Chapter 2: A Surprise Visitor and a Missing Horse

I'm curled up in my living room with my mother. She's trying to bandage my wounds... It's such a shame that I had to be kicked out of school. A knock sounds at the front door and my mother goes to answer it.

"Hello, are you here to see Timber?" I hear my mother ask the person.

Why would anyone come to see me? Everyone thinks that I'm just a worthless beast now that I was blamed for something I haven't done. Light footsteps sound in the hallway, the sound of brown leather boots walking softly on a wooden floor to be exact.

'Tep, tep, tep, tep, tep, tep, tep,'

I lift my head up from my bandaged paws. It's Link! Link came to see me all the way from Ordon Village!

"Link, how did you find me?!" I call out excitedly.

"Timber, I followed the trail of blood all the way to this house. It was so obvious!" Link says.

"Was I really bleeding that much?!" I ask, standing up quickly from the spot where I was laying.

"Nah, you're fine!" Link says.

"I'm a beast, why aren't you afraid?!" I ask.

"Timber, you're so funny! Wolves don't scare me!" Link says.

I ask, "Link, why have you come all this way just to see me like this?"

Link chuckles quietly. I rub against him.

My mother enters the room and asks, "Oh, is this a bad moment?!"

"Yes!" I bark at her.

"Okay, okay," my mother says as she backs out of the room.

"So anyway Timber, I have to go somewhere, somewhere you have never been before. I am going to the castle to deliver a present to the princess and I… I wanted to bring you with me. Would you come with me?" Link asks quietly.

"Me, come with you, but why?" I ask.

"Because Timber, you and I both need friends in this world," Link says, "And if I could choose anyone in this world to be my friend, it's you that I would choose."

I turn into a human.

"Link, I will come with you and be at your side even in the darkest of times," I say, getting off the floor.

"Then come, come with me to Hyrule and together we shall see new things," Link says, leading me to the door.

"Goodbye mother!" I say cheerfully as I start to leave the house.

"Wait, you can't leave yet! You aren't healed yet!" my mother calls after me.

"It's okay, Link can take care of me!" I say.

"Alright..." my mother says.

I hear her whisper, "I just worry I may lose both of my daughters..."

Link and I exit the house. He freezes in his tracks seeing that his mode of transportation is no longer where he left it.

"Wait, where did Epona go?!" asks Link, "She wouldn't just walk away! I rode my horse here and tied her up, but she's no longer here!"

I can hear his worried tone as he speaks.

"Maybe someone stole her!" I say when I realize how likely it is that someone like Mido stole the horse.

"We have to go find Epona! This present won't be delivered on time if I don't have her!" Link tells me.

"Where would someone hide a horse?" I ask.

"I think we should go to my village first and ask about it," Link suggests.

"How far away is your village?" I ask.

"Well, it's not that far away," Link informs me.

"Let's go then! We must find your horse!" I call out as we start to travel down the path towards Link's town.

When we reach the village I notice there are a lot of strange looking people. Maybe this means they won't hate me as much.

Link walks up to a girl and asks, "Hey Ilia, have you seen Epona?"

Ilia says, "You lost the horse?! What a shameful person you are! You can't just lose a beautiful girl like that!"

"Well excuuuuse me, Ilia! But I am not the one responsible for losing her," Link says.

That was the most unexpected thing to hear from the usually quiet well mannered Link.

Ilia says, "I will help you find Epona, but only because Epona is such a sweet girl and deserves to be found and brought back to my, I mean your safety."

Ilia beckons for us to follow her, so we do. After awhile we reach a beautiful spring, it is sparkling clean and the water's clear and fresh, almost drinkable too! Then I notice the gate is locked.

"Wait, this gate is locked, how would we get in to check for Epona?" I whisper.

"There is a tunnel a little bit back that we can all squeeze through," Ilia informs us.

"Great," Link says.

So we back track a little to a small hole that we can squeeze into. I'm the first one to reach the other side. I notice two familiar figures, one short one and one tall one with long wavy brown hair. They turn around shocked when they notice us.

Ilia walks up to Cornelia and Mido who had Epona tied up and asks, "Why have you stolen Epona? Link and Timber really need her to deliver a present to the royal family."

Cornelia points to Mido, "It was his idea! I was just helping him."

Mido then says, "I took Epona because I didn't think a horse that beautiful should be rode by you rejects. I was going to bring her home with me after she was cleaned up."

Ilia gets frustrated by this so she says, "If anyone deserves this horse more, it's definitely Link. I have seen how much he cares about his horse, and also the fact that you're too short for that horse."

I was like, 'okay? Was that appropriate?'

Mido looks really sad, he says, "Oh, I didn't really think about that. Well, I guess I should give back the horse. Oh and Timber I still hate you! I will get you one day!"

Then I'm thinking, 'okay now that we had our problem and solution, our trip to Hyrule should be a breeze!' That all changes when I feel the ground shake like it never has before.

"What's going on?!" screams Mido.

Cornelia tries to pick him up off the ground, when suddenly this large creature crashes through the gate. There are soon many large creatures.

"Don't just stand there! Run!" Mido calls to Cornelia.

The creatures knock Cornelia and Mido out. Another one shoots Ilia with an arrow and she collapses into the spring. All that's left is Link and I, and we are both frozen with terror. The creature knocks us out too, luckily we don't fall face first into the spring. After that everything stays black for a long time, but I can sense that something bad is happening.