Chapter 1     Chapter 3

Chapter 2

    Link headed for the market and bought some fruit; enough for two or three days’ breakfast. He gave most of it to Tatl to carry. She protested until he reminded her that her magical carrying capacity was far greater and less inconvenient than his.
    “We should go to the swamp first,” she said after that.
    “Why?”
    “It’s the first one Tael said. You see, there’s a legend that says that there are four protector giants. We need to get their attention, and one of them lives at each of the cardinal points, so we need to go in those directions! I guessed that was what Tael meant.”
    “I suppose I understand.”
    “You’re just a kid, but you have a sword, and you look competent, so I’ll let you through,” said the guard at the gate. “Be careful, now!”
    “Hm,” grunted Link, jogging through.

    He headed south for the line of trees at the edge of the circular Field of Termina.
    As they passed a huge old dead tree, Tatl veered aside to look at it. There was a rough drawing of a Skull Kid and two fairies.
    “He was lonely when we found him,” she said. “He just wanted to play, but everyone was afraid of his strange face, even the Deku people, who look kinda similar if you ask me. He was cold. So were we. We knew we weren’t supposed to talk to strangers, but we felt sorry for him.”
    “We got to be good friends. We had lots of fun playing in the long grass. That’s when we made this picture.”
    Tatl shut up and wouldn’t say any more.
    “I know something like that,” Link said quietly.
    They carried on south.
    They came to a swamp, but the water looked bad, and smelt bad… more than bad, poisonous.
    “Um, this would be not normal,” Tatl said. “It shouldn’t be acidic.”
    “I’m going over there,” Link said, pointing to a small dock on the other side of the water.
    “Change into a Deku first.”
    “Why?”
    “Because they can bounce on water.”
    “Ugh.” Link put the mask on and felt the same crushing feeling again. When he was done, he headed for the dock, using the giant lily pads along the way to help him.
    He saw a giant octo, and reached behind him automatically. Nothing. He transformed back and tried again.
    “Drat.”
    “What?”
    “I didn’t even check, but that Skull Kid also has my slingshot, my boomerang, and all my supplies. That was one of my bottles Navi was in. Drat.”
    “Throw rocks at it!”
    “All right, I’ll try it. -How are we going to find rocks in a swamp?”
    “I’ll get you something.”
    Link stood on a lily pad and tried blowing bubbles at the thing. They popped, leaving a slight film on the octo’s skin.
    Tatl came back with some Deku sticks. “This was all I could find.”
    “They’ll do.” Link, Hylian form, hurled them like javelins. They punctured the octo, and it wheezed and sank to the bottom of the river.
    Link passed by it, skipping on the water as a Deku, and followed the lily pads.
    He found himself in front of a wooden palace brightly painted in stripes. A monkey came out of the bushes and grabbed his hand, dragging him gently, but firmly, into the cover.
    “You’re a stranger around here, right?” he chirped.
    “I am.”
    “I’m Nikku. I need your help. You see, the Deku Princess has been kidnapped, and they think my brother did it. They’ve got him in there, and they’re going to kill him!”
    “Right. I’ll stop it.”
    “We need to work as a team, Mr. Deku. I’ll tell you where to go. You can get to the back of the cage, but I can’t get there myself. Too many guards. But you can go by ways and not be seen. I’ve spied them out.”
    Nikku took Link to the side of the castle and showed him a magic bean plant.
    “I’ve carefully tended this in case anyone showed up. You go up, and then straight, fly across the gaps with the Deku flowers, and then right, and then eventually another right. It’s not too hard. They’ve tied him to a pole, I hear, so the back door should be unlocked. Good luck!”
    Link headed in. No one paid any attention to him, except for some guards who sat in other Deku flowers. Perhaps they weren’t guards, but feral Deku who had taken up residence in those flowers. They made him think of the Deku back home, whereas the others didn’t. The wild ones stared at him. If he got too close, they snorted a Deku nut at him. One hit another guard on the head and knocked him out. By the time that the scrambling and shouting started, Link was already inside. Tatl was a silent as a mouse throughout the whole thing.
    They arrived at the back of the bamboo cage, and Link found the door. It was tied shut, more strongly than he could undo, so he transformed back to normal and cut it with his Kokiri sword. ‘Lucky the Skull Kid didn’t grab that,’ he thought.
    “Hey. Are you Nikku’s brother? We’ve come to get you out,” Tatl said very quietly.
    “No! There’s something more important to do! We need to rescue the Deku Princess!”
    “All right, but be quieter. No one knows I’m here except your brother, and he’s counting on me to get you out.” Link could be very intense, and the monkey felt his intensity and fell silent. Link cut him free from the pole.
    “Please listen,” the monkey said once they were out of the cage. “I need to teach you the song to open the Woodfall Temple. It’s been sealed.”
    “First…” Link transformed into a Deku. “You can tell me later. I won’t rest easy until you’re out of here. Climb on my back. I think I can manage it.”
    “This is the song,” the monkey insisted, and hummed it very softly.
    “I know that!” Tatl said. “I must have heard you last week or whenever!”
    “Then teach it to your stubborn partner,” the monkey said as Link popped into the flower.
    He launched and fell. The monkey was too heavy for the little Deku body he was using. The guards quickly surrounded them.
    Link untransformed, eliciting gasps from everyone, grabbed the monkey, and ran.
    He almost made it to the gate, but then the guards dog-piled them both.
    Link struggled free, being bigger and stronger than most of the guards as a Hylian, but the monkey was invisible. Link tried to get to him, but the guards were too thickly packed, and he didn’t want to hurt them with his sword.
    He gave up and ran around to the bean plant.
    “Who are you? Oh, you’re the Deku that I asked for help? What happened? Did you get caught?” Nikku asked. “Don’t worry about it. No! Don’t try again now! Plan B. You need to get to the princess. I’ll show you the way there. When we get the princess, she’ll listen to you and talk the king out of it. Come on!”
    He led Link back through the swamp until they came to a giant waterfall.
    “We have to climb this cliff,” he said.
    Link set to, and reached a ledge with a tunnel very soon. They were about on a level with the top of the fall.
    “Here you go through and then there is a series of platforms to a big wooden structure. Do you have the Song of Soaring?”
    “No, but I see something written on that block of jet. It says Song of Soaring,” Tatl said.
    “Lucky we’re in the right place. I use it to get to the platform. You better learn the song and join me.”
    Link looked at the song. It looked like the Song of Storms, but different. He played it on his Ocarina. Nothing happened.
    “Let’s go in!” Tatl said. They went through the tunnel, and Link used the platforms in Deku form until he saw the structure. There was one more flower to get there, or the song, so he used the flower.
    “Now, do you have Deku pipes?” chirped Nikku.
    Link showed them to him.
    “Just play the song to open the Temple, would you? I can’t make a big enough noise.”
    Tatl sang it again for Link, though she was very high-pitched, and Link played it on his pipes.
    The centre of the lake began to bulge up and swell. The ground rumbled: the platform shook.
    The trees in the centre of the lake rose on top of a tall mound of earth. Water cascaded off its sides.
    Link dropped into a Deku flower and flew towards the island.
    Two hours later, he faced off against the demon of the temple: a tribal warrior giant who kept chanting something that sounded to Link like “You wanna fight?”
    “You want to fight?” Link shouted back at it. “We can fight.” He raised the bow he had found – perfectly sized for his thirteen-year old height – and fired an arrow. The warrior blocked it with his kite shaped shield.
    After a short but fierce battle, the warrior, with his annoying chant, collapsed and burnt in green flames. The mask he had worn was unharmed. Link picked it up, and whiteness swallowed his vision.
    It appeared he was standing on the top of a high pillar surrounded by waterfalls. It felt like the Temple of Light, but it was all light instead of all dark. Clouds and bubbles surrounded him.
    A tall, bipedal figure materialized out of the mists ahead of him.
    “Hey! You’re one of the four giants, aren’t you?”
    A slow sad sound, as of singing, came back to Tatl’s call.
    “He says that he is, and that he was imprisoned in that mask. He… thanks you for setting him free? He’s hard to understand. Um… Hey, slow down! Can you help us with the Skull Kid?” Tatl listened. “He says we need to free the other three. Um… Oh! This is a song he wants to teach us. Listen carefully, ‘cause I don’t want to have to remember it all by myself!”
    Link heard the melody sung slowly by the giant and played it on his Ocarina.
    Tatl leaned forward again. “He says… ‘Call us.’ Okay, I guess that means when we’ve got them all sorted out, we can call them with the song and they’ll help us with the Skull Kid.”
    “Thank you!” Link called to the giant. His vision swirled again, and he found himself in a cave.
    There was rustling going on behind a curtain. Link pushed it aside, and found himself face-to-snout with a Deku girl with an elaborate hairdo in many-coloured flowers.
    “You must be the Deku princess,” Link said.
    “Yes, I am. Who are you?”
    “I’ve been sent to rescue you by the monkeys. Your father thinks they kidnapped you.”
    The girl began to quiver with anger. “Oh, foolish father!! How stupid can you get!” She turned to Link. “Quick! Take me home. I’ll settle him.”
    “Who kidnapped you anyway?” Tatl asked, as Link headed out of the cave and found himself facing the tunnel to the waterfall. He noticed that the water was a pure blue colour, and guessed that since the demon was dead, the water was normal. That much was obvious.
    “A big warrior, Ondoluwa, a monster of legend. I don’t know why he’s alive, he’s supposed to be dead thousands of years ago! A Deku hero killed him.”
    “Now we’re going down a cliff,” Link said. “I need to change.” He put the mask on. The girl stared at him.
    “You’re someone special, aren’t you? You look just like the butler’s son now. But you can’t be.”
    “Really?”
    “Hey! Maybe that tree we saw was the butler’s son! After we get the mask away from the Skull Kid, we can make him a Deku again,” Tatl squeaked.
    “Hm.” Link hopped over the lily pads. The princess hesitated just for an instant – Link heard her mumble something about ‘undignified, but I must get home somehow’ – and followed.
    She burst into the palace, flowers bristling, and marched up to her father, who started to burble with joy, but…
    Bounce! The princess knocked him flat, jumping onto his protruding stomach. “F-f-foolish father! What have you done to the monkey! Let him go this instant!”
    The monkey was brought out, but Link was set upon by other guards. “Your majesty, this is the Terminian who tried to rescue the monkey!”
    The princess raged at them too. “Idiots! He was only trying to help the monkey because my father is a blockhead! He’s the one who rescued me!”
    They trembled in their leaves. Finally, the princess got off the Deku King and came down to where Link and the monkey, Kikki, stood.
    “I am terribly sorry, Kikki. My father gets these crazy ideas sometimes. You are officially pardoned, as you never did anything wrong in the first place, and you were only thinking of me.”
    “Don’t mention it, Princess,” replied the monkey, waving a cheerful paw. “Nothing bad happened, thanks to Mr. Link here.”
    “Yes, many thanks to Mr. Link,” repeated the princess. “You killed the demon of the temple. I hope you can stop the Skull Kid who is responsible for all this.”
    “I am going to try,” Link replied.
    Soon after, he left. He went back to Clock Town and fell asleep.
    “Now what?” Tatl asked the next morning. “Let’s hit the mountains, all right!”
    “Fine,” Link said, crawling out of the corner he had fallen asleep in, sword in hand – he was feeling a bit vulnerable with a demonic Skull Kid around, and had used his shield for a blanket.
    He headed out of the east gate and climbed down a cliff, heading toward the white-peaked mountains. Snow still lay on the ground near the side of the town close to the mountains, although it was far below the snowline in the rest of the country.
    He trudged steadily up a narrow path, dodging the occasional loose icicle or snowball thrown by some kind of snow monster. An ice slide blocked his path, but fortunately for him he had not lost his power of element arrows: he could still blast the cliffs of ice with fire.
    He made it to some kind of Goron village, an outdoor Goron village. He wandered around, venturing cautiously into one building, but retreating hastily as the deafening wailing of a baby assaulted his ears. Then he went in again and asked a Goron why the baby was crying so loudly.
    “Oh!” shouted the Goron. Link winced and gestured outside. “The elder hasn’t come back yet, so his son is upset, and also Darmani, our great hero, hasn’t come back yet either. Darmi can usually play the kid to sleep. Hey, would you go look for those two? We’ve got our hands full.”
    “I can do that,” Link said.
    “Why?” Tatl asked. “Why do you have to go and jump into every little problem that comes your way? Are you stupid?”
    “I do it because I can fix it,” Link answered succinctly. “I can look for the Temple on the way. Come on.”
    “You’re crazy,” Tatl said, shaking her head and following him into the hills around the valley.
    It took him the next day to find the elder, frozen into a giant snowball. He was anxious about the hero Darmani, and about his son, but being half-frozen he could only travel slowly. “Please go sooth my son,” he said. “Oh, you can’t use Goron drums, can you?”
    Link shook his head.
    “Well then, just help me home.” Link accompanied him through the cold, wet night and to the Goron hall.
    The next day he wander around a bit more, trying to find the Darmani person. He did find, up a tall cliff, a tomb with his name on it, which confused him, but two Gorons were frozen outside. No one else seemed to know of Darmani’s death, and Link wondered if he could stop it if he went back in time. Unfreezing the Gorons, he asked them about it.
    “Oh, yes, Darmi died several days ago. He went to fight the monster in the Snowhead Temple, but he never came back so we got this tomb ready for him.”
    “So he might not be dead?”
    “He said he would come back in at least two days, and that was four days ago. Darmi never breaks a promise.”
    “Hm.”
    Link felt he could do no more: he was running out of time. He played the Song of Time.
    He went straight to the mountains from the door of the clock tower, using the Song of Soaring, and found that the elder had been frozen into a snowball again, and the baby was still crying.
    While taking the elder home this time, Link saw something dark in the snow; something mysterious that he could not identify. He ran forward a little and picked it up.
    It was the Lens of Truth. One of the three spiky points had been broken off. Link stared at it, shocked. How could a magical object be broken?
    He saw the missing point and picked it up.
    He supposed it was not so impossible. Plenty of things he had once thought invincible had been destroyed.
    “Hey, what’s that?” Tatl asked. “I can fix that. Give it here.”
    “No,” Link said, cradling it to him. “The Skull Kid stole it.”
    “And you think that I’m gonna steal it too? Seriously, you are dumb. I said I can fix it. I’m trying to help you here!”
    Link gave it to her after another moment’s hesitation. Light flashed and the Lens dropped into his hand, whole.
    “…Thank you,” Link said quietly.
    “… Do you know, that’s the first time you’ve ever said thank you to me?” Tatl said back to him.
    “I’m sorry. I was angry.”
    “Okay. That’s reasonable. Thanks for not being mad at me any more.”
    “…You’re welcome.”
    “Can you see anything?” Link asked a while later, as he gave the Lens back to the fairy. She flew up in the air.
    “Nope! Nothing out of the ordinary.”
    “Keep an eye out for invisible things. I’ll go and talk to people in the village again and see if they know anything else.”
    After they helped the elder home to the hall, Tatl squeaked and zipped behind Link’s head, apparently hiding from something.
    “G-g-g-ghost!” she cried. “A big strong Goron with a massive gash on his belly! And he’s looking RIGHT AT US!”
    “Calm down,” Link said. “Where? Can I have that?”
    Link looked through the Lens and walked towards the translucent grey Goron.
    “Gah!”
    Tatl had ducked down the back of Link’s tunic, making him cold. He jerked, but kept walking.
    “Hey, can I talk to you?”
    “Eh? You can see me?”
    “Yes. Are you Darmani, or someone else?”
    “I am Darmani. You have heard of me, then?”
    “A bit. My name is Link. May we help you defeat the Snowhead Temple?”
    “No.” The ghost of Darmani sagged. “I was… defeated myself. Now I can do no more in this world. Snow came upon us suddenly, which should not be here-“
    “No kidding,” Tatl interrupted. “My name’s Tatl, by the way.”
    “-but the demon inside Snowhead is too strong for me. And only a Goron can do it.” The ghost ‘sat down’ on the snow. “I am weary, but I cannot rest. I wish to aid you, but I have no way of doing it.”
    “I might be able to help,” Link said softly, raising the Ocarina to his lips. He played the Song of Healing.
    Darmani’s transparent face showed an epiphany. He looked peacefully happy, as if greeting his fellow Gorons and accepting their emotions for him. “Brothers,” he rumbled. Then his eyes cleared, and he looked at Link again.
    “Friend, you have given me strength to do something. Please defeat Goht and restore Goron Valley.”
    “I will…” Link replied as the ghost shrank and condensed into something small and hard and dark on the snow.
    He picked it up. It was a round mask shaped like the smiling face of a Goron. He put it on, and felt magic take hold of him. It swelled his arms, inflating them painfully with muscle and tough skin. His body frame changed completely. He yelled again.
    When it was over, he was a massive, powerful Goron. He took out the Ocarina and was not surprised when he found himself holding a set of five differently-sized drums.
    “Where’s this Temple?” he asked Tatl.
    “It’s up the mountain. I’ll show you the way to go. You’ll need to stay a Goron, and roll – there are chasms that you can sorta catapult across. You’ll see. Just go at full speed and follow me!”
    “Whoa! Whoa!” Link found ‘full speed’ a rather tall order when he was having trouble just rolling forward. Eventually he got it and followed the fairy.
    They arrived at a narrow trail, a bridge, through a deep valley. On the floor of the valley a huge Goron, as big as the largest in Hyrule, was snoring thunderously. Giant snowballs were crashing down the spiked pinnacle that the path led to. Link dodged them carefully.
    He transformed back into a Hylian to climb the spiralling path to the cave entrance, the entrance to the dungeon.
    A day later, and several hours of sleep in a safe spot, Link stood in the cave of the boss, Goht. It was a large, mechanical monster with four legs and horns. It was frozen in a block of ice.
    “This rather looks defeated to me,” Link said to Tatl.
    “No, you need to blow it up! Duh!”
    Link shot a fire arrow and melted the ice. He sighed and dove out of the way as the behemoth tried to trample him. He turned to a Goron and followed after, going so fast he sprouted metal spikes from his body. The spikes tore at the metal of the monsters legs, while Link dodged falling stalactites.
    Finally the robot lost control and galloped into the wall, blowing up. All except for the mask was destroyed, and Link picked it up and found himself warped to the exit of the Temple.
    That part of the world at Snowhead Temple didn’t look too different, but when he got to the village, the change was dramatic. The ground was free of snow, and the place where he had found the elder was a lake with small islands dotted throughout it. Link felt peaceful in the blooming meadows he found there, and then he remembered something.
    “I’m going back to town.” He warped to the clock tower with the Song of Soaring, and went to the bomb shop.
    “Hello. I’d like to use this now,” he said, showing the Goron bomb voucher to the elderly lady, while he was in Goron form. She gestured to a stack of large barrels. Link took one and carried it out, not without difficulty.
    At last Tatl said: “This is ridiculous. Gimme that thing.” She put it away.
    Link wandered and wandered, poking into all the corners he could reach around the swamp, mountains, and Termina Field. He found a racetrack that some Gorons had to blast open with their mega-bomb, and he saw the baby Goron.
    “Darmi!” the baby squawked, toddling up to him. “Are you going to race today?”
    “I don’t know. I wasn’t planning on it.” Link knew he looked slightly different than Darmani, but he let the child have his mistake. His bass Goron voice bothered him somewhat; it resonated through his torso and set his bones vibrating.
    “But Darmi! You always race! You’re the greatest!” Tears began to trickle down his cheeks.
    Link knelt beside the child. “Sometimes I get tired. I like racing –“ which was true, now “- but sometimes I don’t feel like it, right? Don’t you sometimes find you don’t want to do something you love to do?” He felt oddly parental, but reminded himself he was trying to gently keep the baby from becoming a spoiled brat.
    “T-that’s true,” the Goron said. “But I want you to race! Please, Darmi?”
    “I will race today,” Link said, bringing smiles to the baby’s face. “But you mustn’t be disappointed if I find I can’t come next time.”
    “Why can’t you come?”
    “I might be busy saving the world somewhere. Right?”
    “Ooh! That’s so cool! You do that!”
    Link went to talk to the elder, explaining that Darmani was, technically, dead and that his name was Link. “Please explain it to your son later, when he’s older.”
    “All right, young one. Go race, now.”
    Link found the race difficult, but he wove around the other competitors early and stayed ahead of them to the end.
    They gave him a bottle of gold dust.
    “A new bottle!” Tatl exclaimed. “That’ll come in handy!”
    “Yes,” Link said, looking at her meaningfully.
    Tatl stared at him, and then giggled. “You wouldn’t do that! Hee! You don’t not have a sense of humour after all. Sorry ‘bout that. Heh. That’s funny. We gotta get your fairy back soon.”
    “Yes.”
    Back on day one, he found a path through the woods to the southwest, a path that was blocked by a large boulder. He blew it up with the special Goron bomb. The fat man who was trying to hack at it with a pickaxe thanked him and walked back to town.
    On the other side of the boulder, the path went on, winding through golden woods. Link saw birds and dragonflies, and flowers. It made him feel happy, and also sad. A lump came into his throat. It was much like home…
    And then he came upon a wide open area, through a wooden gate in a wooden fence, and saw horses and cows and a chicken coop. The lump grew bigger.
    He ventured towards the small group of houses, smaller than Lon Lon Ranch, and saw a small girl and a young woman sitting on the step of the house, talking. But he also saw…
    “Eponaaaa!!” he shouted shrilly, wild with delight, and ran forward and vaulted into the enclosure she was in. The two girls looked up sharply. “That’s why you couldn’t come to me, girl. You couldn’t get around the rock.” He hugged her neck and stroked her mane. “I’m so glad to have found you.”
    “Sorry to cut short your touching reunion, but there’s a little girl about to shoot you in the butt,” Tatl said. Link turned around and saw a small red-haired girl, the one who had been sitting on the step, clutching a small bow and an arrow.
    “Hi,” Link said. “You must be the owner of this ranch.”
    The girl nodded solemnly. “You must be the owner of this nice horse. What’s her name?”
    “Epona.”
    “She’s pretty. She just appeared out of nowhere early this morning, and she was freaked out, so we put her in here and fed her.”
    “Thank you. Do I owe you anything?”
    “Well, you could do me a favour. What’s your name? Mine’s Romani. The name of this ranch is Romani. Mom and Dad named it after me, but then they died when I was really little, so my sister Cremia takes care of it now. I’ll call you Grasshopper because you wear green, okay? Do you believe in ghosts?”
    “Yes… Uh, my name’s Link.” She reminded him of Malon when she was young, but Romani was even younger, about eight years old.
    “Right, Grasshopper. Here’s the plan. Meet me here at sundown and help me protect the cows!”
    “Um… okay.”
    “Thanks, Grasshopper! Come and meet my sister.”
    Link spent a good day at Romani Ranch, talking to the sisters. They gave him lunch, and they became good friends. A friendly, though depressed young guy with a Mohawk and facial piercings was in the chicken shed, and after talking to him a while, he gave Link a headband with two bunny ears on top of it.
    “It could come in handy,” he said with a sombre wink.
    Link put it on, feeling very silly. Romani giggled. Link took a few steps.
    “Run,” said Grog, the chicken man. Link ran.
    He skidded to a stop because he couldn’t control his headlong dash. He stopped centimetres from the wooden wall of the enclosure. “Whoa!”
    “Yep, they’ll come in handy,” Tatl said. “We’ll be able to get around sooo fast now! Yeah!”
    “Mm-hmm. Thank you very much,” Link said to Grog. “These are great. I don’t think I’ll bother taking them off again.”
    “You look so funny!” Romani giggled.
    “You’re just jealous of my superior fashion sense,” said Link facetiously, making Romani laugh harder. “Nah, these are embarrassing. But if they help me save the world, I’ll wear them. Not that I’m in public, exactly, at this moment…”
    “Yeah! Let’s see you in South Clock Town!” Tatl yelled.
    Link’s heart jumped in his chest and he turned away.
    “Hey! Whatsa matter?”
    “Sorry. Just… memories.”
    “You gotta friend who’d love to be here?”
    “Yes…”
    Link turned again, searching Romani’s questioning eyes, and then, spontaneously, smiled broadly. “She’d love to meet you,” he said quietly.
    “Wow! You can smile!” Tatl said. Link started. “What?”
    “My friend… once, she could not laugh or smile… and I gave her that back… I have turned into that, haven’t I?”
    “Whatever. Come on, bunny-boy.” Tatl grabbed a real ear and tugged it toward the door, where Romani was already.
    “Good-bye, Grog!” Link called.
    That night, close to midnight, Romani snuck out of her bed and downstairs to where Link still sat half-dozing by the dying fire – it was cool in the evenings.
    “Let’s go, Grasshopper!” she whispered. “We can take them!”
    Outside, she ran to the barn. “I’m usually about right here. They mostly come from the field, but one or two come from behind. They’re after the cows.”
    “I’ll tell you if that happens!” Tatl volunteered. “I’m not gonna let you take all the glory!”
    “Right. I’m ready,” said Link, testing his bow.
    It was a few minutes later that they appeared.
    Link and Tatl found that the fairy could not get a target lock on them, so Link used his eyes more than usual. He missed only very rarely, though. Once he had a heart-attack when one snuck up from the side, heading for the barn.
    Romani kept passing him arrows from her stock. She had a lot.
    Tatl screeched. “Link! There’s one almost at the barn back here!”

Chapter 1     Chapter 3

As it says, from Termina to Koholint, perhaps the best story I’ve written yet, though that doesn’t say much…
7 Chapters.

Chapter 2

The Legend of Zelda: Mask of Darkness to Island of Dreams

    Chapter 1

    Zelda touched his shoulder gently.
    “We ought to go now…”
    Link sobbed still into Rana’s cold shoulder, but at Zelda’s insistence, gently laid the still girl on the stony ground and stood. Zelda looked in his eyes and felt her insides tremble: they were eyes that did not see. The deep blue was grey and dull.
    “Link…” With a simple call on the power of the Triforce, they shifted to the Sacred Realm.
    “Link, you must now go back.”
    “Where?” he asked dully, not really caring about the answer.
    “Go back to when you were supposed to be… to live the years you missed.”
    “Oh. Right. Rauru said so once.”
    “Give me the Ocarina. I’ll send you.”
    “I shouldn’t stay in Hyrule then. It will interfere with history.”
    “That is correct.”
    Link passed the princess the blue ocarina. “You will… bury her?”
    “Yes,” whispered Zelda gently. She raised the Ocarina to her lips and blew.
    Link felt the weightlessness and forgetfulness of warp travel surround him, and let himself go.
    He saw himself flying over Hyrule, for a brief instant. Everyone in Hyrule was gathered in Lon Lon Ranch. Epona was safe there, along with several people Link assumed Rana had rescued from the dungeons of Ganondorf’s Tower. Mido and the Kokiri, Darunia, and the Gorons, including the two most massive, King Zora and the Zorans… Shoza and Bitu were there. Even the Gerudo were there, dancing in their sinuous, hypnotising style. Ingo was thoroughly drunk, and shouting the praises of Talon as the two danced with an arm about each other’s shoulders. Malon’s pretty voice sang to an accompaniment played by people in all four races.
    His gaze turned towards Death Mountain. There were the six Sages. Saria was sitting on Darunia’s head. The Sages turned themselves into coloured flashes of light and sped over Hyrule Field. Some at the party pointed upward, clapping and cheering. A white flash sped to join them, and Link knew it was Zelda.
    Again his vision blacked out and he slept in the embrace of time.

    He found himself in front of the Pedestal of Time, as a small child, holding the drawn Master Sword in his small hands. Stepping forward, he plunged the silver blade into the pedestal and waited. Navi flew up to the window, and then returned to him as he turned his back and walked steadily out of the chamber. The Door of Time rumbled shut behind him.
    Tears began to fall from his eyes again as he exited the Temple of Time into bright sunlight. It must have been only a day or two after he had entered it; Ganondorf had not yet destroyed anything.
Someone, a grown-up man with a moustache, saw him. “Hey, little boy, what’s the matter?”
    “On the day of my greatest victory, my greatest defeat,” Link flung back, and ran from the town.

    He fled through the Field, towards his home, Kokiri Forest. A slow goal was forming in his mind.
    Then he halted, deciding to postpone his goal for a while. For the next year, he hid himself away, wandering the very outskirts of Hyrule, exploring the pathless mountains that surrounded it. No one saw him; he saw no one. Navi stayed with him; the faithful little fairy saw her partner become even more silent than he had been, but said nothing about it.
    One day, nearing the autumn equinox, he returned to Hyrule Field.
    At the edge of the forest, he called Epona. He had no idea what Malon would think of her filly suddenly running off and disappearing for some time. He had no idea how long he would go with Epona. She galloped up to him.
    “Navi, am I able to ride her yet?” he asked.
    “Yes,” Navi said. “She’s big enough to support you without injuring herself.”
    “That’s good.” Link mounted bareback and wound his hands in the black-white mane.
    The three rode for many days into the forest, sometimes walking together, sometimes Navi on Link’s hat and Link riding Epona.
    About four days from the last place Link recognized – but he was not lost, because he was always going south – the forest was so great and solemn and still that he slowed Epona to a walk, looking at the lances of sun piercing the forest.
    Suddenly Epona screamed and reared. Link felt himself flung off, and hit his head on a mossy stone.

    Some minutes later, all his muscles tensed and he frowned mightily. Sitting up carefully, he rubbed his aching head. He heard the sound of an ocarina played in single notes and the sound of several people giggling.
    He looked over. Epona was shaking, faced by a Skull Kid and two fairies. One was white, and one was black. No: as he looked closer, one had a creamy tinge, and one was dark purple. The Skull Kid was playing around with the Ocarina of Time! As Link watched, the light fairy bopped the dark fairy, squeaking at it. Link studied them for a moment longer, and found Navi: trapped in a bottle at the Skull Kid’s belt. She was bouncing frantically, trying to get out.
    Link didn’t pay any attention to the words of the three misfits. He stood, a noiseless snarl of rage parting his lips. The two fairies squeaked, and the Skull Kid whirled.
    If the Skull Kid was one of those that Link knew, he couldn’t tell. The face was entirely covered in an elaborately painted purplish-red mask with bright yellow eyes. Link’s fury burst out, and he flung a hasty punch with his right, which the Skull Kid ducked easily, and a better one with his left. The Skull Kid jumped high over Link’s head as he did so, though, and landed on Epona’s back. She screamed and ran. Link dove sideways and managed to catch the Skull Kid’s foot.
    They ran for several meters, sticks and mossy stones tearing Link’s Kokiri tunic. Then a tree loomed up and Link knew no more for a long while.

    When he woke once more, he simply sat there for some time.
    ‘What do I do now?’ he asked himself.
    ‘Duh, you idiot,’ his thought replied, ‘you go after your fairy and your horse.’
    ‘Why bother?’
    At last he cried out: “No! They’re counting on me. I’ll not let them down again!”
    He jumped to his feet and looked for Epona’s footprints. They headed clearly for a log tunnel. Link ran through and found a ramp of stumps which Epona could conceivably have climbed.
    He jumped from one to another, practicing the side flip he had developed during the previous autumn. It worked very well at propelling his momentum where he wanted it. At the top of the stair was another tunnel, very dark this time.
    It was so dark that Link did not know when his feet left the ground and he fell for a long time, a long, long time.
    He landed with a whump in a bed of long grass.
    There, before him, sat the Skull Kid in midair. The mask stared with unblinking glowing eyes. They were malevolent. The two fairies floated above each shoulder.
    “Give me back my fairy partner and my horse!” Link shouted, his voice cracking hoarsely.
    The Skull Kid laughed. “You want them, come and get them. Well, you can get the fairy anyway. That horse of yours was stupid, so I got rid of it.”
    Link jerked in horror, and screamed wordlessly at the Skull Kid. The Skull Kid giggled again.
    “You’re funny. I think I’ll make you even funnier, how about that?” The Skull Kid stood up, midair, put his hands on his knees, and began to shake the mask.
    The rattle it made was a dry, deafening sound, louder than it ought to be, piercing Link’s ears. He felt magic taking control of him and writhed. Dimly he heard the Skull Kid’s laughter as the rattle grew louder.
    It seemed like he was surrounded by Deku Scrubs, all nosing in and pushing at him, snuffling at his sides with their big wooden noses. He struggled, trying to get away from the horror their touch invoked. He turned his head.
    Behind him there was a huge scrub, easily twice as tall as the twelve-and-three-quarters-years boy. Before Link had time to cry out, it sucked him in through its nose.
    He felt a slow, crushing sensation throughout all his limbs. They stiffened and straightened. Now he screamed.
    He fell to the ground, and for some reason his mouth hit the ground first. He scrambled up and tried to charge at the Skull Kid, but only got about two steps with his strange feeling legs before he crashed into the ground again, his face almost touching a tiny pool of water.
    He froze. Reflected in the pool was the glaring face of a Deku Scrub, a very young Scrub with yellow leaves and the same hat that he always wore. He looked at his hands, planted in the moss, and saw that they were brown, wooden things with little leather gauntlets.
    A shuddering cry went up into the darkness as Link saw he had been transformed into what he once knew as his enemy.
    The Skull Kid laughed again, the sound growing distant as the once-Hylian settled into a profound stillness, head drooping.
    A fairy squeaked, but Link paid no attention to it.
    This is what happened. The Skull Kid had left the cavern-like pit they were in through a round door leading to a tunnel. The white fairy had spent so much time laughing at Link that she found herself locked in. Beating on the door with her tiny hands, and finally her whole body, she couldn’t open it.
    “Let me out! Skull Kid, come back!” she cried. Then she looked around, zoomed over to the motionless Scrub, and bonked him in the head.
    “Hey, you! Help me get out of here!”
    Link didn’t answer. She hit him in the head again. “What, are you stupid? I asked you to help me!”
    The Deku’s head raised, and the fairy hopped backwards quickly at the sight of his eyes. They were barely glowing, but in the very depths there was a smouldering flame. His voice was a squeaky Deku’s trill.
    “I have lost my true love, my horse, and my form. My fairy is in the clutches of your pal. Why should I help you? Why should I do anything again?”
    “Pleeeeease? C’mon, a sweet helpless little girl is asking you! And my brother… I don’t know how he’ll survive without me!” The fairy made herself calm down. “I’ll be really good! I’ll help you find the Skull Kid and I’ll make him give your Ocarina back, and your fairy. We can find your horse again, too! I don’t think he killed it. Please please please help me? Please?”
    Link stood, walked forward slowly on his stubby little legs, and pushed the wooden slab to one side. “There you are. Now go and leave me alone.”
    “No! You gotta come to! We have to get your stuff back, and your horse and your fairy! I didn’t want her shut up, but if we hadn’t she would have messed up our joke. It was only a joke, okay?”
    Link glared at her.
    “Geez, talk about no sense of humour,” the fairy grumbled as she fluttered on ahead down the tunnel. “Well? Are you coming? All these things are fixable! Don’t be a wimp!”
    Link was standing motionless. “Have I lost my sense of humour?” he whispered. The day’s events hit him hard at that moment, and a flood of tears attacked him. He didn’t dare let them out; the fairy was no friend of his, and while he didn’t care what she thought of him now, he wasn’t giving her fresh resources for abuse.
    The fairy came back and hovered in front of his face. “Look, I’m sorry for yelling at you. I’ll tell you my name. It’s Tatl! Now can we go?”
    Link shook himself and felt his wooden head rattle. He trotted off obediently behind the little cream-coloured fairy.
    She led him to a place that was a deep chasm with small pillars of land dotted throughout it. They were much too far for him to jump. Huge pink flowers bloomed on them.
    “Now! Time for you to learn about being a Deku. You can burrow into these flowers, and then they can spit you out where ever you want to go!”
    “I don’t understand you,” Link said.
    “I don’t know how, but you climb in, and then you wait, and then when you hear a little pop you go shooting out and you can fly in whatever direction you like. All the Dekus I’ve seen have flowers like propellers in their hands, so maybe that happens while you’re in the flower.”
    Link stepped into the centre of the pink flower and felt himself fall downwards. A few moments later, he did hear a poof sound, and kicked down with his feet.
    He burst into the air, hovered for a few moments, and then dropped the two pink flowers he found himself holding. He fell and bounced on the bottom of the flower.
    Having figured out how to manage it, he headed towards the little ledges that were arrayed in a tempting path towards another dark opening. Sometimes it was very close between survival and a long dark fall.
    On the other side, there was a little tree… so very Deku-like, Link almost thought he had found a strange mirror. It looked so sad…
    Passing through a long, green hallway that positively tingled with magic, Link found himself in a dusty dark room. Rushing water churned nearby, and something was thudding rhythmically.
    Faced with a narrow ramp up to somewhere with a little more light, Link took it.
    “Bless me! You must be that Kokiri girl – turned into a Deku Scrub!”
    “Eh?” Link came snout-to-knee with a beaming red-haired man. An enormous pack on his back was stuffed with masks of all kinds. “No. I’m not. I’m a boy.”
    “You must be a Kokiri boy, then – cursed – you have the right clothes.”
    “I am. Do you know how to lift the curse?”
    “Perhaps, perhaps…”
    “And how do you know of Kokiri?” demanded Tatl. “This is Termina. A Hyrulian couldn’t have gotten through.”
    “Don’t underestimate my abilities, young lady,” chided the mask-seller. “I am the Happy Mask Salesman. Right now, I’m on a collecting journey… but I’m afraid a valuable mask was stolen from me. This mask was carved thousands of years ago by a primitive tribe that dabbled in darkness. It was soaked in evil magic, and its wicked influence, I’m afraid, corrupts most people. Thankfully I took great precautions when I embarked upon my search for it. Now an imp has it, and is plaguing the land. I wish to get it back before it causes further trouble.” He sat down to see eye to eye with Link. “I’ll make you a deal. Do you have an instrument of music?”
    “I did, but it was stolen,” Link said bitterly. “By a Skull Kid with a magical mask… is that the one that was stolen from you?”
    “It is. If you get me that mask, I’ll see what I can do about your curse.”
    “I will do that.” Link turned to find the doorway, then turned back. “…Thank you.”
    “Don’t mention it, lad. I am the Happy Mask Salesman, after all – my job is to spread happiness.”
    Link pushed open the heavy door and was dazzled by sunshine from his left, though it was only a little while past dawn. The sound of carpentry drowned the sound of water from whatever contraption lurked behind in the darkness. People scurried about a brightly paved market, or village square, apparently preparing for a celebration.
    A bell sounded over his head six times. Turning, he saw an enormous clock above him.
    “This is Clock Town,” Tatl declaimed. “It’s the capital of Termina. They’re all getting ready for the Harvest Festival. It’s on the Equinox.”
    “I see. How should I proceed…”
    “There’s a Great Fairy in the north part of town. You could ask her.”
    “All right.”
    Link checked the sun and headed north. North Clock Town was a playground for children, and a gently sloping path led up to a cave to the northwest. Tatl led him towards it.
Inside, there was a fairy fountain… but it was a fairy fountain that was normally full of little healing fairies, not the great variety. But there were no healing fairies, but a bizarre little set of cherubic creatures, with fluttering ears on the top of their heads.
    “Help!” they squeaked at intervals.
    “Oops,” said Tatl. “That’s supposed to be the Great Fairy, but I think she’s been split up…”
    “And would this have anything to do with that Skull Kid of yours?” Link snapped, trotting on his stubby legs out of the cave. “I suppose I have to find the missing pieces, right?”
    He spent hours searching for the little bobbing things that were portions of the Great Fairy. In the process he came to know the town rather well.
    At last he found one and took it back to the rest.
    The creatures spiralled into a tornado and there was a bright flash of light. The Great Fairies’ familiar laugh echoed through the cavern as one smiled down on the little Scrub.
    “Thank you, kind young ones, for restoring me to my proper form. Is there anything I can do for you?”
    “Can you help me get back to my original form or defeat a rampaging Skull Kid with an evil mask?” Link asked.
    The Fairy pondered. “I can teach you to blow magic bubbles as a Deku Scrub… No, really, it’s useful. They use it to attack monsters. As for your original form, I cannot. That requires divine magic to counter the dark magic. I am not strong enough, and my sisters have been similarly shattered… I am not strong enough to attack the Skull Kid either: we tried that already, and that is why we have broken. It is up to you, Hero of Time, to save this world, isn’t it?”
    “But what can I do like this?!” Link cried, ignoring Tatl’s gasp and look of awe.
    “Go find out where the Skull Kid is first, that’s what I would do,” the Great Fairy replied calmly. “You may return here if you are weary. Anything else?”
    “Can you recommend a good restaurant? I’m hungry.”
    The Fairy laughed. Link twitched. “You could try the Milk Bar, or even the Stock Pot Inn. Or, you can buy produce at the market! Bye now!” She vanished.
    Link left the cave and looked around. There was a boy blowing darts at a balloon, but his aim was off. There was a strange little man dressed in green, with a beard, hovering in the air with another balloon.
    Link went to the east and found the Milk Bar closed; he went to the inn and found the food terribly bland. Shoving it into his snout felt weird. At least he was full. He went and bought an apple anyway.
    He went to West Clock Town. He now had a purpose, but he didn’t know how to start. Going up to random people would do no good.
    “Hey! Deku-kid!” said a little boy’s voice. Link turned around and saw a small boy with a ball-cap on. “You look like you need help. Do you want my help?”
    “Who are you?” Link asked. Tatl repeated it. In fact, she kept interjecting annoyingly throughout the whole conversation, making Link long for the tactfulness of Navi.
    The boy puffed up indignantly. “What? You haven’t heard of the Bombers?”
    “Sounds dangerous.”
    “We are the Bomber Secret Society of Justice, devoted to helping people 24/7! Now tell me your problem.”
    “I’m looking for a Skull Kid with a freaky mask.”
    “Say no more!” yelled the little boy. “We know all about him. We’re keeping tabs on him. He’s on top of the clock tower right now. Let me go ask Jim.”
    Link had a hard time keeping up with the boy. He went back to North Clock Town, where he went up to the boy attacking the balloon, who had a red cap, and whispered.
    “Go ask Jack, John,” the other boy said.
    “Right!” The boys ran to West Clock Town, where there was another small boy, this one with a yellow cap.
    “Skull Kid? Well, Joe just went to check on him before breakfast, and he said he was still there.”
    “Thanks, Jack.” The boy turned to Link. “Well, now what are you going to do? You can’t get up there for another three days, until the night of the Festival.”
    “Three days? Oh, gosh…” Link said, deflating. “Can I join you Bombers? That way I’ll at least be doing something useful.”
    “WHAT!?” yelled Tatl. “You’re gonna join these wierdos?”
    “If you don’t like it, you can go away,” Link said.
    “Sure, you can join!” said John. “All you have to do is pass the test. Let’s go ask Jim and get the others. What’s your name?”
    “Yeah, what’s your name, strong silent type?” Tatl interrupted.
    “Link.”
    “Too bad it doesn’t begin with a J. Anyway, let’s go.”
    The complete Bombers’ gang, with the exception of Jack, who had to guard whatever he was guarding, lined up in North Clock Town.
    “Right!” said Jim. “You have to find all five of us – John, Joe, Jake, Jed, and me – before sunrise tomorrow. You have to give us ten minutes’ head start, okay? Good luck – most people can’t manage it!”
    “You’re crazy!” yelled Tatl.
    “All right. I’ll wait in here,” Link said, going into the mouth of the Great Fairy’s cave and closing his eyes.
    Ten minutes later, he began looking. They hid themselves well, but they hadn’t told him that he had to catch them as well as find them. His sharp eyes soon caught their brightly coloured caps in the worst press of travelling performers, but his short legs hampered him. Tatl refused to help him, but he didn’t mind.
    Still, he managed it eventually.
    “Darn!” cried Jim when Link finally tagged him. “I was caught! Anyway, welcome to the Bombers’ Secret Society of Justice. Here’s your official notebook.”
    “You guys are organized,” Link commented.
    “Us guys, now. You’re one of us.”
    “Yes. I forgot.” Link opened the book. It had spaces labelled ‘Name’, ‘Problem’, ‘Status’. He managed to fit it in the pocket of his Deku shorts.
    “So, I’ve never met a Deku my own age before. What’s your home like? What are you doing here?”
    “I’m not actually a Deku,” Link told him. “I’m a Hylian from Hyrule.”
    “What’s a Hylian compared to a Terminian? What’s Hyrule?”
    “Um… Hyrule is a country. I’m not sure how I got here or how far away it is… I think it’s a few day’s journey.”
    “Oh, no, it isn’t,” Tatl said. “It’s days and days and days by land. It’s huge. By the magic fairy tunnel, it’s only a week.”
    “All right, then. A Hylian is what we call one descended from the Knights of Hyrule.”
    “So why are you a Deku, Link-man?”
    “I was cursed by that Skull Kid. That’s why I want to find him – so I can make him take it off. He stole some stuff from me, too – including my fairy partner.”
    “Yeah! He caused no end of trouble when he wanted to join up. He didn’t want to help people! He’s mean! Isn’t that your fairy partner?”
    “No. This is Tatl. She is… helping me for the time being. She is sorry the Skull Kid attacked me.”
    “But he’s still a knucklehead!” Tatl called from where Link couldn’t swat her. “He’s a noble nutcase!”
    “My fairy partner is Navi. She’s a lot nicer and more polite.”
    “Hey!”
    Jim gurgled happily. “You two are funny. I think you really like each other.”
    “That remains to be seen,” Link said evenly.
    “How old are you?”
    “Thirteen.”
    “Holy cuckoo! We’re all seven and eight, except for Joe, who’s six. You’re really old, aren’t you?”
    “I suppose,” Link replied.
    Jim invited him over for meals, solving his food problem. He talked to the Bombers all day, and some of the festival performers.
    After sunset he curled up in North Clock Town and slept.
    At around midnight, he was woken from a restless sleep when he heard a weak cry.
    “Help…”
    “What?” Link cried, running forward. He saw a tall, bald man bending over a small elderly woman. “Hey!”
    The man ran off with a sack full of stuff. Link took off after him. He managed to intercept him on the way to the gate and hit him with a wind attack: the attack was what came out when he tried to do his spin attack as a Deku. The man dropped the sack, yowling in pain, and ran through the gate out of the town, although the guard there tried to stop him also. Link blew Deku bubbles at him until he could see him no longer. Then he picked up the sack and returned to the old woman.
    “Thank you, child. I must thank you somehow, with something…” She stood up. “I know! Come to the bomb shop tomorrow. I will have something for you.”
    “Thank you, ma’am,” Link said, bobbing his big Deku head as she trundled away.
    Jed came forward from the darkness of the South Clock Town gate. “Nicely handled, Link-man.”
    “Who was the thief?” Tatl demanded.
    “That’s Sakon. He’s greedy nut. We watch him closely.”
    “And people say the Skull Kid’s bad! Other people are bad!”
    “Tatl, the Skull Kid has far more power at his disposal. Also, don’t forget that that power comes from the mask, and also that the mask has evil influence.”
    “That would make sense. He wasn’t so mean before. He just wanted people to stop shoving him out. He didn’t want to hurt them.” She pointed upwards – somehow Link knew, although her pale glow completely hid her little shape.
    “He did that?” Link gasped. The moon was as big as the biggest Goron back at home, and it seemed to be getting larger, but Link would have thought it was just how this country, Termina, worked.
    As he looked, he fancied he saw large, yellowish-red eyes that made him think of Ganondorf, which made him feel sick, and large craters and mountains that looked like eyes and a mouth. Then he saw that it was no trick of his imagination, and felt very sick. Images blurred in his mind – fighting with Ganondorf, Ganon, the ring of fire…
    He turned away.
    “Yep,” Tatl said grimly. “He did that. It’s normally the same size it is in Hyrule, and it definitely doesn’t have that freaky face. That was one of his jokes, to creep everyone out. I’d say it worked with you.”
    “It’s only a memory,” Link answered, walking away to find a place to sleep.
    The next day he visited the bomb shop and got a discount for Goron mega-bombs. He kept it for later – as a Scrub, he couldn’t even handle ordinary bombs anymore.
    It rained that day, so Link kept under shelter, keeping his wooden body dry, and chatting with – or listening to – the fairy-wannabe, Tingle. Tingle was the short little man dressed in green, floating in the air.     Link popped his balloon with a well-placed bubble, gaining Jim’s admiration. Tingle wanted to have a fairy partner, even to be a fairy himself, but he was thirty-five years old already and had to support himself by drawing maps. Link found him a ridiculous character, but it lightened his mood and his mind to hear the man’s ideas about fairies.
    The third day, the moon was looming so close that it blotted out half the sky. Link paced up and down in front of the clock tower, waiting for it to open. John, the tallest of the Bombers, waited with him. John would give him a leg up to where the door into the top of the tower stood. The ground shook periodically. There was a febrile rush of activity all day. Jack reported the Skull Kid still waiting on top of the tower.
    As ten o’clock struck, fireworks burst over the town. The tower changed dramatically. The whole top rose several meters, and a counterweight swung down, putting the clock face on the top of the tower. The door dropped, and another behind it, and another until there was a set of stairs leading to a trapdoor into the clock face.
    John boosted Link-the-Deku Scrub onto the platform before the door.
    “Good luck!” he said. “I hope you get him good!”
    Tatl stuck her tongue out at the Bomber.
    Link hurried up the steps and pushed open the trap door.
    The Skull Kid hovered in the air. When he saw Link, he giggled.
    “Look who’s here! It’s the dumb guy!”
    “Tael!” cried Tatl. “You’re okay! I was worried!”
    “S-sorry, sis…” mumbled the purple fairy. “I have something to tell you.” He fluttered forward a little way. “Jungle… mountain… ocean… desert… bring them here.”
    “What? You’re not making sense!” Tatl scolded.
    The Skull Kid whapped Tael out of the way viciously. “Stupid fairy – talking out of turn!”
    “Tael! No!” Tatl squealed. “You mean Skull Kid! You’ll pay for this!”
    The Skull Kid shrugged. “And why should I care? I don’t need friends anymore… not when they’ll all be sorry for not being nice to me… not when I do… THIS!” He flung his arms out and shrieked, a thin, piercing cry that sent purple waves up to the descending moon. The descent hastened.
    “Oh, no!” Tatl cried.
    Tael stirred from where he had falled to the floor. “Jungle… mountain… ocean… … desert… hurry…”
    “Okay, okay, we’re hurrying! Link, quick! Do something!”
    Link was trying to communicate with Navi, but he couldn’t hear her frantic cries over the sound of the screaming. He blew a bubble in an attempt to knock her loose, and he hit the Skull Kid square on the bottom. The grotesque creature flinched, and his noise faltered for the barest of moments before beginning again with renewed force.
    Navi did not fall, but something else did…
    “The Ocarina!” Link shouted at the top of his squeaky voice, rushing to get it. He picked it up, and put it to his wooden lips, wondering what he should play, or, more importantly, how he should play it. He was startled when the blue instrument disappeared and he found himself holding a massive set of wooden organ pipes.
    Finally he heard Navi. “Play the Song of Time!”
    “Take us back to the first day I came here?”
    “Yes! Hurry!”
    Link, after a few false starts, managed to drone out the magical melody on the strange bagpipe-like instrument he held. Focusing all his thoughts on the day they had arrived, he was gratified when white washed over them and disappeared. He felt as though he was falling, and then found himself standing outside the lower door of the clock tower.
    “Wha-wha-what??” Tatl squawked. “What just happened?”
    “I put us back in time three days, the day I arrived here.”
    “Go see that guy and see if he’ll change you back!”
    Link turned and bobbled his way through the big wooden door.
    The Happy Mask Salesman was there. “You turned back time, didn’t you? I’m one of the few who know. Most people won’t be affected, you know. I will change you back now.”
    He pulled out a large pipe organ and played a soothing melody, with strange harmony. “This is the Song of Healing.”
    “The first six notes are Saria’s song backwards,” Link said, and then caught his breath. Something was pulling at his face. His limbs were pulling out… His whole body felt like it was uncramping.
    Something fell to the floor with a rattle. Link took a deep breath and stretched. He was Hylian-shaped again.
    He stooped and picked up the thing that had fallen. It was a mask shaped like a Deku’s face.
    “You can put that on any time and turn back into a Deku, and when you are done, you can take it off. Don’t look at me like that; it could come in handy. Now… do you have my mask for me?”
    “Eh?” Link realized that only half his mission was complete… the easy half.
    The Mask Salesman turned demonic. Lunging forward, he grabbed Link by the collar and shook him. “That mask is dangerous! You must get it! Get it soon!”
    Link wrenched himself free. “I will! It is difficult! Leave me alone!” He tore off out the door. The Happy Mask Salesman didn’t follow him.
    Link leaned against the side of a building and sighed. He did a quick mental recap and shared it with Tatl.
    “We still have to stop the moon from crashing.”
    “Yup.”
    “To do this, we need to go to the jungle, the mountains, the ocean, and the desert.”
    “Yeah. I’ll tell you what I think we need to do there in a minute.”
    “Then we can confront the Skull Kid again.”
    “Yeah!”
    “And then we can rescue Navi and Tael.”
    “Yeah!”
    “And somewhere in here, we need to find my horse.” He gave her a hard stare. She giggled nervously.
    “And I need food.” He gave her another hard stare.
    “Eheheh. Yeah.”

Chapter 2