AN: Please keep in mind that English is not my first language, if anything sound out of place or the spelling is wrong, I'll be happy to have it pointed out. Any kind of criticism is appreciated.

I also own nothing.

Hope you all enjoy.

Just a reminder

' ' Thought

" " Speech

Chapter 1 - Dawn of a new Adventure.

It was done, his new adventure had ended. This world was saved and the carnival, the day that he had dreaded for so long, the day that he spent an innumerable amount of time running away from, had finally come. And come it did but without the doom that spread fear to the inhabitants of this land, instead it brought forth the joy and happiness of everyone that saw their worst fear go back, back to its original position in the sky as the sun began to shine in the dawn of the new day and darkness once more gave place to light.

Link was happy. He had done it again, had saved yet another world, made some good friends and helped a lot of people. The depression that had plagued him in the beginning of his journey was mostly gone. He had friends now, friends that will remember him, will know what he did. He was not only some random fairy boy that was the princess acquaintance, only some kid that helped the princess discover some conspiracy plot. He was a hero, and more importantly, he was a hero in his own time, not some distant and alternative future. Granted, Termina was not his home, but it was the land that he had chosen to save and it will forever have a special place in his heart.

He had also proven, particularly to himself, that he was capable of helping people and even saving worlds as he is now, as the fairy boy in green tunic. He didn't need to sleep seven years just to yield a sword, he didn't need to be tall and wear those uncomfortable white tights just so he could be useful. His confidence in himself, something that had been really low these past few months due mostly to the sudden loss of his old fairy friend, had finally come back and it felt great.

That was all for the better, for growing up was not an option available to him anymore. Zelda told him, just before ejecting him from her timeline, that due to his service to the land and its people, the sages would grant him the gift of being a full-fledged Kokiri so he could live a life of peace and joy like he always wanted to. Link felt conflicted with this, one side of him felt nice to be able to truly call himself a Kokiri and be part of a race and culture that he grew up in. But the other and more vocal voice in his mind rather bluntly stated that he had a mindset that was also fundamentally different from his peers, he liked to travel, to go on adventures, and most if not all Kokiris would never even consider leaving their forest. He also felt at a loss knowing that he would never be as strong or as quick as his adult self.

Reflecting about this now that things had settled down Link just realized that there was never a way to go back, the moment that innocence is lost it is lost forever; there is no way to obtain it again. Once you grow up, that's it. Even if you somehow manage to become a child again in body, which quite frankly don't really happened that often, it's not possible to make the mind revert without losing one's experience and memories, because what you learn cannot be unlearn, what you see cannot be unseen and what you heard cannot be unheard. Maybe that's the reason why the Deku tree had made up and spread the story that any Kokiri would die if they leave the woods, because even if they didn't due to the dangers of the world, their innocence most certainly would. So maybe enjoying his childhood years was not the real reason why Zelda and the sages decided to bring him back to his original timeline, let alone to turn him into a Kokiri. But try as hard as he may, the real reason was lost for him at the moment. 'And maybe forever' a dirty little thought made itself present in his mind.

'All in all, things would have been a lot different if Zelda had but asked me what I really wanted instead of assuming things and deciding for herself.' And if someone were to say that a pout formed as he was thinking about this, said person would certainly find him/herself in front of the wrong end of a Bombchu.

He thought about staying, about living his life in these now peaceful lands, but he couldn't. He felt in his very being that this was still not it, while he liked Termina with all his heart, it still didn't feel like it was the place that he could call home. His days of traveling were not over just yet, and his sixth sense was calling, or rather screaming, for him to go into his next big adventure.

And then, as the sky turned from bright blue to a beautiful variation of orange and cyan, the first day of the carnival was ending, and one lone boy at the top of a certain inn was smiling. He had just bade farewell to the couple that had become one of his closest friends, and so, after talking with the not as lonely anymore kid that used to wear a dangerous mask in the afternoon, all the farewells were said. He was ready, ready to go beyond, to new lands, new people, new sights and experience. 'To a new quest!' he thought happily while punching the air with a silly but huge smile in his face, all previous gloomy thoughts momentarily leaving his mind.

It was with this mindset that he gathered all of his belongings, took the newly made reins of his beloved friend and partner, and entered Clock Tower, through the familiar strange tunnel he went until nothing but darkness could be seen.

Through the tunnel they travelled, Link was walking beside Epona since the cave didn't have enough height for him to mount his little adventure partner. A couple of hours had already unceremoniously come and gone and horse and boy were starting to get uneasy. The journey had been a lot shorter last time, and he could still see nothing more than a few feet away. The last Deku Stick was burning in his hand and if that run out before the exit were in sight, then a journey in complete darkens would begin, and that prospect doesn't really brighten anybody's mood.

Just as his fingers were starting to feel the heat of the so important flame, a light was immediately spotted up front, though still distant, it was hope, and a sigh of relief could be heard escaping from the boy while an equivalent neigh escaped the little horse. As one they both started to run towards the light, the boy running as fast as he could and the horse matching his speed since she thought it would be rude to just leave him behind.

Ten minutes later the flame was friendly enough to let Link know that the stick was not usable as a torch anymore, both of them were then summarily cast aside while the run continued, since there was now sufficient light for the two friends to at least tell where the walls were. It only took five of the most uncomfortable minutes before the tunnel started to ascend, in a clear message for anyone who was insane enough to run in it to stop and slow down, and so the couple of friends did just that. Quite suddenly then, they reached the end of the accursed hole and were bombarded by the brightest light ever to have been in contact with the optic nerve of a Kokiri male or of a female foal.

The visage that greeted them when their eyes finally decided to work properly took not only their breath but also quite a lot of processing power from their brains. The woods that they found themselves in were just so great it made the Lost Woods look like a children playground. Every tree was as tall as Link was when using a certain quite unoriginally named mask, but it was the combination of colors and the intensity of light that made this place so special, everywhere you looked the amount of bright vivid green was so stunning that Link found himself wondering why he was suddenly wearing beige. The amount of light, even though the uselessly failed attempt of the mighty trees to block it, made his once proud special arrow cower in shame.

After the fairness of their surrounding had being processed enough that they could use their mind to do more useful things, both companions started to inspect their surroundings. First thing he noticed was that he definitely was not in the same woods as the one he started his journey before reaching Termina. They were in the middle of a dense forest, there was no path that led to the cave they just came from and the cave itself seemed to blend with the vegetation almost perfectly, one would have to look hard to notice even the elevation that made the exit, let alone find the entrance. Looking up and noticing the angle of the sun it was possible to determine that it was not midday yet, and considering that they had Left Termina almost at night just confirmed that they probably had gone to yet another world.

There was only one thing to do, well two actually since now that he had access to leaves again he could finally get a bathroom break. His last supper in the Stock Pot Inn gave him a mild stomach ache and he blamed those dam insects that insisted on coming to the kitchen, he was sure he had bitten something crunchy at some point. After that was taken care of, his last objective was simply to choose a direction and just move. He happily climbed on top of Epona, took out one of the innumerable compasses that he found throughout his last two quests, its arrow thankfully already pointing to the north, and decided that he was feeling rebellious at the moment and that they should go to the opposite direction the arrow was pointing at. So a boy and his little horse started going forward ready to face this strange new place and all it could offer.

"How long has it been since we've arrived here?" Link asked out loud, mostly to himself, which to a certain foal that was now currently carrying said confused boy in her back was kind of rude, and she gave an appropriate snort in response to his audacity to ignore the proud would be mare.

Link looked up to the sun and according to it no more than three hours has passed since they left the little hole in the ground, but then again one could barely trust an unknown sun from a completely strange world, and the fact that it certainly felt like trice the amount of time has passed was not helping said star one bit. He always felt, contrary to popular belief, that suns were not a reliable source to count out something as inconsistent and malleable as time.

What he thought was the first couple of hours had gone in quite a tense mood by the green cladded boy, after the initial astonishment due to the beauty of his surroundings, the second feeling he had was dread. 'If the trees are this impressive I don't want to know what kind of dangers may lurk behind them' thought the boy. He had ridden his little companion in utter silence, taking every sound as a potential threat, and that was quite unnerving as they seemed to be sharing the forest with a lot of other minor life forms.

It took some time for him to calm down, but eventually the amount of events that seemed not to happen at all was an undeniable proof that he was in fact in a safe place for the moment, and with that realization came a feeling that he had not experienced for a long time, in the warm sunlight in the middle of so much friendly life he suddenly found himself feeling peaceful. Of course the next moment the peacefulness was annoyingly cast aside by another more awfully inconvenient feeling of boredom.

There was still no roads that made themselves present, and a small doubt entered the Kokiri boy as he wondered if in fact this world had any roads at all, worse yet maybe it did not have any life forms higher than those excitable loud birds that insisted in making noise from time to time, as if they have a strange need to make other living things know they existed. Unfortunately most of the present bug population seemed to share this thought, making it seem like at least in this place it was common sense. Link then decided not to worry for the moment about the evolutionary state of the regional fauna and suddenly found it appropriate to just join the locals in their sentiment of what was natural, and so he took his ocarina from the inside pocket of his tunic and began playing the song of his favorite friend, it was only natural since he was in a forest after all.

He became really immersed in his song, memories flowed unceremoniously inside of his head with the images of all the fun times he shared with Saria. All the adventures they both lived when the couple of friends were just kids playing in the woods while being watched and protected by a powerful guardian, having no worry other than what the next game would be like and how much it could annoy the irritable Mido. Then came the goodbye, how it was the most difficult thing he did, having to turn his back to all he knew, to his worried looking friend, to his forest, the only place he could call home. Only to go into the unknown to try and stop a being so strong that had just managed to kill the mighty guardian that kept him safe for all his life.

And then as his mood shifted from happy to sad, the memories of the terrible future came rushing in, visiting his home again, how small and frail it looked. And to see it overcome by evil, all his friends having to hide in their house in fear for life, all the innocence lost in their eyes as they looked at the dangers that lurked just outside their windows. There were no happy songs anymore, no more silly games and giggles, there was only silence, and for a moment he truly believed that the forest was lost, that it was dead. The desperation and anger that took his being was so complete that he vowed he would destroy the evil that cruelly obliterated all the innocence from the race that was the symbol of childhood if it were to be his last act upon this earth.

So were the state of the boy and his horse as the song continued, the boy lost in thought and in memory while playing a melody that symbolized so much to him, and the horse feeling the emotions of said child, riding silently throughout the forest. Eventually some birds and insects would join the tune as if they could share the happiness and sorrow intrinsic in it. And just like that, after an undermined amount of time has passed, the two friends had finally reached their momentary destination, without even noticing.

It was quite a surprise for a group of four companions to find that the source of the happy music they began to hear some time ago just appeared from the woods in front of them, especially when said source was a blond boy with pointed ears, clad in a greed tunic, with a sword and a small shield in his back and an odd hat on his head. Said boy was riding what appeared to be a young foal and was playing a happy song with a strange shaped little blue flute.