Opening Notes:

NOTE TO ADMINS: This story is based off the 100 Themes Challenge on DeviantArt (Variation 1), but it is in fact a story. Each theme is several hundred words on average, so would qualify as at least a ficlet on its own, and they're all tied together in a single narrative. It jumps around chronologically between themes, but it still follows and develops the same characters in a single timeline.

Anyway, IHC here. I have too many in-progress stories already, but I watched a playthrough of Ori and the Blind Forest (not gonna play the game, because quite frankly I don't have the time to devote to practicing enough to beat it), and I was absolutely blown away. Everything about it is beautiful; the art, the music, the gameplay, how well the game tells a story with such minimal dialogue and narration… and Ori is just so friggin cute!

I decided to do a 100 themes challenge because it lets me write fairly short things without having to tie them all together in order, and it puts less pressure on me to finish since each theme is somewhat self-contained.

For future reference, I'll be using he/him pronouns for Ori throughout this fic. The devs deliberately never specified Ori's gender to leave it up to the player, but that doesn't mean Ori is a genderless being – and some of the spirits of the Ancestral Trees are referred to using male or female pronouns.I always thought of Ori as being a boy because of the name originally being male, and because of the contrast with Sein (technically genderless, but a strongly feminine voice). Plus, using neutral pronouns with multiple characters rapidly gets confusing and/or requires excessive name repetition.

1: Introduction

Ori sank to his knees, panting, as the last of the frog-like creatures who'd attacked him disintegrated into a dry, smoking husk. The battle had only lasted a few seconds, but he felt like he'd been running for miles and miles. Battle… was that what it was? When the creatures first appeared out of the shadows, his only thought was escape, but as he dashed back and forth, avoiding their leaping attacks, he'd found himself surrounded, and… he didn't know what had happened. He hadn't meant to kill them, only in a way he had. It was just a thought, a general intent to attack, but before his body could move there was an odd tingling sensation, and tongues of brilliant white flame leapt from the little orb of light hovering by his side, burning them to ash one by one.

"Ori? What's wrong?" the orb asked, floating slightly closer. Sein. That was her name.

"What did you do to them?" Ori continued to stare at the corpses of the frog-creatures. Small, orange balls of light started to coalesce over their remains.

"I didn't do anything: we did," Sein said matter-of-factly.

"We?"

"Yes. That ability is called the Spirit Flame. Normally spirits can use it on their own, but you're too young to have mastered it, and I suppose Naru couldn't have taught you… I combined your strength with my own and helped focus the power, but without your spark of will… well, it's a good thing you figured out how to use it so quickly."

"So… I killed them?" Ori murmured. He'd known the idea of death for a long time, and from time to time he would see a creature's body, but it had never seemed like something that could happen to him or someone he cared about, not until… not until Naru had gone. He had a hazy, dreamlike memory of stumbling through the forest, lost in his grief, until his strength gave out, and knowing he was going to die too, but had it really happened? Then, some time after he'd woken from that horrible despair, a green-eyed armored beast had charged him. In his panic, he jumped away and it slammed into some loose rocks, which collapsed on it and crushed it. Even knowing that if he hadn't moved he'd have been crushed too, he couldn't shake the feeling that its death was somehow his fault. But the frogs? They were definitely his fault. He'd taken their lives, and it wasn't even an accident, not really. Deep down, he'd wanted to hurt them. Ori blinked away guilty tears. His paws shook, and not having eaten anything for several days was the only thing keeping him from being sick.

"Don't blame yourself," Sein said sympathetically. "Spirit Flame can only harm creatures who intend to harm you. If you hadn't used it, you would certainly have perished at their hands."

"What… what were they, anyway?" Ori asked. "I've never seen anything like them." He hoped he never would again. Even looking at their charred bodies, they seemed… wrong. Their flesh was purple and orange mottled, pulpy like a fungus, and riddled with tumor-like lumps and bulges, but what really made him uneasy was the feeling he'd got from their presence. There were three types of creatures he knew of: creatures of light, like him and Sein, creatures of darkness, like Naru, and creatures with pieces of both, like most of the other inhabitants of Nibel he'd seen. These things, though, had a weak, sickly light smothered by layers of darkness; not the warm, comforting darkness he'd known his whole life, but a cold, clammy darkness that gave him the same feeling as staring into the still, glassy eyes of a dead bird.

"Corruptions," answered Sein. "They started appearing after I was separated from the Spirit Tree. Every day there are more and more of them. Any other creature, they kill. Not for food, not for pleasure – I don't think they can even feel pleasure – they just kill. Even when they die, nothing can feed on their poisoned flesh, not even maggots and worms."

"What are those?" Ori pointed to the faint orange globes hovering over the frogs' remains.

"The light that was trapped within them," Sein answered. "It was stolen from their victims, and not allowed to return to the forest."

"Is it freed now?"

"It will become one with Nibel eventually, yes. But it won't make a difference. Without the light of the Spirit Tree, the forest will still die… and you and I are the only ones left who can restore it. For now, you should take the stolen light, and use it for good. You'll need the strength: things will only get worse from here."

A/N: For this theme, I originally wanted to do Ori's introduction to Sein, but really that was one of the few pieces of dialogue already in the game. So instead I showed Ori's introduction to the harsh, dangerous world he's thrust into, and to having to kill other creatures to survive.

2. Love

Love is a strange thing. Many would say it brings out the best in us, but none know better than I that it can also bring out the worst. It is the bridge between Light and Dark, and it is stronger than either.

That night, long ago, when I lit the sky ablaze searching for lost Ori, the thought never occurred to me that my actions could have endangered innocent lives. But, perhaps, that was truly when the forest went blind, not Kuro's act of revenge. I was blinded by my love for my lost child, and in my recklessness and selfishness I nearly condemned all Nibel to death. Had I known what I know now, I never would have called to him so directly. Not only did Kuro's children, the Gumon, Kuro herself, and many other creatures perish because of my foolishness, but all my other children were lost – Fil, Ano, Ilo, Nir, Tatsu, Atsu, Leru, Reem, Eki, Sol, and so many others.

Even Ori himself… at the time, I truly believed it was best for him to be with his own kind, but all I accomplished was to tear him away from Naru in the most cruel way possible. In truth, that is why I gave the last of my strength to bring him back; in the hope that it would be some small atonement for my mistake. I believed all hope for the forest was lost. But I suppose one can be blind to both the bad and the good results of one's actions. Ori did what I thought impossible; he found my lost eyes, Sein, and together they restored the three Elements… and as an indirect result of his actions, he was reunited with Naru, and eventually with me and his own kind. Yet, even setting aside all the other deaths, I regret calling out to him. The journey brought him so much suffering. He would have been happier with Naru, returning to me only when he was ready.

Kuro, too, was reckless in her love. The loss of her three chicks was a tragedy, but her blind pursuit of revenge was of no help to them. She is as responsible for the near-destruction of the forest as I am, so bent on my destruction and that of all other creatures of light that she nearly let her surviving child burn, just as I lost all my children in a vain attempt to bring one home. In the end, just like me, she made the ultimate sacrifice for her surviving chick. I am not knowledgeable enough in the nature of creatures of the Dark to know if there is a way of bringing her back… but I can only hope that there is not. Not out of any ill will towards Kuro, but because I do not wish such a cruel burden on her child after seeing what it did to Ori. And, like Ori, the owlet is in good hands.

Naru's love was the most pure, the most selfless. She raised Ori as her own, she gave her own life for him just as much as I did, and even after Gumo's sacrifice brought her back, her only thought was to protect him. And, when Ori had given all he could for the sake of me, of Sein, of the whole forest, and Kuro was about to doom it all in her rage, it was Naru who finally showed her the error of her ways… and gave me the opportunity to see the error in mine.

A/N: The Spirit Tree reflects on his poor decisions.

3 and 4: Light and Dark

One of the advantages to being a creature of Light was that Guardian Spirits' bodies had a faint white glow. In daylight it was so weak as to be almost imperceptible, and on stormy days or at dusk the only real effect was that objects had faint, fuzzy shadows that always hid from Ori no matter which way he moved. But Guardian Spirits also had superb night vision. Ori had never experienced true darkness; even on a cloudy, moonless night, inside a hollow log or tree trunk, or in his and Naru's cave, Ori could always see a comfortable distance. Certainly he never had to worry about jumping and not being able to see where he would land.

Thanks to the last gifts of the lost Spirits whose final resting places were marked by the Ancestral Trees, Ori could cover a lot more distance in a single jump than before, he told himself, but he also had much brighter lights. For a start, Sein was with him, and she glowed brighter than he did. Then there was the Spirit Flame, the Charge Flame, and even the ghostly fire of a Soul Link. He should have still been able to see far enough.

But nothing helped. The darkness of the Blackroot Burrows was impenetrable. Except where luminous fungi responded to his approach, or the deadly beams of sickly green, searing light pierced the air, he could see his paw in front of his face, but not much further. The ground underfoot was visible for about a body length away, but only if he stayed there. If he leapt into the air, which he had to do frequently to avoid the ever-present spinebushes, he could, for an instant, not see the ground, ceiling, or walls.

Sein did her best to help, but if she strayed too far from him, even her light faded into the gloom. It was as if the air itself was extinguishing the light – not like fog, or even like dark smoke. Perhaps in this place the Dark ruled, and it didn't want him or any other Light creature who trespassed in its domain to see. Ori shivered, half at the thought and half at the drop of cold water that fell from the ceiling and hit him in the back of the neck.

He crept nervously through the caverns, keeping himself pressed against a wall and his hooves firmly on the ground whenever it was safe to do so. But there were times when he had no choice. Here, the path ended in a sheer drop and overhang underneath a narrow spit of rock. The ceiling was out of reach, and the walls were unadorned by fungi, luminous or not, a sure sign that they were too wet and slippery to cling to or jump off of. A dead end? No, there were faint lights along the far wall. Fungi, and something else, something moving. And another, smaller something getting rapidly closer. He twisted away just in time, and a glob of slime hit the ground where he'd been standing, sprouting deadly, poisoned spikes. He backed away into the passage he'd come from and waited for it to vanish, silently thanking the Spirit Tree that the slime had its own corrupt, purple glow.

Ori had learned from painful experience that the slime globules spat out by the wall-clinging Corruptions couldn't be reflected back at them, and it was too far away to reach with Spirit Flame. But its presence, along with the fungi, meant that the wall was close enough for him to reach. There was only one way forward that he could see: a leap of faith. Taking a deep breath, he crept up to the ledge again, keeping an eye on the Corruption. He waited for it to shoot another volley, and he jumped, leaping again in midair to land as high up on the wall as possible. Above him, something flashed past, brushing against the tips of his ears. It was a small, vertical spit of rock, covered in reflective mushrooms. He knew he could have changed direction and reached it, but he'd already used his second jump.

As he reached the apex of his leap and began to fall, Ori had an ominous feeling… which was quickly confirmed as, unable to change direction, he slammed into the spike-covered wall ahead of him.

A/N: Gee, Light and Dark? What the heck are you supposed to write about these, it's not like they're one of the central themes of the entire game or anything, am I right? So instead, I decided to combine the two themes, and write about actual physical light and darkness.

Ori glows. This is convenient for the developers, since the game is truly two-dimensional: Ori was modeled and animated in 3D, but what's in the game is all pre-rendered sprites. Thanks to some really cool shading software they can put some lighting on the environment, but IIRC there's no external lighting on Ori whatsoever. Having him glow probably helps this not look weird, but it's also absolutely beautiful.

5. Seeking Solace

It had been three months since the restoration of the Elements, and the forest of Nibel was full of life once again. The Spirit Tree's power had helped the dead trees regrow in a time that would be impossibly short anywhere else, and as sources of food returned, so did the animals. There were hundreds of different species: a few were creatures of Darkness, underground or farther from the Spirit Tree's influence, some were creatures of Light, and the majority were "Grays," beings with both light and dark in their souls. But there was still only one Guardian Spirit.

Soon, Ori knew, more of his kind would be born. With the arrival of the new generation, he would be the eldest. But he couldn't imagine ever thinking of himself that way.

Guardian Spirits lived long lives ordinarily, long enough that before the forest went blind only one or two would be born in a year. Physically, they were fully grown from the moment their leaves touched the ground, but mentally it took them decades to mature. Ori had been forced to bear a responsibility that was far too great even for adults, but having survived the ordeal didn't actually make him an adult. In some ways he had grown – he was more confident wandering the forest alone, and sometimes spent the night perched in the treetops – but he was still a child.

And Ori's journey had changed him in other ways, too. Even after months of peace, he still flinched at the sound of a frog's croak or the sight of glowing white eyes. He was perhaps the only Guardian Spirit who was afraid of the dark; every moving shadow in his peripheral vision, cast by his own dim glow, seemed to be an approaching enemy. He slept in the treetops not only because he could easily reach them with the skills of the lost Spirits of the Ancestral Trees, but because he felt too vulnerable alone on the ground.

But Ori only spent the night alone when he was feeling brave, or when he lost track of time and was caught by the sunset far from home, and not if the moon was new or covered by clouds. Normally Spirits his age would stay in their nests among the roots and branches of the Spirit Tree, or if they were far from him huddle close to a Spirit Well. Ori was different. He'd never truly recovered from the fragments of memory he'd absorbed on that mountain over the Forlorn Ruins; the terror the owlets had felt when the night sky was set ablaze, the feeling of being burned by the same light that nurtured him, Kuro's anguish, and her terrible, terrible rage. His parent's light still comforted him on an instinctive level, but there was always a faint, nagging uneasiness at the edge of his consciousness.

There was another reason Ori usually slept the same place he always had, in the little nest in the cave on the outskirts of Nibel. The nightmares. So many times, he woke up trembling, crying, and gripping his own arm so hard his claws broke the skin and he bled. To a Spirit, being enveloped by light was as good as the touch of another warm body, and when the dreams were of swirling water, or falling onto poisoned spikes, or searing flames, or enormous talons piercing his heart, Sein knew what to say because she'd been there with him through every painful death. Except for one. And that one death, and what came before it, were the real reason. When he dreamed of waking up in a cold, dark, and empty cave, and of wandering through a decaying forest, alone, lost, weak, and frail, the only thing that could make him feel better was crawling into Naru's arms, and knowing for certain that she was still there.

A/N: You know, I just had a realization. My entire fanfiction writing career can pretty much be summarized as: "Giving Adorable, Innocent Creatures PTSD." I might have a problem.

6. Break Away

"You're sure this will work?" Ori tiptoed up to the edge of the cliff and staring down at the loose rocks just below him.

"I'm sure," said Sein. "Well… pretty sure. The only way the rocks can fall is down."

Ori crept along the ledge, shifting to the side of the rocks to catch a glimpse of the great owl, Kuro. The wind pushed and pulled at his small body, threatening to blow him away into the abyss. His tail extended rigidly behind him for balance. He sank to his belly, digging his claws into the soil, and crawled back away from the ledge. Yes, the rocks would certainly land exactly where she was perched. But… "What if she moves?"

"She won't move," Sein said matter-of-factly. "The Misty Woods are so shrouded by haze that this is the only safe path. She'll guard it; she knows we have to pass through to undo her wrath."

"What if the rocks kill her?" Ori looked down again at the boulders. Kuro might have been big and powerful, but the collection of unstable rocks was just as big as she was and probably much heavier, and it was a dizzying height from the clifftops to the owl's perch, let alone the distance she could fall into the canyon.

Sein hesitated. "I don't know. It's possible… but would it be so bad if they did? One way or another the path would be clear."

"Sein, she's a living creature!" Ori was shocked by the light orb's indifference. "I told you, I felt her presence at the top of the Ginso Tree! Her heart is full of rage, and hatred, but… she's not like the Corruptions. She's like Gumo, or… or Naru."

"I know that, Ori. I felt her too. But we don't have a choice." Sein paused. "Ori, Kuro is the reason the forest is like this. All the spirits who gave you their powers… Fil, Ano, Leru, Reem, and Ilo… they died because of her. Naru died because of her. And you, and I, and the Spirit tree, and the Gumon, and every other creature left in this forest will die if we don't undo the corruption she's spread."

"I know…" Ori whispered. "I just… isn't there another way of distracting her?"

"If it makes you feel better," said Sein, "I really don't think the rocks will seriously hurt her. She flew right into the heart of the Spirit Tree during the Light Ceremony and plucked me out. For a being of such pure darkness to do that she has to be strong, stronger than you can imagine. I'm not sure, but probably."

"Okay…" Ori took a deep breath, and hopped out onto the mass of boulders, held together by decaying tree roots. The wind tore at his fur again, and the rocks swayed ominously. Again he dropped to all fours and crawled out along the unstable surface, limbs splayed wide and ears flattened against his head. Through the gaps in the stone he could see Kuro's immense head, and then the valley floor far, far below, so far he could barely make out individual trees. Another thought occurred to him. "What if they just make her angry?" He asked. "And tell her where we are."

"It's… possible," Sein admitted. "But even if things really go wrong, she doesn't know about the Soul Link; that I'm sure of."

"That's encouraging…" Ori tried to summon the strength for sarcasm through his apprehension. Even this far up, Kuro's hatred was so thick in the air he could practically have jumped off it with Reem's power. He understood what Sein meant; it seemed like he could drop the sky itself on the owl and not even faze her.

Ori pawed at the rock, and sent sparks of Spirit Flame into the cracks, testing it. No, Charge Flame wouldn't break it. He would have to use Ilo's power. He carefully stood up, bracing his hooves against the roughest parts of the rock and trying not to think about how far up he was, or about falling into Kuro's waiting beak and talons. He hadn't really been afraid of heights before the journey, not since well before the forest went blind, and when he'd fallen from trees before he'd never hurt himself badly. But this was far higher than anything but the Ginso Tree, and he knew spikes or jagged branches could be waiting for him on the valley floor.

He looked back up at the cliff face above him. He knew when he knocked the boulders free, he'd have to move fast to get back to safety, and that was if the entire ledge didn't collapse. But there was no other choice. He took a deep breath, planted one arm against the rock to steady himself, and jumped. One jump, and then just as he started to fall again, another jump, the one he'd learned from Leru. Then curl into a ball, making himself as small as possible for protection, gather the light around him into a spherical shield, and will the Earth to pull him towards it as hard as possible.

Ori slammed into the rock, bouncing into the air as he uncurled himself. Even with the protective shield, the impact was so strong his vision momentarily blurred. His hooves touched the boulder again, and he could feel it start to descend. He sprang off it, reaching as high as he could, then sprang off the air itself. The cliff face broke away from the mountain, just as he feared it would, and he was surrounded by a shower of falling stones and boulders. He jumped off one, then used Reem's power to fling himself further upward off another, but it wasn't enough. The cliff still hung out of reach, and he tumbled helplessly through the air. There was a tremendous crash, the ear-ringing screech of an owl, and the next thing he knew, he was lying flat on his back on the other side of the canyon. Above him, a single feather swam into focus, lazily floating downward in exactly the way he couldn't.

A/N: This was a really hard prompt to come up with an idea for, but I guess rocks breaking away from a cliff satisfy it.

7. Heaven

"Sein?"

"What is it, Ori?"

"What happens when we die?"

Sein was silent for a moment. Her light turned a slightly deeper shade of blue, and Ori thought he saw sparks, like weaker Spirit Flame, dance around her. "…you would know better than me," she replied.

"I mean normally. Our bodies stay there, empty, or we leave an Ancestral tree behind, and maybe our Light stays, but it isn't us. Where does the part that is go?"

Sein sighed. She floated closer to Ori, watching his eyes. They never wavered from the frozen black shapes huddled in the corner. "This is about the Gumon, isn't it?"

Ori nodded silently.

"I don't know what happens, Ori. I don't think anyone knows, not even the Spirit Tree." Sein paused again, unsure her answer was enough. But should she say what she did know? Would it help? "I know some creatures believe… or believed, I don't think there are any left… that the souls of the dead go to other worlds, worlds where they're safe forever and nothing can hurt them. So, I suppose creatures of Light like you or I would go somewhere where the entire world is full of Light, like being among the Spirit Tree's branches… and it would be different for creatures of Darkness. Maybe a place where it's always night, or somewhere deep underground."

"Oh." Ori slowly got to his feet, and tore his eyes from the frozen corpses of the Gumon. "Let's go," he said flatly. Sein had a feeling she'd said the wrong thing, but didn't want to keep mentioning whatever it was.

They pressed on through the ruins under the mountain, slowly ascending. But the path was difficult and dangerous. Some of the fragmented stones still burned red-hot; the Light Vessel made them safe to walk on, but did nothing about the bitterly cold air. Anything not heated was coated in slippery frost, and sharp icicles and crystal formations sprouted from every available surface. The Light Vessel was too heavy for Ori to do more than walk and jump with, and it made gravity point in unnatural directions. Navigating the maze of passages and halls required intense concentration, and Sein could tell that Ori didn't have it. After several deaths, she finally worked up the courage to ask him what was wrong.

"You said… you said light and dark creatures don't go to the same place." The little spirit knelt next to a wall, tracing meaningless shapes in the frost with a finger. Tears froze to his face. "That means – that means I'm never going to see Naru again, am I?"

A/N: This was a hard theme to come up with something for. But you can never go wrong with sad Ori.

8. Innocence

Ori hated Gumo at first. The spiderlike creature's theft of the Water Vein was unforgivable in his mind. He had intentionally stolen the key to the Ginso Tree, intentionally kept Ori and Sein from restoring the corrupted Element of Waters. And Ori knew well the horrors the Element's corruption caused.

Long ago, when the forest first went blind, his and Naru's first warning sign was the water turning bad. Streams turned dark and murky, ponds choked with dead fish, inky purple scum staining the banks where the water level had fallen. After Naru died, when he staggered through the forest alone, he'd seen what happened to creatures that tried to drink it; rotting bodies, surrounded by the dried-out carcasses of flies and beetles that had tried to scavenge off their remains and been poisoned too. Ori himself had fallen in the water three times. Once, only his leg and tail were submerged, but the poison still burned through his skin, and he was soon dragging the leg uselessly behind him until he found a life shard. Another time, he went under completely, and it hurt so badly that he forgot which way was up, couldn't stop himself from screaming, and sucked in a lungful of water. The third time, thanks to the life cells he'd collected it wasn't quite as bad against his skin. He got out in time, he thought, but he'd swallowed a little of it. It took almost half the day before he finally died, and even after coming back at the Soul Link he threw up again just from the memory.

That death was Gumo's fault, too. It only happened because Ori was chasing him, trying to recover the Water Vein. The gumon had taunted Ori, led him into traps, and even pulled the ground out from under his feet. When he finally caught the thief, he thought, he would make him pay by burning him to ash. Gumo, he thought, had become no different from the Corruptions.

But as Ori scrambled onto the rocky ledge and saw Gumo's helpless form pinned beneath the same rockslide he had set off to try to get the spirit crushed, all that hatred melted away. Ori's heart was pounding in his chest and his fur standing on end after the death-defying chase through a shower of boulders. In that moment, he only saw another creature in pain. No, that wasn't quite true: in his mind's eye he saw himself, legs crushed by a falling block trap and waiting for death. The traps were probably more of Gumo's work, he knew, but right then it didn't cross his mind. Instinct took over. He bounded to the rock pinning Gumo's legs, and he pulled with all his strength.

It wasn't the smartest decision, he realized a little later. He had no way of knowing his act of kindness would give Gumo a new spark of hope. He could have only freed him after making him tell him where the Water Vein was. And he'd come close to pulling the boulder over on top of himself during the rescue. But he knew he'd done the right thing. And much later in his journey, when Ori started to realize why Gumo had given in to darkness, and cursed himself for ever hating him, Sein used the story to remind the young spirit what his true nature was.

A/N: This one was hard to come up with an idea for, but I finally settled on Ori's rescue of Gumo. He moved that rock immediately, without having time to think about the consequences. Put someone under so much pressure that they act purely on raw emotion like that, and you'll know their true feelings… maybe? I feel like I've seen a quote like that somewhere.

…the other idea I had for this prompt was Ori discovering obscene Gumon graffiti in the Forlorn Ruins (inspired by the abundant real-life ancient Roman graffiti, much of it obscene, found in the ruins of Pompeii) and not understanding, and Sein trying to explain / lie blatantly to protect his innocence. That might have been funny, but I'm glad I went with this instead; it's better characterization and fits the tone of the game better.

The deaths mentioned here will be covered again later.

9. Drive

Naru wept as she trudged through the burning forest, cradling her child's unconscious body. When she awoke in the cave, with Gumo watching over her and Ori gone, her first thought was his safety. Gumo told her of Ori's quest – he didn't know that much since they had never actually said a word to each other, but he told Naru of Ori's fall from the Ginso tree, and how when his kind's home collapsed he feared the worst, but soon after he saw twin points of light in the sky over the valley, riding the winds toward Sorrow Pass. They both knew to restore the third element, Ori would have to brave the fires of Mount Horu, and Naru wanted to follow, to do something, anything, to protect him, but she was too large and slow to get through the gauntlet of lava flows and burning trees. Yet, despite the danger she knew she was in, she believed that when – or if – she saw him again, it would be a time of joy. But now, the only happiness she felt was that he was alive at all, and even that was overshadowed by worry.

She hadn't seen Kuro strike him down, but she had heard him scream, then abruptly fall silent, and when she saw him lying there, motionless, she thought for a moment, as any mother would, that she had lost her light. Even when she picked him up, his breathing and heartbeat were so faint that she could barely feel them. She knew he was alive only because of his glow, burning as bright as if a star had fallen to Earth. But now, the glow was fading. Naru knew Ori was close to death, and the only one who could save him was his true parent, the Spirit Tree.

The fires surrounding the tree quickly went out, and it appeared to Naru as if a path had been opened ahead of her in particular. As rain began to fall on the scorched meadow, she carried Ori towards the same light that had claimed Kuro's life. This light, too, was fading, but for a different reason. Sein, the eyes of the Spirit Tree, was back in her rightful place, and her connection to Ori was severed, but in the moments before Kuro's sacrifice she'd seen how badly he was hurt. She dimmed the Tree's light as much as she dared while still putting the fires out and freezing Mount Horu's lava. Even so, as Naru came closer to the tree, head bowed to protect her eyes, she knew she couldn't stay there for long. She, too, was a creature of the dark. She would have to leave him again, even if only for a little while.

And yet, Naru's tears weren't tears of joy or worry, but of sorrow. Having seen the Tree's power from so close, she had complete faith that he could save her – no, his, or perhaps their child. But the state Ori was in now was heartbreaking. Kuro's talons had opened up huge, bloody wounds, and from his ragged breathing and the way his body folded unnaturally as he lay there in her arms, she was sure many bones were broken. But Ori's panicked escape from the great owl had done as much damage as Kuro herself. He was cut and scraped in dozens of places from jagged lava rock, tree bark, and thorns. One ear was torn, his paw pads and the soles of his hooves were cracked and blistered from climbing over superheated rock, and the skin of his nose was peeling off. Drops of splattered lava had burned holes in his fur, and underneath the glow, patches of his coat were singed black.

Kuro's attack might have put Ori's life in the greatest danger, but it had been so fast and so vicious that the little spirit had been knocked out before he knew what happened. But the other wounds couldn't have all happened at once. Each one represented a misstep, a stumble, or a place where the only way forward was through flames, or thickets, or scalding water. But each also represented a moment where Ori, the same Ori who had once been stuck in a tree all day after he got a splinter in his paw, refusing to climb down, had gotten back up and kept running. That time, he had finally jumped from the branch into Naru's arms when thunder rolled in the distance, and perhaps this time too fear had overcome pain. But she knew from Gumo that Kuro had attacked Ori before, flinging him from the top of the Ginso Tree. And with her nest right above the Forlorn Ruins, it seemed likely that he'd met her again there. He had to have known what waited for him in the heart of Mount Horu, and yet he'd still gone in.

Ori had always been a stubborn child, Naru reflected. Fearful, sometimes – storms especially terrified him – and he rarely strayed far from her side, but sometimes he would be so fixated on a task that everything else seemed to vanish for him. Multiple times he had tried to climb a tree, and gotten scared halfway up when he looked down or a gust of wind caused the branches to sway, but refused to give up until he made it to the top, and then wouldn't leave the ground for days afterward. When she first taught him to weave grass and twigs into baskets, he spent an entire day weaving, unravelling, and re-weaving them until he finally got the pattern right, and when he finished it he was so hungry and thirsty he broke down in tears. That stubbornness, Naru supposed, must have kept Ori going, through losing her, through Gumo's traps, through all the hardships of the journey, until he was finally knocked from the sky with only one hurdle left.

But Naru didn't know the half of it. All the burns and cuts and broken ribs only showed the pain of one life. And Ori had lost hundreds.

A/N: Writing Ori is an interesting challenge because usually when I write fanfiction I'm working with characters who either have very well-defined characterization (main characters in shows or movies), or none whatsoever (OCs, customizable video game protagonists). But Ori has a few moments that define him. Going out and gathering the fruit to try to save Naru… the way he looks around nervously when he's lost in the forest near the end of the opening cutscene… choosing to save Gumo… and the fact that he eventually succeeds in getting to the ending. I choose to treat the Soul Link as canon, and assume he dies about as many times as a typical player getting through the game the first time.

Fun Fact: horse hooves, which are what Ori's are closest to, actually have a "soft" fleshy inside – the frog and the sole – which touches the ground and bears a significant amount of wait. Essentially they're thick calluses, not that different from a cat or dog's paw pads. So Ori really is being burned by the superheated rocks in Mount Horu, the same as a creature with regular feet or paws would be.

10. Breathe Again

The last thing Ori remembered was wandering through the forest, lost and alone. It had been two days… two days since Naru's soul left her. He knew it was two days because the sky had gotten lighter and darker, but the sun hadn't come out. Two days without food, water, or sleep. There was nothing to eat, no clean water, and whenever he thought about shutting his eyes, dark, shadowy things moved at the edges of his vision, stalking closer and closer.

Ever since he'd left Swallow's Nest, left home, all Ori had done was walk, or sometimes climb or crawl. Sometimes he paused just for a minute, to catch his breath or try to see where he was, but he didn't stop moving for long, because he was afraid if he did, he would turn back. He would go back to his home, to his mother, he would curl up next to her, and he would die waiting for her to wake up.

But that wasn't what she wanted. He knew that. She'd given him the last piece of fruit so he could live, and no matter how much he wished that she had eaten it herself instead, and maybe he'd still have had the strength to climb that tree, and she'd have had the strength to last until he got back, he knew he couldn't change anything. So he had to keep living, no matter how much it hurt.

He didn't know where he was going. This was a part of the forest he'd never been in before. The old parts were all dead. This part was too, or at least almost all dead, but he had to keep hoping there was something beyond it. At first, he tried to look around, and sniff the air for signs of food or water, but soon he was too tired to think of what lay ahead, and he started going in aimless circles. But he still felt something calling him, a blue light in the distance like the light on the night the sky was lit ablaze. Somehow, it felt like home. And slowly, through his backtracking and circling, instinct pulled him towards it.

It hurt to keep walking now. His legs ached, his neck hurt from the effort of keeping his head raised, and sharp thorns had stabbed into the soft parts of his hooves, making them bleed. When he felt his nose, it was dry, as dry as the fallen leaves that now covered the ground.

Ori knew his strength was failing. Even his mind was starting to go; he cried out for his mother, even though he knew she could never hear him. The silence of the forest mocked him, and teased him with faint crackles of branches somewhere he couldn't see, yet frighteningly close. Any moment, he knew, something could burst from the darkness. But now he was close to the light. He knew where it was, and he was sure that eventually he could reach it if he just kept making his legs move, one hoof in front of the other.

But he couldn't. Brambles blocked his path; he tried to find a way around them, but all there was was a small gap that seemed big enough to squeeze through, but turned out not to be when it was already too late. He stumbled and fell, sharp thorns tearing through his skin, and rolled down a hill. He couldn't get up, his legs and tail wouldn't move no matter how hard he tried. Even then he crawled, dragging himself along the fallen leaves and rotten, splintery logs one inch at a time. But he could see his arms, shredded skin taut against the bones and fur matted with dirt and blood, and the faint light slowly growing dimmer, and he knew he wouldn't last much longer. It was all for nothing, he thought as his vision faded to darkness, his body started to go numb, and he slumped to the ground, with no strength left for anything but breathing, and soon not even that. He couldn't save Naru… he couldn't even save himself.

And yet… now that last memory was a haze, like a dream he'd just woken up from. He slowly pushed himself upright, not feeling his arms shake anymore. He was on the same log, if anything more rotten. The light was now as clear as the moon off in the distance, an enormous tree, with beautiful white flowers dotting the meadow separating him from it, but he no longer felt the desire to go to it. He got to his feet. He could stand again… what happened? He'd been so weak, and yet now he felt… almost normal. Not as good as normal; he was still hungry, thirsty, and crushed under the weight of grief. But the hunger and thirst were just an annoying twinge, and his body didn't hurt anymore. His mind was clear again. He was still scared, still lost and all alone, and still longing to hear Naru's voice or feel her arms around him, but he knew what he had to do: just keep moving.

Ori shut his eyes, took a deep breath of the cool night air, and hopped off the log. There was a new light ahead, a fainter one that he couldn't see, but he could feel himself being pulled towards it. And this time, he knew he could reach it.

A/N: This prompt, I knew the scene, but it took a while to figure out how to do it justice, how to capture the pure despair Ori must have felt.