inner cheek, then pulls something out of his bag and hands it over. It's an ocarina, her ocarina, and it's maybe a little dirty and scratched but it still fits into her hands like it always had. She stares at it, thinking of the songs she'd like to play, remembering how it had left the forest without her. But it had come home as well, just as Link did. She didn't know what to say.
Link held out a hand and she took it, clutching her instrument tightly in the other. Somehow, they had reached the edge of the forest without her realising. Sun shone down through the thinner canopy of leaves above and she blinked into it, wondering why she never thought about how warm it was. Link's voice was saying something.
"I think you'll die if you don't leave the forest, you know? I…I saw you guys, for a moment or two, with the rest of the Hylians and everyone was doing okay. I think maybe it was the threat of evil that kept you locked away. I think…"
Link takes three steps forward, pulling her along. She lets him, her eyes drawn to sunshine not filtered by trees, by the sounds of different insects and animals and the wind through long grass. Her hand sweats on the smooth clay of the ocarina but the one Link holds is cold as ice. The pair stop on the very edge of the forest, in the ferns that grow in profusion, a border between underbrush and grassland. Saria looks at Link and he looks back at her, waiting.
You will die if you leave the forest.
Or perhaps there is more to it. Perhaps they were never meant to leave the forest alone.
She squeezes his hand and smiles. He returns the gesture. Then, with a nod in unison, the boy and the Kokiri take a step out of the forest into the bright light of day.
And they do not die after all.