Forbidden Forest - (Tsubori/UNLM)

Forbidden forest

Keiliegh L'Archa (Tsubori) - Reward: 5 rupees and red potion (Consumed IRP)
Kinoso (urnotlikeme) - Reward: 25 rupees
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Keiliegh stretched her back, awakening in a comfy inn bed. She had stayed the night there before the ship she was taking. 55 new rupees jingled in her pocket from the night before when she'd sharked some dopey Hylians in poker. Nobody expects a kokiri to have any poker experience, but hell, Keiliegh loved parties and sometimes parties have poker.

She was on some journey from kokiri forest because, seriously? Who else ever left? One of the younger guys had fallen ill and the cure was only able to be found on an island just off the shore of this small port town. She herself wasn't fully sure what island or how to get it, only that it was from a very rare, strange plant and that it smelled and tasted oddly like lime.

The first step would be to get out to sea, and that's why she was here. She'd talked to a captain and he agreed to allow her passage for their exploration until she found the cure. Getting dressed and walking out of the inn, Keiliegh made sure she had everything, from her weapons to her cloak. Never know when it could get rainy. 

Walking out to the dock, Keiliegh found that she couldn't see the captain, though his ship was still in the port. Curiously biting her lower lip, the Kokiri glanced back and forth, not knowing what to do. 

"Try a bar." Leronah said, the fairy emerging from Keiliegh's pack. "Sea captains are damn infamous for getting hammered before sailing."

Keiliegh's face lit up. "Getting hammered? That sounds like-" 

"A BAD idea!" Leronah finished flittering around Keiliegh's face in annoyance. "Go find him. The sooner you get him, the sooner I can go to sleep. I'm tired and you woke me up with your stupid humming."

Turning and walking towards the market, Keiliegh shot a glare towards Leronah. "Don't make me get the flyswatter." 

"........You wouldn't."

Kinoso tended to stay away from jobs that required travel outside of Hyrule. Getting to the destination usually was no problem; it was always getting back where the complications always occurred. But the money was too good. He was finally going to get some decent money trying to catch a deserter from the royal military. Kinoso was lying on his back on top of the leather tarp that covered his merchant's cart. The leaves blocked the sunlight perfectly, so only a small amount trickled onto his face. The Kokiri bounty hunter tried recalling some of the details of his bounty, but all he could do was picture a fat man with whiskers going off about oaths and honor. The words came out of the flustered man's mouth as unintelligible garble.

"WAKE UP LAZYHEAD!!" shouted a familiarly unlikeable voice.

Kinoso didn't stir from the shout. "I'm not asleep," he replied, stretching in the process, "So what's the word on the captain? You find him?" The question was stupid. Le'ip knew how to look for people without rustling up any suspicions of a Kokiri boy wandering around, and she was quick about it too.

She scoffed, "Of course I did. His men were talking about the captain passing out in a local tavern. And there's only one in town."

In an instant, the boy sprang up with new energy to look for the tavern. "Great. Follow close behind, and we'll on the ship in no time," said Kinoso. He picked up his weapons which were all bundled up nicely in his work clothes, wrapped nicely so that it looked like he was carrying the makings for a tent. He slung the somewhat heavy bundle over his shoulder and made way for the town.

Le'ip stopped him short of his first step, however, and asked, "Hey, are you sure this is a good idea? I mean, can't you just find him in the town and then drag him back?" She was wary of this plan and had a bad feeling about it.

"Of course it's a good idea," Kinoso answered. He walked out of the forest where he parked the cart and started down the road towards the town. The tavern wasn't hard to find. All he had to do was look for the sign that had the large mug with mead in it. Along the way, he explained to her the reasoning behind his plan, "We only have a vague description of what he looks like, and there are too many people in town that fit the description. But we can locate him better on the boat." Kinoso wasn't sure if this bounty required the man alive or dead, but since they were going to be on a boat, Kinoso had made up his mind to return the head back to the castle.

The Fish's Feast was quite the rowdy tavern with many people singing songs and such. None of the pitches had any sort of definition behind them, and no one cared to correct that. The cacophonous tavern also had a very dangerous atmosphere, but it didn't seem to phase the young boy, who was already used to killing drunkards. The room was dimly lit, and the smell was horrendous, but it was no worse than Kinoso's clothing.

He marched straight up to the only person passed out on the bar. Drool was already trickling down his mouth. Kinoso tried waking him up to no avail.

Keiliegh located the first tavern she could, smelling the scent inside. "Holy... Smell it in there! Those guys are living it up!" She smiled, chuckling to herself. If the captain was anywhere, he'd be here. 

Leronah peered in the window, shaking a little. "Okay... But be careful in there. These guys look... Yeah. They look exactly as you'd expect. And get a load of that, a kokiri..." 

"Eeeeee~ A kokiri?!" Keiliegh let out a squee and rushed into the bar, seeing the kokiri poking at the man who she was sure was also her captain. If there was one thing she always remembered, it was the faces and names of her comrades. She ran across the floor, not letting out a sound until she made a flying glomp, pinning Kinoso to the bar. "Kino~ it's been forever!"

"Uh," was the only thing Kinoso could say when the girl threw her arms around the confused boy. The last thing he wanted was to be outed as a Kokiri. And the last thing he expected to see was a Kokiri. It completely took him off guard, and he didn't know exactly how to respond. More so, he couldn't remember who she was. Kinoso hadn't seen a Kokiri in over 40 years.

The bartender looked over at the two. Kinoso looked over and caught his face for a quick second, but a second was all it took for him to read the "what the hell are the two kids doing in a tavern" look. He turned back to the girl. "Um, I'm sorry," he squeaked out finally, "I'm not sure who you are." He placed his hands on her shoulders to push her away. He was frantically trying to figure out how to make sense of this situation and play it out appropriately. Would he try to ignore her or would he pretend to know who this Kokiri was?

"Oh it's Keiliegh!!" squealed Le'ip when she entered the bar. The fairy started flying around the girl's head excitedly. "It HAS been forever!" she said as she flew around.

Great ... leave it to Le'ip to make the decision for me, thought Kinoso, but his face portrayed a slightly feigned smile with a nervous awkwardness that came when one had to pretend to know a stranger.

Keiliegh put on a frown when Kisono didn't recognize her. "I... It's me... K-" She was cut off by Le'ip coming in and darting around her head. "Le'ip! Oh wow! How have you been?" In her distraction, Keiliegh still hadn't released her arms from around Kinoso. "And Kino! Where hav you been all this time?"

It was then that Leronah flitted into the bar, hovering next to Le'ip. "Oh by the tree, thank you. Finally another fairy I can hold intelligent conversation with."

It made more sense for a Kokiri to know all the ones who had left the forest and harder for a Kokiri to remember all the ones back at the forest, especially after 43 years. "Well, uh, I've just been living in Hyrule Castle Town," he replied. He didn't want to get into too much details about his livelihood to Keiliegh, a stranger still to him.

"Hey," cried out the bartender. Kinoso turned around to see the man cleaning out a metal cup. "Take your little reunion elsewhere. Why're you here anyway?" he asked. His voice wasn't raised to the point where it would attract many heads in their direction. Then again, he would have to raise his voice much more loudly if he wanted to grab the attention of his intoxicated patrons.

Thinking quickly, Kinoso wrested free from Keiliegh's grip and then patted the large captain of the ship on the back. "Oh, he's with us," said Kinoso, hoping the bartender would buy the story. Of course, the bartender didn't care whether the story was true or not, he just wanted the kids to hug elsewhere and have one less drunken liability in his tavern. "Come on! We gotta ship to board!" Kinoso yelled in his kiddish voice. The man stirred a little bit.

The bartender used his stronger arms to shake the drunk man awake. "HEY! You're kids are taking you out!" said the bartender.

The captain waved the bartender off. He was a big man, even bigger than the barkeep, and his large, thick coat reeked of many different alcoholic beverages, most notably mead. He waved his hand without stirring the rest of his body, saying, "Tell my bastard kids that I'll catch up with -"

He didn't finish his sentence when two of oarmen rushed into the door. One of them called out to his superior, "Captain! We're already late for our departure!"

Keiliegh was moderately distracted when Kinoso was getting the captain ready. The bartender was preoccupied with those two, and the other patrons we're preoccupied with eachother, so the girl snuck off for a moment, seeing some hearty people singing. One man's mug of mead sat invitingly on the table in front of the kokiri girl and she had a small swig. 

"Keiliegh!" Leronah said, landing on her head. "What do you think you're doing?!"

"Shhh! It's like two sips, Leronah!" She said, having another, slightly bigger sip before putting the mug down and sneaking off. "It's not like I'm gonna be fighting or anything soon."

"Stupid child!" The fairy hissed. "Two sips is a lot for you! Especially that stuff!" 

Keiliegh saw the two crewmen come into the bar for the captain, delivering news of their lateness. Starting to feel a bit woozy herself, the Kokiri snuck up behind Kinoso and jumped securely on his back. "Yeah!" She let out a small hiccup as a few parts of her vision went blurry. "Onwards! Lateness and stuff!"

"Oh boy," exclaimed Le'ip as she watched the young girl jump on to Kinoso's back. Turning to her fairy friend, she said, "She hasn't changed in 43 years." Though truth be told, if Kinoso had never left the forest, there would have been a good chance he would have ended up just like her, and that was a good thing in her mind.

Meanwhile, the two crewman dragged their heavily intoxicated captain from the barstool to the bartender's slight delight. Kinoso carried the slightly intoxicated girl on his back and followed after the two sailors. The boy would have snuck a sip of the mead with her, but unlike the drunk girl he was carrying on his back, he had a man to kill; and seeing as how the man was a deserter from the army, he was likely going to be armed and dangerous. Also, the money was just way too good to let alcohol destroy this opportunity.

As they neared the dock and the large ship, Kinoso ran up to one of the sailors carrying the captain. A little embarrassed that he was carrying a giggling Kokiri on his back, he explained with as straight of a face as possible, "Excuse me, but I need passage on the ship. I'm on government business." He reached with his left arm to retrieve a parchment.

The sailor examined the piece of paper and then the sealing wax on it. "Well, the sealing wax is good, but it doesn't say exactly what your intentions are for this trip," he said as he continued looking at the wax and then the signature, "But that's not for me to decide. Welcome aboard, I guess. Just try not to start any trouble. What about your little friend there? Is she on official business?"

Kinoso had no answer, and he didn't know whether to speak for her or not.

Giggling the whole trip to the ship, Keiliegh felt herself slowly fading from sobriety. She'd forgotten exactly how easily she could get drunk, despite Leronah's reminder. 

The fairy drifted near Kinoso's head, sighing heavily. "I'm really sorry. I'd say she isn't usually like this but.... Yeah..."

Keiliegh snuggled into her temporary bed when he was talking to the ship attendants, and reached into her pack, pulling out a bag of 25 rupees from the poker the other night. "Money." She threw it quickly and surprisingly accurately, the money hitting one of the men in the face and dropping into his hands. 

She'd heard the guard say something but with her mind blurry, she couldn't really make it out, her head just resting on Kinoso's back.

"All right then kids," said the sailor, "You can go anywhere you like except for the captain's quarters. The deck below is where you'll be staying, and the deck below that is where the oarmen are."

Kinoso walked down the stairs to where all the other passengers were staying. Since those two were the last passengers on the ship, it didn't take long before Kinoso started feeling the ship moving. "Keiliegh," said Kinoso as he turned over to check on her sobriety. Since she was already asleep, he set her down on an unoccupied part of the floor. Once her body was resting on the floor, he spied 25 rupees fall from her wallet. Looking around to see if anyone was looking, he grabbed the rupees and slipped them into his wallet.

Call it a fee for carrying you up the ship, though who knows whether you intended to board this ship or not, he thought. He slipped his wallet back underneath his shirt and began looking for the bounty.

Keiliegh passed out for about five minutes, and when she awoke on the hard wooden boards of the ground, Leronah was sitting on her face. “T-too sparkly… go away…” She waved her hands in front of her face, trying to get the fairy away. This didn’t really do much, but Keiliegh was now awake. She sat up, rubbing her eyes and looking around drunkenly. “Kino! D-dat meanie lef’d me!” She stood up, leaning on the wall. “B-wha- he’s cyooote now though, eh Lornah?”

“Oh jeez…” The fairy said, motioning towards a nearby bed. “Use that. Get some sleep and stop being silly. When I come back, you’d better be sobered up, missy.” The fairy then dashed off as Keiliegh clambered into the bed, flopping down on top of the covers in an awkward position, falling asleep right away. Leronah found Kinoso quickly, but stayed hidden, intending to spy on him to see if he was trustworthy.

There he is, thought the Kokiri. The man's beard had grown out a bit, hiding the shape of his face and the scar on his mouth, but his sword had given it away. It had the triforce mark on the hilt, which meant that it was made for and by the royal armory. He looked like a man who could wield a sword well, but that didn't matter, since the goal was to sneak up behind him and drive a dagger through. The man's death would have to wait until dark though. Now was no time to deal with him, what with all the crewman manning the sails.

"By the way," Le'ip whispered in his ear, "I can't find Leronah anywhere."

This wasn't to present much of a problem to Kinoso. "She's watching us then," he replied to her, "But there's nothing wrong with that. I doubt she has any bad intentions. Well, I'm going to scout around the area and look for good tactical spacing." He broke his stare at his 200 rupee bounty and began wandering around the ship, nonchalantly looking for different holes and places he could squeeze through. Ultimately, if a fight were to happen, there was no escape.

In a fit of drunken shaking, Keiliegh woke up, still on top of the covers. She then noticed that sleeping in a strange place like a boat would be hard and pulled out her violin. It took her a few attempts, but eventually the rain began hammering down around the boat. Now with this calming pitter patter around her ears, Keiliegh slipped back into a deep slumber, an inebriated smile on her face.

Leronah stealthily drifted closer and closer to the shady Kokiri. He was looking around oddly… Like he was scouting the area for… any way out or something… Leronah was smart, she could figure it out. Simply drifting where she was behind a crate, she heard the exchange between Kinoso and Le’ip. “Oh, you’re helping him commit crimes now? I’m disappointed, Le’ip…” She muttered, barely loud enough for herself to hear.

There was almost no warning. Before anyone realized that clouds started forming above them, the rain had already started. "This isn't good," Kinoso told Le'ip, as soon as the rain had come, crewman rushed to the upper deck to secure the sails. The man's death would have to wait. Except that the deserter stood unmoving to the rocking movements of the ship. And even when all the sailors were starting to finish up, they urged the man to go to the lower decks, to which the man replied with a smile and then returned to gaze the stormy seas.

He was going to take this chance and wait for the sailors to go back below decks so that he had the entirety of the boat to him and his target. "Keep a lookout for me, and let me know as soon as everyone's gone or the bounty's moving." Kinoso took this time to hide behind two crates to change into his black outfit and equip his weapons.

"This isn't going to end well," yelled Le'ip as the storm grew worse. She peered over the crates nonetheless to see where the sailors were. Only three remained.

"You don't understand, now his death can be explained, and no one is going to go check on us in this weather. This needs to happen!" he replied as he finished putting on his last boot. The last crewman went down, and his bounty was still strangely watching the sea.

Kinoso peered over the crates to check on the crewmen himself, and as soon as he lifted his head, the deserter called out to him, "I know you're here to kill me!" Kinoso froze. "I know the crime of desertion is a grave one! So come try to kill me already!"

The bounty hunter leaped over the crate with his longsword drawn and charged at the man, who answered by drawing his sword.

With Keiliegh currently sleeping like a brick, Leronah was above deck watching Kinoso. Hiding less than five feet away, out of sight behind a crate, the fairy listened in on what the kokiri was saying, and let out a gasp, probably louder than she should have. "M-murderer..." She muttered, immediately dashing back below deck to wake up Keiliegh.

When she arrived at the bed Keiliegh was in, her panic outweighed her annoyance. The girl was horrible for twisting and turning in her sleep, awakening in weird positions. This time her legs had scrunched inwards with her laying on her stomach. This pretty much caused her to put her rear high in the air, though Leronah didn't care much at this point. She jumped up and down on the girl, trying to wake her up. "Keiliegh! Keiliegh wake up! Kinoso is a killer!"

Waking up slightly, Keiliegh cracked a smile, flopping onto her side. "Yeah..." She muttered. "I know he's awesome..."

Steel clashed against steel. The two of them danced around each other as they tried desperately to kill one another, but the dance did not seem too graceful, as the rain made the footwork and maneuvers more tiring and difficult. The storm was only making it worse, and wind was making Kinoso's small frame a disadvantage. Kinoso parried a side swing and ducked underneath the man's backhand. I have to end this soon, thought Kinoso when he analyzed that the deserter was becoming more and more aggressive.

An opening presented itself. Kinoso swung with all the strength his two arms could muster only to find the blow blocked. He then released his right hand from the sword grip to draw out his dagger and plunged the smaller but quicker blade forth. The man saw last minute and dodged, and Kinoso responded with another swing at the man's head. He barely drew up his sword in time to block the downward swing, which knocked him and onto his back. Kinoso charged with sword raised high. He was going to have the perfect swing at the man's neck.

Until the ship suddenly lurched upwards, sending Kinoso into the air, and his momentum carrying his small body over his opponent. Kinoso landed hard on his back, which took the wind right out of him. As the two struggled to get up, the weather only worsened. The two fighters struggled to fight the rocking boat, and none of them were in any physical shape to grab a hold of anything solid. There was no pattern of movement to the ship or the waves, and it was difficult enough for Kinoso to shift his center of gravity so he wouldn't move.

And when they thought the situation couldn't get any worse, the ship crashed into a huge rock, which sent both Kinoso and the deserter flying from the ship. People in the lower deck were screaming in chaos as the rock broke through the hull and nearly split the boat in half. Another sensation of pain rippled through his body as Kinoso landed on the rock and then rolled into the sea.

"KIINOO!!" cried Le'ip as she helplessly watched the weather sweep the boy into the cruel sea. She flew overboard to look for any trace of his body.

When Keiliegh felt the ship begin to be smashed apart, she startled up, running to the deck after grabbing her things. Her mind was still clouded as all hell, but she made it up in time to see Kinoso get knocked from the boat. "Kinoso!" She yelled, running towards the edge of the boat. 

"Woah woah! Don't you dare, Keiliegh! He's a murdere-" Her words were cut off by Keiliegh diving into the water. Opening her eyes down there stung like all hell, but she saw the figure of her kokiri friend drifting through the water and tried swimming over to him. As the ship sunk behind her, she felt a sharp pain shoot through her leg as a piece of wood from the boat skewered it. She gasped, accidentally inhaling a ton of water, but she was just about at Kinoso.

She reached him, completely out of air, and she started swimming up with the boy. Please hold... Please hold... She begged her body as her vision went to black. She could still feel things for a few seconds before her air ran out and she passed out.

She awakened on a shore-like area, looking up at a massive spiky form of what appeared to be trees. There was an entrance behind her, but Kinoso also laid passed out beside her. "Kino!" She shook the boy, trying to wake him up. "Kino wake up!"

Kinoso's awakening was a rude one. He was drenched in his work clothes, and even worse, every single bit of movement sent a wave of pain throughout his body. He opened his eyes to see a Kokiri girl trying to shake him awake. So it wasn't just a bad dream, he thought, Though I suppose I've been in worse situations. He tried sitting up, but fighting the pain and his aches proved too much, so he laid back down, trying figure out what was going on.

"Kino! Kino wake up!" Her hands were shaking him, trying to jolt him awake. Unfortunately, it was the pain that did the trick instead.

"I'm up!" he yelled out finally, hoping that she would stop. She didn't, so finally, against all the forces that were trying to make him lay still, he sat up. Looking around, he saw a large rock with trees growing on it oddly. It made the whole island look like a pike shooting out from the sea. They were on the shore surrounding the odd rocky outcrop that had a large entrance inside.

Kinoso's aches started feeling a little better. Kokiri bodies didn't have amazing healing abilities, but they were still impressively fast. Le'ip called out to Kinoso from afar as she started floating towards the interestingly shaped island. "Kinoso!" she yelled. At first it was barely audible, but eventually it was loud enough for Kinoso to wave in response. "Are you okay?" she asked.

"Miraculously," he groaned, "That's the third time this month I avoided breaking any bones against all odds. Did he fall overboard?" The deserter most likely did, which was not good for Kinoso. His bounty manager told him, "No head, no bounty."

"Stop thinking about work for once and just be grateful that you're alive! I thought I lost you again!" cried out Le'ip, who then turned to the girl next to Kinoso, "Keiliegh, are you okay?" Kinoso started stretching to make sure he was all right and checking his equipment to see how much he had lost. He looked over to see his longsword washed up not too far from him. Well, he didn't know if it was his, but it looked useable nonetheless.

Keiliegh jumped back startled when he yelled at her. She stumbled back onto her rear and stopped talking for a second. "I-i'm sorry Kiro..." She wasn't sure who else had survived the crash, but now she looked down at the source of her own pain.

The bloody piece of wood through her leg was nasty, and she screamed softly in a whimper when she saw it. She was then interrupted by a familiar voice. "N-no... My leg hurts Le'ip..."

"Keiliegh! You fucking kiddy moron!" Leronah screamed, racing over and hitting the girl in the chest. "I tell you not to jump off and what do you do? Jump off! After HIM no less! Keiliegh, listen to me carefully. He's a murderer. Get away from him now."

Keiliegh looked confusedly at Kinoso and shook her head. "N-no he isn't..."

"Murderer? Me?" he chuckled to himself, "It's been a while since called me that." His legs ached with pain, but they were managing his weight and his clothing's weight fine. But his back was absolutely killing him. Hunched over, he tried his best to straighten it out. He felt like an old, helpless man simply trying to get up from a chair. As soon as he straightened out, he replied back to the fairy, "Listen, I'm no more a murderer than a guard trying to keep Hyrule safe, or a soldier trying to fight back Ganondorf's invasion. We do it all for the same reason, we're getting paid. You call it murder, I call it survival."

Limping painfully, he walked towards the longsword on the ground. He struggled to bend down to pick it up, but he wasn't strong enough to pick it up and lift it over his shoulder to sheathe in the scabbard on his back. Longsword in hand, he walked back to the Kokiri girl and the two guardian fairies. He looked up at the clouds, which were starting clear up, but the rain and the wind stubbornly fell upon them.