"Link, look! Plants like this one used to grow all over this mountainside." Zelda snapped a picture with her Sheikah Slate. "They say its pollen gives fish an almost caramelized taste."
Link careened over her shoulder and glanced at the spiked herb before nodding. Of course he would be used to the plant. He was familiar with this world. She wasn't the one who lost her memory. Everything was so strange to her and yet familiar at the same time. Who knew that so much could change in only a hundred years?
It seemed like only yesterday, she was bickering about the smallest of things and sharing her problems to Urbosa's attentive ears or joking around with Daruk.
Sometimes, she really wished she could have met the same fate Link had instead.
Zelda blinked and then she saw it: a golden butterfly. "Link! Link! What is that?" Not waiting for her retainer's reply, she rushed after the flying creature. Her feet carried her over protruding roots and around the tall trees of the forest. She fumbled with her Sheikah Slate. It looked similar to a morpho butterfly, but golden morphos did not exist. Mayhaps it was a rare mutation or, even more exciting, a miniature animatronic.
The butterfly then began to fly higher into the forest canopy. Zelda could only watch as her hope for answers flitted away. "And I couldn't even get a picture." She pulled out a pocket-sized journal and pencil from her belt and flipped the filled pages to a clean, blank page. "Link, would you say its wings were 'v'-shaped?"
No answer.
"Link?" Had she run too far? Her hero was nowhere in sight. "Oh, Hylia." This part of the forest was unrecognizable to her as was everything else, it seemed. "Link!"
This time, there was an answer; it came in the form of a zipping noise, too unnatural to be the call of an animal. Zelda felt the hair rise up the nape of her neck. What if it was a monster? As quickly as the noise came, it vanished. She heard nothing. Not even the sounds of the forest. She took a step back and that is when she fell.
...
"Smokey! Smokey!"
A sharp pain invaded Zelda's head and the chilled grass under her served no comfort.
"Smokey!"
Zelda opened her eyes to the dark landscape. After blinking once or twice in disbelief, she shot up from the grassy bed. Black particles flickered in and out of view.
What was this place?
"Excuse me, miss?"
Zelda turned around toward the voice. A diminutive, pig-tailed girl was looking up at her, holding a wicker basket with two hands.
"W... where am I?" Zelda asked. The girl looked Hyrulian enough, but her fashion choices were strange to say the least. Zelda flinched when a black particle appeared in front of her before fading away.
"Wow. Where did you get that, um," the girl said ignoring her question and pointing at Zelda's top.
The princess furrowed her brows. "Please, could you help-"
"Help! Yes!" The girl interrupted. "I am looking for a blue caterpillar named Smokey. About this long." She set her basket down and moved her hands a distance apart. "Have you seen him?"
"I'm afraid not. I don't mean to trouble you any further, but could you help me?"
Pig-tailed girl picked up her basket sullenly. "I hope he is okay. I am sorry about before. Things are really dangerous around here."
"That's my question. Where is 'here'?" Zelda asked.
"Near Hyrule Castle. Just a wee bit west. Are you okay?"
"I think so? I fell and woke up here, but I've never been here." She gasped. "The ruins are nearby?!"
"Ruins? You are confusing me. I guess everything is gloomy enough to be a ruin nowadays," she said, waving her hand past one of the black particles. "Everything's been like this since Zant came. It's a real downer."
"Zant?"
"How hard did you hit your head, you poor friend. Zant is this real big bully. I'd be careful if I were you. There are portals opening everywhere. My poor buggies have been missing for days now."
"A portal?" Zelda asked. "I do feel like this my situation. Actually, may I ask you a question about bugs?"
The girl's eyes shimmered and she nodded. "But I don't think there are any portal buggies. Oh! If there are, I hope they are okay."
"Before everything happened, I saw this peculiar butterfly. It was gold in color and-"
"Smokey!" She dropped her basket. "Oh, that makes me so happy. He was due to become a butterfly sooner than later."
"Really?" Zelda instinctively reached for her journal. "What is he? I never saw such a butterfly like him before. How did he get to..." Zelda hesitated. "Wherever I came from?"
The little girl put her hand under her chin as if deep in thought. "Well, that may explain it. Smokey is a wishing butterfly. They are uber rare and uber special, although they are not very good at granting wishes accurately."
"Are you saying that Smokey can grant wishes? If that is the case, I still don't understand why I am here. I didn't wish for this."
"See, you didn't need to wish for whatever 'this' is to you, but Smokey always had a lot of potential. You must've wished for something similar. Think reeeaaaally hard."
What had she wished for? For her friends to return from the dead? For things to be they way they once used to be? What was she thinking before she saw the butterfly? Think. Think. Think.
"I wanted to meet a fate in which I forgot my past and was brought into an unfamiliar world with no burdens. Like my friend had."
"Oh." The girl frowned. "That's a pretty dark wish. All sorts of things could go wrong with that. I feel sorry for your friend."
"But this is still Hyrule!" Zelda exclaimed. "I am not in a different world. Everything is okay. Everything is..." She faltered and looked down at her hands. "I'm dreaming."
"I hope you are. You can't make a wish on the same butterfly twice. I hope I am dreaming too and, when I wake up, the sky will be blue again," she remarked, looking past Zelda with a soft smile. "I want to help you, miss, but I can't. My poor, little buggies are all alone somewhere and they need my help too. I think you should stay away from the castle though." With a turn of her heel, she was off. "Good luck and thank you!"
"Good luck? No! Wait!" Zelda sighed, seeing that it was no use. It was odd that the little girl had such a high appreciation toward bugs, but nowhere near as odd as her current predicament. A wishing butterfly? She could believe that such things existed. Why her though? It was a greedy wish. Of course she didn't want to leave Link and Paya and the new champions. They were her friends, nonetheless. It was just an intrusive thought.
"Okay. Can I go back now?" Zelda pinched herself to no avail. "Link?" The sky above her was a brackish yellow that reminded her of mustard. Whoever this Zant was, he was powerful enough to change the color of the sky to perpetual twilight. It was time for her to move on.
...
Underfoot, everything was dead. When was the last time the sun had shone on these plants? Surely, they couldn't perform photosynthesis in this enviroment. They were all dead. Every so often, a pair of eyes would stare down at her in wonderment before whisking away to the nearest tree cavity or dashing into the shadows. The forest was afraid. She was afraid.
Zelda turned on her Sheikah Slate and gazed down at the opening screen. The map was not working, not that she expected it to, but the camera was still functional. She snapped a picture of the forest. It could prove useful when she got back. If she got back.
Snapping and slithering. The latter of the sounds was now the new source of fear. Zelda didn't know how far she had walked since the little girl left and only now did she realize that not everything was going to be as pleasant as her. She moved her feet slowly. Slowly. Yet, nothing could've prepared her for its strike.
The deku baba erupted from the ground beneath her feet, sending dirt and Zelda flying. Zelda hit the ground and, when she turned, was face-to-face with its decaying teeth and eyeless face. She couldn't be eaten by a plant! What sick kind of nightmare was this?! The deku baba hissed and reared back its oversized head.
"Heads up! We don't have time for this in the golden afternoon of twilight!"
In a split second, the head landed by Zelda's feet; its tongue lolling out its mouth. It convulsed once before going still. She was still looking at it when a pair of brown boots also came into view. Her eyes followed them up. White pants. Green tunic. Blue eyes. Blonde hair. And a green cap to top it off.
"Link?"