Link's journey through time, battling the evil Ganondorf and saving Hyrule has become a legend. Everyone all across Hyrule has heard of it. The question on all their minds though is what happened to the hero afterwards. Only Princess Zelda knew the answer. After saving Hyrule, Link had gone off with Epona in search of Navi. The princess hadn't seen him since he left bearing just his Kokiri Sword, the Ocarina of Time, and a new shield called the Hero's Shield, crafted for him to symbolize his courage. Our story begins as Link is traveling through uncharted regions of the Lost Woods to find his dear friend...
As Link rode through the Lost Woods, he suddenly felt a chill. Little did he know that two fairy siblings were stalking him from behind a far off tree. One fairy was a white female while the other was dark purple and male. They fairies turned toward each other and nodded with ominous grins before flying off. Hearing, movement in the forest, Link parked Epona and looked around, ready to unsheathe his sword at any moment. Everything was still, so he prepared to have Epona start off again. Suddenly, the two fairies sprang out in front of Epona, scaring her. Epona jolted onto her hind feet and began shaking violently, knocking Link to the ground, unconscious. A Skull Kid wearing an evil-looking mask started making his way toward the scene cautiously. He lifted the mask up a bit and the fairies flew over to him.
"You two were great! I wonder if he has anything good with him," the Skull Kid said with a laugh. As he walked closer, he gasped. "He's wearing a Kokiri Tunic. He's a Kokiri?" the now wide-eyed Skull Kid murmured. He lowered his mask again and laughed, "It doesn't matter." He stood over Link and nudged the hero with his wooden foot. The hero was still unconscious, so the Skull Kid rolled him onto his back and checked his belongings. After stumbling upon the Ocarina of Time the Skull Kid grabbed it and ran his wooden fingers all along it. The imp stood upright, enthralled over the ocarina and turned away from Link as he began to fiddle with it.
"What a pretty ocarina! Can I touch it?" asked the Purple fairy. The white fairy shot him an angry look and then flew over and hit him.
"No, Tael! What would happen if you break it? You're just too clumsy," snapped the white fairy.
"Please? I promise to be careful. All I want to do is touch it," Tael persisted, oblivious to Link waking up behind him. Link held his head, which ached from the fall. He looked about and noticed the two fairies that caused the accident with the Skull Kid, still examining Link's ocarina. Link grew angry and decided to attack them. As he stood up carefully, the fairies became alerted to him and signaled the Skull Kid. The Skull Kid cocked his head just enough to see Link and bolted around with his hands behind his back trying to hide the ocarina. Link, having heard the Skull Kid playing notes on the Ocarina of Time, wasn't fooled.
He leapt at the imp in anger, but the Skull Kid was too fast. He jumped high in the air to avoid Link and landed atop Epona with a laugh and began to ride off with her. Link grabbed onto one of Epona's hind legs as she took off, determined not to let his attackers get away. Link was dragged across the farthest areas in the entire woods. The ground hurt as Link slid along it at such a quick pace, but he was determined to hang on.
Deep in the Lost Woods, the Skull Kid noticed a tree stump and rode Epona alongside it, making Link's grasp upon her weaker. The Skull Kid kicked Link in the head. Unable to hold on any longer, Link let go and was tossed aside violently. Link could only watch as his attackers wondered deeper into the Lost Woods. Link lost sight of them as they entered a cavern ahead of him. The hero got to his feet and ran through the cavern after them. He was now in an area with stumps all over and a giant tree on the opposite end. Link climbed onto one of the stumps. He jumped to a stump closer to the tree and realized that if he used certain stumps as stepping stones, he could make his way to the tree. Once he was on the closest stump to the tree, he noticed that on the tree, there was a large hole, big enough for him to fit through.
Link looked around, but didn't see anywhere else the Skull Kid could have gone, so he made his way through the hole. Suddenly he saw that there was no more footing. He was somehow at the edge of a cliff. Before he had time to analyze the situation further, the piece of bark he was standing on broke off and he fell lower and lower in the tree. Lights blinded him as he fell; forcing his eyes shut until finally he landed on something soft. It seemed to be a large pink flower. Two lights flew into view. It was the two fairies from before. The Skull Kid was also there floating in midair, starring at him.
"What's with your stupid horse? It wouldn't listen to a word I said to it. I hope you don't mind that I sold her to an acquaintance with ties to the black market," taunted the Skull Kid. Link could hear the imp's acquaintance galloping off somewhere in the distance and grew noticeably upset.
"Why the angry face? I'm just having some fun with you. It's not like you can do anything about it. I have far more power than you. Would you like an example of my power?" the Skull Kid teased as he started swaying his head back and forth slowly. Dark energy began to surround Link, emanating from the Skull Kid's mask. Link's vision grew blurred and his head hurt worse than ever before. He screamed in agony as the pain in his head grew worse and worse until everything suddenly went black and he fainted. In his mind, he was surrounded by darkness. Mad Scrubs appeared and surrounded him. Link tried to swat them away, but there were too many. He noticed an opening and dashed away from the scene. Behind him the Mad Scrubs all merged into one giant scrub and chased after him. The giant Mad Scrub sucked in and Link helplessly flew backwards into the scrub's snout.
Link came to feeling very abnormal. He glanced at his body and noticed that his skin was now wooden. Link saw that the flower he was standing on was right near a large puddle. He walked over to see his reflection, but what he saw made him scream. He had turned into a Deku Scrub. Link began pounding on his head to see if he was still blacked out, but to no avail. The Skull Kid laughed hysterically.
"That's a great look for you!" he chuckled. "I'll make sure you stay trapped in this form and in this tree forever!" The Skull Kid laughed again as he floated backward toward the back wall. He then lifted part of the wall up and went through it along with Tael. Link tried to run after them, but was stopped by the white fairy who hit him in the snout multiple times.
"C'mon!" Tael called to his sister as the wall closed shut again. The white fairy flew over to the wall and pushed against it.
"Wait! Skull Kid, I'm still here! Don't leave me behind!" called out the white fairy. She flew over to Link, "It's your fault! If I hadn't been dealing with you, I wouldn't have gotten separated from my brother! You owe me, so help me by lifting this slab of rock so I can see me brother again!" Link nodded with a sigh and walked over to the wall. He lifted in the same place that the Skull Kid had and found it surprisingly light despite its appearance. After walking through the passage with the white fairy, he hurried through the next hall-like room he came to.
"Hey wait for me! Don't leave me behind! I apologize for earlier... Please take me with you. I can tell you information about Skull Kid if you let me come along such as where he might be heading," the white fairy called to Link from behind him. Link thought about her proposition for a few seconds and finally nodded, determining that it was the right thing to do.
"Great! Then it's settled! I'll stick with you at least until we catch up to Skull Kid. By the way, my name's Tatl. Now that we've got that out of the way, let's start moving!"
A little ways ahead of them was another false wall that Link lifted to allow access into another room. The next room had a pink flower on the initial platform and a higher platform at the other end.
Seeing his confusion, Tatl spoke up, "Remember, you're a Deku Scrub now. Deku Scrubs have the ability to burrow into flowers such as these, shoot out, and hover using the flower's petals."
Link climbed into a hole in the middle of the flower and held onto its petals as he launched himself in the air. Tatl was right; he was hovering, but he could tell that the petals wouldn't hold out for long, so he hurried over to the platform ahead of him. This time, there was a wooden door separating his current room from the next. After going through the door, he came to a room with multiple stumps spread out, throughout the room. Each stump had a hover-flower on it too. Link looked under the current piece of land he was standing on, and only saw darkness. The floor was too far low to see. Link hopped in the flower closest to him and shot up. He landed on one of the nearer stumps. As Link started to burrow into the new flower, something hit him on his head. It was a few Deku Nuts. After storing them for the moment, he made his way across the room with his newly discovered ability. On the last stump with the exit, he noticed a motionless Deku Scrub. Tatl flew over to it curiously.
"It looks a lot like you," she noted. Link remembered his reflection in the water and had to recognize the obvious similarities. The way it stood with a frown and sad eyes, was unbearable for Link to look at. He wondered if this was also the Skull Kid's treachery. Link grew so upset he burst through the exit in anger. He was now in a long hallway and as he scurried through it, he could feel some dark force resonating from wherever the hall led to.
When he came to the end of the hallway, two stone doors closed shut behind him, preventing him from heading back. The room he was in now was covered in machinery. Link made his way to the top of the room by way of wooden planks. At the top, he found a giant door, but he was stopped as he tried to head through it.
"You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you, Link?" called out a voice from behind him. Link turned to see the Happy Mask Shop Salesman. Tatl ducked down behind Link, trying to avoid the salesman's eyesight. "During my travels to find new stock for my store, an important mask was stolen from me. I suspect that the perpetrator is the same imp that trapped you in your current form. During my travels from Hyrule, I have gained a lot of knowledge, including a theory of how to return you to your Hylian form. In order for me to test my theory though, you need to take out your legendary ocarina that you saved Hyrule with."
"Skull Kid took it," Tatl piped up, still cowering behind Link.
"If you manage to get it back, I'll teach you a secret melody with mystic powers that will heal you. Of course, in exchange, I would be grateful if you would return the mask that was stolen from me by that imp."
"That's not as easy as it sounds. Skull Kid is extremely powerful!" Tatl shouted.
"Link, is more powerful than he looks. He is called the Hero of Time where I come from, so if anyone can outmatch the Skull Kid, it's Link. Another thing is that the Skull Kid has cast a curse on the moon to make it fall on the day of the Carnival of Time, which adds a deadline to your mission. The Carnival of Time is in a mere three days, so that is how long you have to retrieve my mask and your ocarina, but I have faith that you can do it. Hurry and set out since every second counts!" the Happy Mask Salesman urged Link while ushering him through the pair of wooden doors Link had originally tried to go through.