Doka-Tehka

Little Doka always loved things larger than themselves, in both the literal and figurative sense. Their first years after sprouting spent climbing tree’s and harassing the older scouts for stories about the wider world, which they know disappointingly little about beyond the borders of the Deep Woods they’re small, effectively nameless community was entrenched within
  What would come to be the defining moment of Doka’s life came on their 8th spring. Having ran away from home for the last few days to find one of the largest and last, after an odd tree-blight had hit in the preceding years, remaining Redwoods in the whole Deep Woods. Eventually Doka did find it, situated within a small clearing, breathtakingly titanic compared to anything they had known before, almost disappearing upwards into the sky. Doka named the Redwood Lola, because it was so very long, and began to climb.
  The whole climb took a whole half day of careful scaling up rough bark, leaping from branch branch and the short breaks in between, never losing focus lest they fall and have to do it all again. Doka reached and found there was nothing further to grab, they had found the top of Lola’s trunk, and so Doka allowed themselves a look outward, and was greeted by Hyrule, rivers stretched on longer than Doka thought the whole world did, mountains cast shadows over plains the size of the entire Deep Woods, light not of the sun shone from towns and city’s so large they were comparable to home in the same way Lola was comparable to Doka. And on the other side of the world, lit from the setting sun, was a great canopy of pink, attached to a trunk so thick and tall it completely eclipsed Lola’s. Utterly incomprehensible in scale, and so beautiful.
  Doka had found their purpose, they were going to find, name and climb that Great Tree.
  After sleeping away the night atop Lola, Doka stole one last glance to the Great Tree and set off. Getting out of Deep Woods was easy, as young as Doka was, they knew the forest too well. Everything after was a mystery. The journey took two winters to complete. Doka travelled through Kasuto, Hateno Fort, Castle town (which Doka thought was just a very weird mountain at a distance) and Mido. Hitching rides with merchants and travellers, stealing essentials moved to purchasing them once Doka got a grasp of the language and these things called ‘Rupees’ at the end of the first ‘year’ (as the ‘Hylians’ called winters) after that things got a lot easier.
  Doka learnt of other peoples, they particularly liked the smooth, wet people, ‘Zora’ apparently and the boulder people, ‘Gorons’, they were both very big and very pretty. ‘Gerudo’ were scary though, Doka was half bald because of one.
  They always slept facing the Great Tree, and started praying towards it as well once a Hylian had taught them what ‘religion’ was, and they started calling the journey a pilgrimage, because that was what it was now.
  After it all, they had reached the Korok Forest. Which was unsurprisingly filled with it’s namesake, the Koroks reminded Doka of the Deku, just a lot nicer than the folks at home, and more childlike, Doka liked them, and entertained their tricks and jokes while travelling in towards the now towering pink canopy of the Great Tree.
  Little Doka had found the Great Tree. It was magnificent, roots as thick as roads and a trunk that could house a city. On it’s front was a bark formation that looked almost exactly like the kind, old Hylian that helped Doka learn their language in Kasuto, so they had the perfect name for the great tree, ‘Richard!’ [I’m happy to change this if necessary, it is a very silly name in this context] and the Great Tree replied, Doka nearly died of fright that day.
  Doka talked with the now identified Great Deku Tree (though they never stopped calling him Richard) asking him long questions and getting even longer answers. The Tree told stories both great and mundane, giving wisdom and wonder in equal part. The goal of climbing the Tree now secondary to just being with him, Doka set up a home within one of the Tree’s roots. Doka stayed, talking with the Tree nearly every day, it became a routine. Wake up, pray, take care of the home, talk with the Tree, secure food, write his stories down with what they had, pray, then sleep. Over time Doka started to view the Tree more as a mentor, and with the knowledge that the Tree was the Dekus origin, the closest thing Doka had to a true parent, but most of all, Doka became convinced of the tree’s godliness, his age, his wisdom, and the immense safety of his towering branches.
  The Tree protested being worshipped, citing the existence of ‘real’ Goddesses, but Doka persisted, they didn’t care for the Goddesses, they weren’t the Dekus progenitor like The Tree, and more importantly, they weren’t here, they created the world and ran to some distant realm, leaving the world to suffer in the grip of evil, for mortals to solve in all the Tree’s stories. The Tree may not be a true God, but he’s better than them.
  One day, in the spring of they’re 15th year, half a decade since setting foot in the Korok Forest, now an adult, Doka felt a shift during their routine prayer, a newly formed connection between themselves and the Tree. Something that even the Tree said would be impossible, but it had happened anyway, possibly through the connection of Deku and Deku Tree. Now able to perform mystical feats through the Tree’s power, they renamed themselves to a different, new caste, from Doka to Tehka. The newly named Tehka took their Holy symbol of the Tree, the book of his stories and their old travel equipment, biding farewell to Richard and the Koroks, leaving to spread the Tree’s wisdom and worship.