Hello readers. This is my first ever (well first ever typed up) fan fic, however thats no excuse for a bad fic so any CONSTRUCTIVE criticism would be greatly appreciated. I have future chapters planed and a few typed up but i will probably only bother to type the rest if someone asks me to. So yeh, if you like it say so and i will do more, if you don't, say why not and i'll try to improve it for next time.

Dedicated to Dancing Darkness, without whom i wouldn't be here. (And whose fics you should read)

Enjoy

The King of Pain

1. Travelling

The sun's rays beat down on his back with the heat of a thousand fire arrows - he did not care. The sand whipped across his face like millions of tiny needles - he didn't feel a thing. He had been running for longer than he cared to remember; yet his destination was still nothing but a tiny dot on the horizon - he did not waver. He could not be stopped. He would never give up.

Link's breath caught in his throat as he studied the ravine below him. "That's a long drop Epona" he murmured, "Where are the damn workmen" He could see their tent on the far side of the bridge which was virtually non-existent apart from the posts that marked where it should have been.

"We'll have to jump" he concluded. It was further than he had ever jumped with Epona before and if it was anything less than the future of the entire Hylian people at stake he would have turned back to Kakariko and hired some bridge masons. But it wasn't, so he didn't. He wheeled Epona round and headed back for a run-up.

Urging Epona into a gallop, he sped towards the ravine, loving the feeling of adrenaline as they sprang from the very edge of the cliff, feeling the wind flying through his hair and clothes and feeling his heart pound in his chest as they came closer to solid ground. Then they began to drop.

The edge of the ravine was rising to meet them but the angle was too steep. They were going to miss the edge by mere inches, crashing into the side of the cliff. Panic started to set in as the Link's world crawled to a standstill. He could see the edge rising up just that bit too fast, hear the rapids roaring below, calling him to his death.

'So this is how it ends' he thought, it was almost funny, 'after everything I've done - all the trials I've overcome - it ends because some idiotic workmen didn't do their job and I couldn't quite make the jump and-' suddenly he felt Epona's hind legs buck and was flung forwards and upwards, scraping his legs on the edge of the cliff. He landed with a thud and rolled over just in time to see Epona's hooves disappearing over the edge. "NO" he cried as he lunged to the edge. He saw Epona falling backwards, hooves flailing. Saw her hit the water with a sickening splash and watched her limp form as she was dragged under by the raging currents.

For half an hour he lay there, staring into the churning waters. He played the scene in his head. She had saved him. Given her life so that he could continue. If he had just been faster when he landed maybe he could have grabbed a hoof.

"Yeah right," he muttered bitterly, "What could you have done, pulled a fully grown horse over a cliff on your own strength? Get real."

But he couldn't help thinking he had seen something in those eyes. Fear but also…what? Friendship? Sadness? Companionship? Love? Perhaps he was imagining things. He tried to convince himself that she may have survived, maybe washed up on Lake Hylia. But then the images would come flooding back. She had been unconscious when he saw her go under. She was gone, and he had never realized how much she meant to him until it was too late.

He lay there for another hour or so, then got up, and entered the tent.

Hope you enjoyed it.

My appologies to any Epona fans but i needed something fairly dramatic for the first chapter of my first fic.

Reviewers get cyber cookies!