Link bared his teeth as he dismantled a few more of the puppets, continuing in his path towards the skull kid. The creepy looking kid with that strange smile and vibrant wardrobe blew into his horn again and about half a dozen more puppets came from pretty much out of nowhere. Link decided he'd had enough of this, and Midna seemed to be getting tired of this game of cat and mouse as well, so, he dodged around the creaky and noise wooden people just landed another blow on the skull kid.

This time all the puppets disappeared, and yet another laugh bubbled from the skull kid's mouth as he jumped up from the rock and dissolved into leaves. Link didn't let his guard down, looking around the clearing, but was too shocked to respond when he heard a rustle of dried leaves as the skull kid appeared next to him and wrapped his arms around his furry neck.

"Hey, kid, get off!" Midna said, obviously as unnerved by the kid randomly hugged him as Link himself was. The Skull kid ignored her and Link started to feel a snarl come across his lips, he was really tired of this kid.

"Thank you!" Those words stopped link from biting the kid, why would he be thanking him? "You kept your promise!" That was an explanation, but one that didn't make sense. The skull kid disappeared in yet another flurry of leaves, this time appearing in mid air above them, floating higher and higher. "Heh heh, bye!" Link sat down and just looked at him briefly, tilting his head in a look of confusion.

"Well," Midna spoke up. "…that was weird. Have you ever met that skull kid before?" She asked, looking down at him while patting his side. Link just shook his head. "Whatever, let's keep going, we have to be really close by now." It was true, they just had to go a little further into the sacred grove and then solve a puzzle set up by the guardians, which Midna found very annoying. But after putting their heads together a bit (which was pretty hard since Link could only bark) they managed to get past it.

With an air of reverence they walked into the man room where the master sword was kept. There it stood, in all of its majestic beauty, in its pedestal. Link padded towards it, his eyes gazing at its vibrant purple hilt, lowering to see the cool silver of the blade itself. Then, when they were a few feet away from it, it started to glow, getting bright and brighter.

The pureness of the light drew Midna back, being one of the Twili, shielding her eyes. Link could also feel the urge to back away in his impure and dark form, but more than that he felt the urge to proceed even more forward as he could feel the light purifying him. He look up, through squinted blue eyes, into the light. He was surprised to see that there was something there, something that looked like a women, but before he could he felt light explode from his own body.

The twilight settled above Midna's hand into the piece that had been inside of Link, and Midna looked at it with curiosity before a small smile crept on her face, she knew just what do with this. Footsteps caused her to look up and the smile became a softer one as she saw Link, human once again, walking to the Master Sword.

He put his hands on it, the grip feeling as if it was made for him, and slid it from its stony grave, vines and dirt from over the years coming off in an instant. It was perfectly weighted, and something just felt right within him as he raised it skyward, a soft breeze from nowhere blowing through the remains of what must have once been a beautiful temple.

"The sword accepted you as its master…" Midna said in awe, her eyes tracing the blade. A smile fell upon Link's face and he swung it a few times, partially testing out how (right) it felt, partially showing off to Midna, and he gave her a smile.

"Guess I'm just heroic like that." He said. Midna rolled her eyes.

"Or maybe you're just lucky it didn't choose to burn out your eyeballs or something for touching it." Midna teased before showing him the black and orange spiny looking thing. "This thing is the embodiment of the evil magic that Zant cast on you." She took a look at it. "It's definitely different from our tribe's shadow magic…" Link looked at it. "Careful, if you touch it you'll turn back into a beast!" She warned.

"I know, I'm not stupid." Link retorted, and he though he heard Midna say something like 'that's debatable.'

"This things pretty dangerous, it's probably best if we just leave it here, huh?" She said, looking at link with her one visible red eye. "But on the other hand… if we keep it, you could turn into a beast whenever you wanted to… Yes, since Zant was kind enough to give this to us, we should be thankful and use it." She said with an impish grin.

"I guess that makes sense." Link replied, his fingers feeling the handle of the master sword, the one thing that could always return him to human, and it seemed to hum in his palm.

"If you need it, just call me. I want to keep a low profile for now, so when you're human I'll just hide in your shadow." Link nodded, still wondering how exactly that trick worked. "I can also turn you into a wolf and warp you whenever we need to now." She added.

"Yes! I hate having to walk everywhere."

"Yeah, well don't get to used to it, it's hard enough to carry your heavy load every now and then, I don't wanna make this arrangement a habit." She sneered at him with a teasing voice.

"Just as well, Epona would get jealous." Link replied easily.

"Hey, but listen, Link, I've got a favor to ask of you… would you mind coming with me to find something called the Mirror of Twilight, it's hidden somewhere in Hyrule…" Link looked at her, the creature he had come to consider his friend after all this time together.

"I guess I can pencil you in, you know I'm a busy hero, and you probably couldn't handle something like this on your own." He said, winking at her.

"Well, if you wanna save the world 'hero', you'll need this mirror to defeat Zant." Link was about to say a comeback when something caused to words to catch in his throat.

'Master…' The light and feminine voice was weak, and his head whipped around as it seemed to vibrate within his own soul to find the source, though he couldn't tell if it had been in his head or out loud.

"Did you hear that?" He asked Midna, who looked at him quizzically.

"No… what did you hear?" She asked, looking around a bit as well. He shook his head and sheathed the sword he had forgot he was still holding.

"Nothing, it must have just been the wind…" He said, and Midna disappeared into his shadow as Link walked out of the torn down temple, trying to forget the thing he didn't hear.

oOo

What do you guys think? Should I continue this? I have a lot of plans for this, and I really like how this turned out, so I hope you'll like it too! Please review and favorite and all that good stuff to let me know if you liked it!