I wrote a quick story featuring Virmir as he's transformed into a forest spirit. I've included a copy of the original format I wrote the story in.
In "Virmori and the Grumpy Forest", Sein is found not by Ori, but instead winds up in Virmir's tower. After discovering that Virmir can understand them, Sein decides that Virmir is the one who needs to save the forest, but Virmir doesn't feel that's very productive. Sein, however, isn't willing to take no for an answer.
Virmori and the Grumpy Forest
Story By: Airafox
Virmir is owned by Virmir
Ori & Sein are copyright Moon Studios
It was a dark and rainy night. Virmir sat at his desk, tablet pen in hand, as the wind howled and banged on window. The grey fox was unfazed by the storm outside, too focused on drawing foxes. He was kept warm by the flames of a nearby fireplace, though his fur insulated him well enough. Summer was on its way out, and though the cold storm was a freak work of nature, Virmir didn't mind as long as he didn't have to go outside in it.
A loud crash came across his window as the sky unleashed its first crack of lightning and thunder. The bang was loud enough to rattle his window, but that's not what broke the fox's concentration. His window had blown open from the latest blast of wind at the same time, allowing light to emanate throughout the room. Virmir probably wouldn't have moved from his spot if the rain blowing in and getting on his equipment.
"Trees!" cursed the fox, hating the fact that he had to get up. "Blasted window! I'll have to add fixing it to the schedule tomorrow." As he slammed the window closed and turned back to his desk, a strange light caught his attention. It was flickering on the ground, and for a moment Virmir mistook it for a fallen lamp. He bent over to to pick it up, his cape riding up his back, when a voice rang out in his ear.
"H-Help..." it called.
Virmir stopped and blinked twice. Was somebody in his tower? Lucile was out and it was too high-pitched to be VirBot. He looked down at the light again, noticing that it looked more like an orb.
"Nngh... Help... Please..." the voice called again. This time there was no mistaking the source of the mysterious voice. It was coming from the glowing orb on the ground. Virmir blinked again, reaching down to examine it more closely. As soon as his finger made contact with the orb, it sprang into the air and began floating around Virmir curiously.
"Gah!" Virmir gasped in surprise, stumbling back. His eyes trailed along the luminescent sphere's path as it flew circles around him, until he became dizzy and forced to stop. He clapped at it like it were a fly, trapping it between his palms. "What are you? A fairy of some sort? What are you doing barging into my tower and breaking my window?"
"The forest!" it cried.
"What about the forest? What about my window, curses?!" he replied.
The light began dragging him along as it tried to escape, stopping only after appearing to think back on something. "Wait... You can hear me? But... You're not Ori. You're not even a child of the Spirit Tree!"
"How can a tree be a spirit?" Virmir questioned. "Never mind that. Anyway, what about my window? I trust you'll pay for the repair. Or you can at least repair it on your own."
"Forget about the window!" the light exclaimed. Virmir released the orb and covered his ears. The light was speaking directly into his brain, and the echoing of its yelling was giving him a migraine. "You can hear me, can't you? I don't know how, but that doesn't matter right now. What matters is that the forest is in trouble! It needs your help!"
"And what kind of help could the forest need from me?" Virmir scoffed, shrugging his shoulders. He decided to leave the light alone and return to his desk. He was losing valuable drawing time talking to this thing. He turned back one last time to ask the light a final question. "By the way, what kind of fairy are you?"
Virmir didn't really care too much, but he was a little curious and he thought he could potentially include something like it in a drawing sometime.
"You can call me Sein," the light answered. Though Virmir hadn't asked for the explicit details, Sein began explaining what happened to Virmir. The Spirit Tree was attacked by a giant bird known as Kuro for a reason that Sein didn't understand. It slaughtered hundred of innocent forest spirits along the way and removed the core from the tree. As a result, the forest began to decay, the spirits began to disappear, and the weather also became more violent. Sein didn't remember what happened after that, only that they came flying through Virmir's window.
The toon fox had long since returned his attention to his drawing. He normally had some lyric-less music playing in the background, but it wasn't something he needed. Sein became
agitated at the sight of Virmir ignoring their story.
"YOU'RE DRAWING?!" Sein shouted again. Virmir nearly dropped his tablet pen as he covered his ears again. It wasn't like it helped, but it was a typical reaction. "DID YOU EVEN HEAR ANYTHING I HAD TO SAY?!"
Virmir held out his left hand, opening and closing his fingers in the manner of making a handpuppet speak. "Yeah, yeah. Blah, blah, forest is in trouble. Blah, blah, giant bird. Blah, blah, tree. I still don't see what that has to do with me."
"What it has to do with you is everything!" Sein snapped. Though Sein lacked a face, it was clear how annoyed the being was with Virmir's attitude. "I was looking for Ori, but I found you instead. You can understand me! That means YOU can help!"
"That doesn't sound very productive," replied Virmir, shrugging his shoulders again. "You should probably find this Ori person if it's that important." He waved his hand without looking back at Sein. "You're injured, right? You can stay here tonight if you agree to fix the window in the morning, but I suggest you find somebody else to help you save the forest."
"So... you really don't care what happens to the forest?" Sein asked, almost sniffling.
"It's not that I don't care what happens to the forest," Virmir admitted. "I just have more productive things to do. You said you were looking for somebody named Ori, right? That means I'm not the only one who can help. I just don't see why I should do it if I'm not the one who is supposed to save it. It's just not productive to have two people doing a job that one person can do."
"Productive? That's why you won't help?!" Sein growled.
"If I'm not needed, then yes," Virmir answered calmly.
"I see..." Sein sighed. Though one couldn't tell, an idea was brewing in Sein's mind. "What if it meant you could gain a bunch of cool powers and abilities?"
"Powers?" questioned Virmir, slightly intrigued. "Like what?"
"Shooting fireballs, climbing walls, the power to destroy walls around you, the power to breathe underwater..." Sein explained, feeling they were finally getting the fox's attention. "I bet the Spirit Tree could even help you float in the air for a really long time! I bet that could help you when you need to work outside!"
"I can already shoot fireballs, but stuff like breathing underwater and climbing walls does sound useful..." Virmir pondered, a finger placed beneath his chin. "Could this Spirit Tree or whatever fix my arms so that I can draw without interruption and get me a new tablet?" He didn't need a new tablet, but he wanted some kind of compensation for taking time away from his drawing.
"I don't see why not," answered Sein.
"Fine. I guessssss I can help... at least until you find this Ori," Virmir finally decided. "But I'm not getting wet. We'll go tomorrow if the rain stops."
Sein had had just about enough of Virmir's attitude. Sein was already making lots of concessions. The light wasn't about to let Virmir just casually go about things and risk the whole forest's destruction. "No! We're going now!"
Sein crashed into Virmir's side, flinging him out the window with a powerful shove. "Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" Virmir screamed as he crashed through the window and plummeted toward the ground below. Fortunately Virmir was resilient, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt. Virmir splatted against the ground, his body stretching as he picked his body off the ground. His fur was already getting matted down by the rain. Sein floated idly behind him.
"Now let's go!" Sein ordered.
"Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine," Virmir scowled, frowning as he stomped his way into the forest. It didn't help that Sein was constantly bumping into him and nagging him along the way. He wondered if this is what Link felt like when he was adventuring through Hyrule in Ocarina of Time.
Nearly three hours had passed since they left the tower. The rain had finally let up, but Vimir was tired and hungry and hadn't gotten a single power yet.
"How much farther is it? You haven't even told me what I'm supposed to do!" Virmir frowned. "We need to revive the Ginso Tree, then it should purify the water in the forest and we'll be on our way to restoring the forest."
Virmir harumphed and crossed his arms. He stopped as something snorted behind him, a pair of eyes falling upon his form. Virmir turned his head to see a large, stone-covered rhinoceros-like creature barreling toward him. Virmir yelped and jumped to the side as the creature rammed its way past him into a nearby cavern and into a boulder, shattering it in the process.
"Gah! What is that?" said Virmir.
"It's a creature of the forest corrupted due to the waning power of the Spirit Tree," informed Sein.
"You didn't say anything about stuff like this," Virmir groaned, clasping his hands together to create a fireball. The creature began charging back in Virmir's direction. It suddenly stopped as a noise echoed around it. The creature glanced upward as a boulder came crashing down atop it. Virmir blinked in surprise, releasing his flames. He shrugged his shoulders and threw his hands up in the air.
"Am I supposed to go in there?" he asked Sein. Sein bobbed, the closest thing to a nod. Virmir sighed softly and headed into the cavern. Water dripped along the moss-covered cave walls, illuminated by strange glowing plants and mysterious purple bulbs that Virmir felt he shouldn't touch. As Virmir progressed further and further into the cave, hopping across logs and stones to avoid touching the polluted underground lake water, he finally arrived at what appeared to be a large open cavern. On the side of the lake was a lone tree that stood, long dead by the state of its decayed branches. In the center of it was looked almost like a pedestal with a glowing orb.
"That looks kind of important," Virmir observed.
"That light will provide you with knowledge of the past. If you absorb it, you'll be granted power unlike anything you've seen before," Sein explained to Virmir. "Normally you need to be a forest spirit to gain such power, but if it's you, I have a feeling you'll be able to gain something from it."
Virmir grumbled, but it was just a tree. He'd come this far, so what did he have to lose? And if he gained one of the abilities that Sein mentioned earlier, then it would have finally made leaving in the rain worth it. He wasn't sure what to do or how to absorb it, so he did the first thing that came to his mind. He reached out to the touch the orb in front of the tree.
Virmir's body began to levitate in the air as the light began to envelop him. The light entwined around his body and began to spread. It was warm. Even Virmir cracked a smile for but a moment as he felt the power enter his body. It felt great! Finally they were getting somewhere. Virmir could only imagine what kind of power he was being bestowed by this light.
The light entered his body, and made his head start to tingle. The good feeling from before suddenly dissipated and his migraine from Sein's earlier yelling returned. His forehead pushed out and throbbed, pounding outward. The pain repeated at the top of his head, once again feeling as if somebody was pounding away at the inside of his head with a hammer. "Gaaaah!" Virmir cried out, the pounding lasting for much longer than Sein's yelling. Two antennae, these ones much longer than his three, pointy antennae hair and looking far more natural, sprouted out from his head. The looked almost, almost like additional ears, but lacked many of the distinct features of them. One could almost mistake them for horns if they weren't so flexible.
His ears began to burn as they were pulled by an invisible force, becoming longer. Virmir could almost swear he saw the light embracing his body take on the form of hands that began rounding out his ears. His ears were lowered in the process, becoming thinner, but much longer. They were kind of like bunny ears, but much lower on the sides of his head.
The light began pushing at his muzzle, pushing it inward. His snout was no longer quite so pointy, pushed in and rounder than it had been previously. It was about the length of a rabbit's, give or take an inch. Virmir gritted his teeth as his teeth adjusted. His entire head no longer had that vulpine figure to it.
The light then moved to his tail, pinching it. List if Virmir's tail has been quickly shoved through a small hole, much of the fur and fluff fell off, leaving his with a not-so-fluffy tail, but as long as ever. Without all that fur on it, Virmir found it much more prehensile, similar to what one would find on a cat, but thicker.
As the light continued to enter his body, his fur became much lighter in color. The grey fur he prized so much began to fade into a whiteness like what was found on his belly. By the time Virmir's body stopped twirling about in the air and was placed gently back down, his fur was completely white. It had a strange, almost creepy glow to it.
Virmir's arms and legs felt stronger. They weren't more muscular, per se, but they felt that way. Virmir's feet were a bit longer, but not too much. Virmir looked over his body, then back to Sein. He frowned and crossed his arms.
"Well... that was unexpected," stated Sein. If Sein hand arms, they'd probably be scratching the back of their head.
"You didn't tell me this would happen!" Virmir grumbled.
"I didn't say it wouldn't," Sein retorted. "I admit it's not what I expected. It looks like the light turned you into a forest spirit."
"What does that mean?" queried Virmir.
"It means that now you don't have a choice," Sein snickered. Sein didn't really find humor in anything, but even they thought that the situation was amusing. "You're just like Ori! You are destined to save the forest!"
"I didn't sign up for this!" mumbled Virmir, warily shifting his eyes.
The snap of a twig alerted both Sein and Virmir to the presence of three beasts encroaching upon their space. They resembled monkeys of some sort, but they were glowing with the strange eerie purple light that Virmir noticed coming from the bulbs back in the cave. Although the space was wide and open, Virmir didn't exactly want to fight. He didn't even know what he could do.
"We have to get out of here!" Sein warned.
For once, Virmir agreed with Sein. The only way out was the same way that they came in. Virmir waited for the creatures to draw closer, then made a break for it. He leapt off the ground with as much force as he could exert. To his surprise, he was launched high in the air and toward the cave opening. He hadn't made it all the way, but he certainly jumped much farther and higher than he ever could have before. Maybe this change wasn't so bad after all.
Virmir crafted a fireball in his palm and flung it back at the pursuing creatures. They collapsed to the ground in pain, fading into darkness. Virmir panted as he escaped from the cave. Light was already descending onto the forest, giving Virmir and Sein an idea of just how much time they'd spent in the cave. Only now could Virmir see what Sein was talking about. The forest around them really was dying.
"Now do you understand why I need your help?" Sein said to Virmir.
"I already said I'd help you," Virmir grumbled in response. "Might as well see what other powers I can get out of this. Just tell me next time a tree's going to transform me! I hate it when that happens."
And so began Virmir's adventure to save the forest. Teamed up with what he viewed as an annoying fairy, Virmir had been force to take on the role of Ori and take up the hero's mantle.
