I knew my name carried some sort of wretched curse; even as we galloped haphazardly through the close-set trees, my mind was spinning with the memories of older boys riding down this very same path, each of them sharing my name, and each of them never returning to the village alive. When I turned five, my mother had shut herself in her room and cried for days because of a letter from the new ruler. My father had later told me that the new government required all children to pass a test of skills in order to become a citizen of Hyrule. The reason Ilia cried, he'd said, was because a friend of hers had written, telling her that Lord Dragmire wished to kill children with a specific name. When he'd been on his sickbed, and I halfway out the door to take the test, Colin had forbidden me from giving my real name.

And thank the goddesses that I'd actually listened to him, for once in my life, or I might not have been here now, rocketing down the trail on a horse I didn't really own but called mine anyway, two antique weapons strapped to my back, and nothing left to lose except my life – and Ren's, thanks to that bastard Desn. The 'antique' bow was actually stolen too, in a way, since Ilia, who'd been a friend of the original Link's, had taken it back to the village after he'd died at Kakariko. When I'd turned eight, Colin had passed the weapon onto me, and I'd kept it shiny and strung and ready to go at a moment's notice, especially when I knew scary men with broadswords lurked in the trees somewhere.

I nocked an arrow when a stray flicker of firelight finally caught my eyes. It was still early afternoon, but the thick canopy severely reduced visibility – which I didn't mind, since it made spotting the soldiers that much easier.

"Shh," I whispered to the horse, Arden, a dirty grey stallion of middling size. "Steady." Accordingly Arden adjusted his brisk movement to accommodate the unusual silence of the forest. I was glad he understood the gravity of the situation, since I couldn't bring myself to fully define what was about to happen. To be honest, I couldn't fully comprehend it to begin with – just what did I expect to happen? Gallantly ride out into the Field, sans harassment? The soldiers were probably waiting to ambush me when I passed by the spring. I unwillingly flashbacked to the previous encounter, and the harsh scraping of metal as hands grasped at me in the dark-

Swallowing thickly , I started erasing the faces of the soldiers ahead. In my mind's eye, they were faceless and voiceless, only issuing grunts and snarls from unseen mouths. They were equivalent to the bulbins that had ridden through and sacked the village and killed my mother and returned to murder my father. I had done this before.

Link¸ a strong voice declared resolutely, these are not men. Remember the Forest Temple. Ren is counting on you.

An archer loomed into sight with a flaming arrow, and my bowstring groaned with the tension. Taking that thought into consideration, I stifled a shuddering breath and sighted down the shaft, clearing the worst of the anxiety from my mind. This whole situation was brilliant, really. The last time I'd snuck down here, there had been no one around for miles except the strange hippie down near the Field gate. Now, I could pick out several pinpricks of light, each of them moving across the path ahead, weaving in and out between the tree trunks. There were probably more soldiers hiding in the darkness of the trees, maybe even in the underbrush. Except, these weren't men.

Arden and I drew quietly closer until the first archer was within hailing distance. I could, technically, call out to them now. By some off chance they could be pleasant family-men, unwilling to shoot a ginger kid with a cool hat... or they could stick me full of arrows and burn me to a crisp. The archers continued pacing but my bowstring grew tauter against my wrist, since this could only end one way, and I sincerely hoped my aim wouldn't fail me now.

The closet man fell soundlessly to the ground, and I fought hard not to a gag, horror coursing through me – until he gasped and groaned and I let out a fantastic sigh of relief. I'd aimed for his right shoulder, above the lung, at just the right angle to stun and disable a man. Indeed, as Arden flew past the figure curled into the fetal position, I noticed that he'd dropped his broadsword, just as I'd intended. One less pointy thing for the pincushion I could become. And even though I knew that I had to do this, I also knew that hurting these men was inherently wrong. …But so was trying to kill someone because of their name. There was no turning back and I couldn't get off the horse and stop and I couldn't turn around and I couldn't scream. These were not men, I reminded myself dumbly.

Except, two of them chased after me as I fled, all because I couldn't bring myself to properly incapacitate them. By the time I rounded the last bend in the trail that led past the spring, a cluster of archers and infantrymen awaited me near the cave opening that led to the main Field. Way to ruin the fun. I felt my stomach settle over the saddle as several arrows whizzed by my ears, two of them meeting their target and immediately catching my tunic on fire.

"Goddesses!" Whacking desperately at the flames, I yanked on Arden's reins. "GO!" The horse shot forward instantly, squealing from a close brush with a barbed club. I could feel the blood starting to trickle down my chest, staining the front of my tunic – the same tunic my grandmother had stitched ages ago. She'd kill me if she could see its ragged state now. Did-did someone really just shoot me?

Hoofbeats and a sudden rush of adrenaline jarred my foggy thoughts as we galloped onward, but we weren't headed into the Field – with a jolt, I realized that Arden had taken a wrong turn somewhere and had veered into the Lost Woods.

"There he is!"

"Oh shit," I muttered, glancing over my shoulder and catching sight of the three men on horses gaining on us. "Arden, c'mon!" He was following a faint trail, probably a deer path, but the trees and underbrush were growing denser, slowing us down. There was no way we were going to outrun the soldiers at this rate. Up ahead, there was a dense thicket of young saplings that no horse would be able to penetrate. Hell, I wasn't even sure if I could squeeze through the meshed branches. Sensing my apprehension, Arden pulled up short after clearing a massive downed trunk, and I slid gratefully out of the saddle, smacking his flank on the way down. Wheeling around, he galloped off parallel to the thicket and promptly disappeared into the descending mist.

That horse is smarter than you are, a voice quipped at me.

Snorting, I hurriedly snapped the shafts buried into my shoulder and shimmied into the thicket. Goddesses-damned branches were unbelievably sharp, forcing me to stuff my hat into my bag, and lead with the thick leather bag parting the way in front of me and deflecting some of the branches. I'd only gone a few meters when I froze, listening as the pursuing riders thundered to a halt where I had been standing just a minute ago.

"Do you see him?"

"I can't bloody see anything. This fog-"

"What was that?"

Something echoed in the distance seemingly from all directions, and the riders turned their horses, trotting the opposite way Arden had run. Their voices faded with distance, but I managed to make out:

"Let's go-"

"Commission's on the line!"

"He just wants his head, right?"

I felt the bile rise into my throat, my vision suddenly spotted. The flashback hit me hard, like a physical blow, and stole the breath from my lungs; I struggled in the thicket, almost crying with relief when I fell out the other side into a grassy clearing, but my ears kept ringing with the sound of swords being drawn. What if there were soldiers waiting here, too? What if the thicket ended and the horsemen were here- Blindly, I nocked an arrow and stumbled to my feet, frantically trying to see through the blanket of fog but it was no use.

Just stay calm. You've got your bow, just like last time. Phew. Breathe in, breathe out. I shuffled the arrow into the hand holding the bow and managed to jam my hat back on my head. Just like last-

"Who are you?"

I sighted down the shaft in the direction of the voice, but couldn't bring myself to release. You're hearing things- It's just the-

"I said, 'Who are you?'"

Nearly jumping out of my skin at the proximity, I let go of the string – but the arrow hung in mid-air, just in front of my face.

"You died," I heard myself saying, "back on the trail. They killed you and now you're dead and- That's my hat!"

Something snatched the hat off my head, and when I turned to confront it, I found myself face to face with a living nightmare, some kind of horned black shadow monster with a piercing red eye. Whatever it was grabbed one of the protruding arrow shafts in my shoulder and twisted it. I dropped to my knees, but the thing dropped altitude with me, growling in my face, "Where did you get this?"

"That's mine," I hissed. "Stealing is rude." That's right, Link, insult the thing that's about to kill you.

The shadow monster twisted the shaft again and I involuntarily pitched forward, nearly passing out from the pain. "I'll ask you one more time, boy," and distantly, I realized that the thing sounded female, "where did you get this?" She'd said it quickly, anguish and even a little outrage coloring her tone. The female thing drew closer, and a flash of crimson flickered. It looked like a pair of antlers perched on her head. The thing's eye quickly narrowed, a pointy tooth glinting in the darkness.

"This is not yours," she hissed at me, and suddenly a force pinned me against the thicket, my feet dangling a meter above the grass. A glowing orb of crackling energy balanced delicately on the thing's palm. "Where did you get this?"

"I'm not-"

"I can play your game, kid. You're already dying by the looks of it; I sense no fairy in your supplies." The thing smiled sickeningly, and I felt something squeezing me- Oh goddes- My breaths came shorter and shorter until something, I was sure, would pop or break or just explode: I felt the force's pressure increasing, and that goddesses-damned arrow twisting, twisting. Maybe she would squeeze me to death, but I'd be damned if she took the last thing I had from Colin. "Where did you get this?"

For a split second I considered telling her, but instead I gasped, "I... find it... hard to... commun... icate... when I'm being... st-strangled..."

"Killing you would be nothing to me - nothing."

The pressure tightened considerably until a crack rent the air, followed by a pained gasp. The hovering thing froze; the force faded completely and I found myself lying in a trembling heap on the ground, my sides aching and stinging all at once from the arrows and now this crazy magic thing with a grudge and wicked mood swings.

"You and… everyone… else! Want my… hat- l-leave!" I growled, but the thing only hovered uncertainly near my head, her eye wide and reflecting some constellation that I shouldn't have been thinking of at all, let alone while I was being tortured by some freak in the middle of the woods.

In a trembling voice she whispered, "Tell me where you got this. Please."

"I said, Gi- Nayru!" Pain, even worse than the arrows, wound through my chest, exacerbated by every shallow breath that managed to squeeze its way down my throat; she broke a rib, or two or three. The arrows stung too... stinging... stinging... The thing appeared abruptly at my side, held my hand, and started spouting gibberish that I didn't understand in the least. She used my name, and said something about the dead princess, but everything else she said had absolutely nothing to do with me. It didn't help that the world had taken it upon itself to color everything an even darker shade of black, even that goddesses-damned freezing fog. Must be dreaming.

"I need you to tell me where you got this!"

I jerked my head to the side as violently as I could, a hand held out blindly in front of me in a stupid attempt to protect myself. "I- Din!" But the thing grasped my hand with a tiny, star-like palm and bent the fingers backwards, so that I finally caved, snarky false confidence be damned. "My father!" I hissed at her, practically sobbing from the pain emanating through my body. "My-my f-father!"

The thing dropped my hand as if it burnt and backed away quickly. I couldn't make out the expression, but I was willing to hazard a guess that she was surprised at the answer she'd received. And then I blinked once, but the world-