This chapter reads a little weak to me. It might have to do with the distractions I ran into when I started it and kept moving on it. Either way it's done and I'm moving on to chapter 5 now so I'll just try and forget about it.

Read and review if you want to.

As always i own nothing of Zelda.

In response to NarutoRyomaCub. You are right about the adult Zelda but no adult Link in the one timeline. I think I spaced that completely. Dang I wonder if that actually makes it three timelines. I mean there should be a timeline with the adult link there. And one timeline where adult Link was sent back in time after the defeat of Ganon. And then the kid Link timeline where Ganon was stopped early on. Then again maybe the kid Link timeline overwrote the timeline where he was sent back. But if it was going to overwrite it then it would overwrite all of them and there would have been no Adult Link timeline. I have to believe then that there are three timelines. Adult Link and Zelda is line 1. Adult Zelda, no Adult Link is Line 2. Kid Link timeline leading to TP is Line 3.

You know the people who make the games say they have a chart showing all the timelines. Wish they would let people see it.

HYRULE FIELD

Muscles bunched and stretched as the large wolf surged through the tall grass of Hyrule field on his near direct course to Faron woods. He had slowed only to eat the rare rabbit or small creature caught, or to take a quick rest but he had decided early on to take as few rests as he needed on his trip and while he was starting to feel the accumulated tiredness of constant travel he wasn't going to stop till he reached Faron woods and was under the protection of the greenery of a place he could nearly call home. He had been forced to slip into hiding four times to avoid conflict with a handful of bulblin's and the bullbo they rode as well as a group of stalfos that had seemed to make the bulblin's run away quickly. The two groups weren't working together which Link supposed he should have been happy for since it meant they might fight each other if it came down to that. Though he had to admit that his knowledge of bulblin politics wasn't very impressive. He wasn't sure if King Bulblin was king due to strength of arms or if it had to do with a bloodline. Though he knew that Shad had said that he believed it was a mixture of the two as King Bulblin was obviously much larger than an average Bulblin which spoke of a different bloodline than the average bulblin but the belief was that the bulblin's would never follow any other bulblin who couldn't stay in power by sheer force of arms.

Shad had actually postulated that king Bulblin might very well be a completely different race of bulblin entirely. Unfortunately it was all theory, and theory had been put on the backburner when King Bulblin had taken his forces and headed towards the mountains. Rumors from a captured bulblin had been that the Moblin hordes, cowering in the mountains for some time had decided to make a move on the only place bulbin's considered home. King Bulblin had taken all the forces he had pledged to Ganon, all those that had survived anyway, and headed back towards the mountains to defend the Bulbin's home from the moblin's. From what Link could remember from his short amount of peace before being sent to investigate the castle the princess had been surprised to find out about the trouble in the bulblin lands but had been unable to do anything to take advantage of it with the severely understaffed army and the need to patrol and clear out hyrule field of any dangers to travelers.

At this point though he wasn't sure of anything going on in the lands due to not knowing how much time had passed since his travel through them. Things had been hectic in the days that followed the defeat of Zant and Ganondorf. The military had badly needed to be rebuilt as the majority of it had been decimated by the attack of the twilight beasts. The Hylian knights had suffered nearly heavy casualties trying to repel the invaders from the lands before they could reach castle town. The general Hylian army had suffered nearly as badly and in the end only a small amount of soldiers had been left to try and protect the princess in the throne room. In the end nearly all of the brave had fallen and the cowardly were left to patrol the city and the walls. Link had seen this firsthand when a group of soldiers had chickened out of helping Telma and Ilia move Ralis to Kakariko for medical help. Link had managed to give the princess a few recommendations of a couple of officers that he had noticed had shown backbone during the twilight invasion.

The princess was in the end the ultimate authority in the land and all government revolved around her. There were a few people well off enough that they could possibly be called nobles but in the end they exerted very little power on the crown. From what Link knew of history, which was admittedly not much, there had at one time been a thriving noble population in Hyrule but a previous attack on the city hundreds of years ago had decimated the noble population. There were beings who could be considered nobles in the Zora and Goron races. The Goron's had their elders, and Ralis was the prince of the Zoras and Link was certain there were some who had taken command when Ralis was not in control. In the end they had all been lucky that the twilight had happened so early in the year that they had time to try and ration the remaining food stores as well as hunt and scavenge up enough to last the winter when it had arrived. Ordon had ended up in the best shape as the twilight hadn't reached it. Other lands had been less lucky and he had heard that several provinces had lost their entire early crops and only the hardiest of feed crops had survived the twilight. As winter had arrived they had received several caravans of food from the mountain people, those who lived outside the control of the crown of Hyrule. They had no legal or treaty obligation to send such caravans but they had in the end given aid anyway. Ashei had talked to the driver of one of the wagons, knowing him from times he had come to her father's home, and had seemed as surprised as everyone at the food shipment. She had said later that the mountain people, while refusing to submit to the crown, still remembered where their ancestors had come from.

But still it hadn't been an easy first year after the fall of the twilight but the people had pulled through. And then of course had come the need for funds to rebuild the damage caused across the land by the enemy. And that had led to the surprise of finding the coffers nearly empty, certainly not enough money to fund the rebuilding of much. And that was how he had found himself at the castle and on his trip. Shad had delved through the Hyrule castle archives, they had survived on a lower level, and found reference to an ancient Hylian castle that was supposedly abandoned. The possibility of uncovering funds to aid in reconstruction was too good to pass up and while Link hadn't wanted to admit it there was another reason he had gone. Shad had intimated that there was a strange connection between the twilight and that abandoned castle. The thought of possibly finding a way to Midna had been the real reason Link had agreed to the mission. And while he had seen Twili markings in the castle they had been very few and very far between. He didn't want to admit it but his heart had broken a little more at each dead end found in that place and he had, in the end, been grateful for the fight against the beast that had lived there. It was a chance to vent some very impressive frustration. He was jerked out of his walk down memory lane when the first trees loomed in the darkness of the night and he passed into the edge of Faron woods.

Brush swished aside as he moved quietly through the forest, or as quiet as he could be with a shackle and short length of chain attached to his left front leg. The soft jingle of the chain had long ago stopped irritating him and he simply tuned it out as he moved through the forest keeping an eye out for danger and sniffing for anything of interest. It had been nearly an hour before he picked up a smell he knew all too well, blood. It had been nearly an hour of slow moving through the forest brush following the blood trail when he reached a small opening in the trees and moonlight shone on something bleached white. He could smell the scent of old bones and moved carefully forward until he looked down on the body of a stalfos, though this one wore the more light armor he was used to. Digging into the dead leaves on the forest floor he found the remains of three more stalfos, their swords were nearby and at least two of those blades bore human blood on them. The trail was making more sense now but he wondered if the stalfos had been chasing whoever they had attacked and caught up with them here. He looked at the fully dead stalfos for a moment before turning and continuing to follow the blood trail. It took another half hour but he reached the end in a large clearing where the bodies of seven men lay hacked to pieces on the dead leaves and grass now stained with dried blood. The remains of several stalfos and redead's lay around the small clearing as well but the now fully dead creatures had been destroyed with extreme prejudice. He moved closer sniffing around the clearing but it seemed that no one had escaped the undead assault. The dead weren't wearing any identifying marks but they were dressed plainly, the kind of clothes a simple hunter might wear. The weapons remaining though were anything but simple and Link was surprised to see the mark of Rusl carved into the blades. After looking the swords over more he realized that they were nearly a duplicate of his own well used Ordon sword. That combined with the homespun look of the clothing was making him worried that these people where from Ordon. Not that there weren't other villages in, and out, of the forest that sent people into it for food and firewood. And with things the way they were right now it wouldn't be surprising for Rusl to make swords for others to use to defend their villages. At least he hoped that was what this meant as the thought of Ordon villagers dead was more than he could handle right now, even if he didn't recognize any of the dead. In the end he bowed his head and offered up a silent prayer to the goddesses for the souls of the ones who had fallen.

This had once been a camp for the men who had fallen and he saw two paths leading from it into the woods, one seemed to go in the direction he was sure the forest temple was or at least in that general direction and he quickly followed it heading through the thick trees and trying to ignore the feelings that were telling him he was being followed. No matter how many times he looked back, doubled back, or went off on little side trips through the woods he always seemed to feel like he was being followed but never found any proof of it. In the end he began to ignore it and simply moved onwards heading deeper and deeper into Faron woods hoping to find a good place to bed down for the rest of the night. It didn't take long to find a small opening made from the roots of one of the larger trees and the dirt that covered much of those roots. He crawled into the space and laying his head on his front paws he slipped into slumber.

He didn't know how long he had been asleep but the tramp of armored feet woke him and the sun shone dimly through the leaves of the huge trees of the woods. Peeking out of the narrow darkness of the small opening he watched as stalfos, armored ones like those he had seen out on hyrule field, marched past heading deep into the forest. He had waited till they had gone, and even longer to make sure that he wouldn't run into them by heading out, before crawling free of the small protection he had had and struck off in a direction away from the way the stalfos had been going. He could only hope they had nothing to do with Ordon or any of the forest villages that were here and there in the woods. Still he had to wonder why twenty stalfos would be in the forest for anything but an attack on villages of innocents.

It had taken nearly the entire day but he had managed to pass into the deep forest and now sat near the shattered wood of what had once been a pathway. One of the bones of the rabbit he had caught snapped as he bit down harder on it while looking at the violet mist that flowed around the base of the trees. Giving a sigh he dropped the bone and moved to the edge of the broken wood looking across the mist for any areas that he might be able to jump to. Noticing a large tree trunk sticking up through the mist he leapt to it balancing easily on the small area while looking for more ledges, trunks, branches or outcroppings. He had managed to cross what he believed to be half of the area when he noticed the mist shifting as something moved through it. As it got closer he was able to see it was some kind of snake, a very big snake at that. He crouched lower on the large rock he had made it to and watched as the snake slithered slowly past on its way to who knew where. He shook his head wondering where the creature had come from, he had never seen anything like it while traveling through the forest before. He watched as the disturbed mist slowed its movement indicating the snake was gone and then began leaping again heading for the gates that would lead to the area right before the Forest Temple. The same area that would give him access to the sacred grove, as long as he could get past the Skull Kid.

Nearly an hour later, having spent time resting on his jumping journey, he stood looking at the fallen over cauldrons that had held oil and potions. Trill, the bird that he had bought oil from before was nowhere to be seen and looked to have not been there for quite some time. The wolf shook his head and moved along the edge of the rock face until he stood at the rock that Midna had helped him jump from root to root on a path to the sacred grove. Without Midna he would have found it impossible to make the jumps normally but he knew exactly where the spots to leap to were and so didn't need her to scout out the way before he jumped.

Muscles bunched and a second later claws where scrabbling at wood to jerk him to a stop. Panting in relief he turned and looked at the way forward. Offering up a quick prayer he leapt quickly onward and soon was standing on solid ground. Lot tougher without Midna. Shaking his head he stood and walked into the trees with hope that this wouldn't take long. Several hours later he was starting to think that he was lost until he heard faint music playing from somewhere ahead and very dimly he could see a light and hear the soft clanking of a lantern. Moving through the trees he saw the Skull Kid dancing on a tree stump while several puppets moved nearby. Link didn't get the chance to move closer as the skull kid stopped playing and looked up to see him.

"You've come back to play!" The skull kid danced happily.

Link blinked in surprise and then dove to the side dodging the attack of one of the puppets. He quickly recovered and leapt onto the puppet severing it's head from its body in a single bite of his jaws. He kicked off the puppet flipping backwards to slide to a stop only to catch sight of the skull kid vanishing down another passageway. Darting around the remaining puppets Link rushed after the only being he knew who could guide him through the grove. It wasn't an easy trip. The skull kid was faster than he had been before and his puppets were stronger. The grove seemed to be bathed in a deep shade as if the bright life that had once been existent within the trees was sleeping. The lantern light shone just ahead and he burst free of the bushes to find himself over a drop to the ground below. A yelp echoed through the area as he fell to the ground below but when he stood shaking his head he saw the stone of the temple. The skull kid wasn't anywhere in sight and Link was glad he didn't need to fight his way past him again. He moved to the stone crawling through rubble upwards into the main section of the temple to find the place looked exactly as he had last seen it. There was still even some charcoal markings on the wall where Shad had made notations while studying the walls and statues. The Master Sword gleamed from its dais in the other room and he headed towards the doorway.

Not for the first time today did he feel he was being watched again and he moved carefully towards the statues that guarded the doorway to the sword chamber. The thundering boom of twin hammers striking the ground echoed through the temple and only Link's impressive reflexes had granted him enough time to dodge out of the way of the weapons wielded by the enchanted statues. He backed up growling glaring at the two when he realized they weren't looking at him. He spun and stared in surprise as twelve figures dropped to the floor of the temple. They were the same stalfos types that he had seen before except that eleven of these were the purple armored type and leading them was a figure in full grey plate mail, not a single part of the person showed so he couldn't tell if they were alive or not.

"We must thank you beast." The grey armored figure began to walk forward as his soldiers spread out and moved ahead as well "Had you not lead us here we would have never been able to make it through the sacred grove to this place. My master will be most pleased with this turn of events as I have been searching for this temple for two years now."

Link dodged to the side as one of the guardians began to move "You are not allowed here...go dark one, and trouble this place no more."

"Relics of a bygone age. I have no time to waste with such trash." The knight gestured to his soldiers and they rushed forward to hack at the guardians. Link was surprised to see chips of stone break from one of the statues before it smashed two of the enemy in one swing of its massive hammer.

The grating rumble of stone on stone made the wolf shift his view to the doorway to the sword chamber which was closing. He bolted towards it crouching low and sliding through trying to ignore the way the door had managed to brush the tip of his tail when it boomed closed. Quickly jumping up he rushed to the dais and the pedestal that was on it. He circled the sword for a moment until the door to the chamber was in view and then stepped forward noting the white glow building in the sword, the same as it had during his first retrieval of the weapon during the twilight invasion. The glow grew brighter and suddenly a pulse washed outwards forcing him back several feet. Winds whipped outwards and he struggled forwards as the glow of the sword grew blinding. A second later a brilliant light flashed through the chamber and the wolf slammed into the wall with a pained yelp. Slowly standing Link stared down at his paws realizing that he hadn't changed, that for some reason the sword had flung him away instead of curing him.

A loud boom from the doorway caused him to turn towards the door and stare in surprise as cracks spread across it. A second boom and the door cracked more and seemed to bow inwards. With no more time to waste he rushed forward and struggled to reach the sword as wind and light flared to life again. Planting his paws and trying to anchor himself with his claws as best he could he strained forwards. As the power of the master sword pushed against him he felt something pushing back and that same feeling he'd felt at the spring of Eldin flared up again and golden flecks floated through his vision again. The swords light was growing bright enough and the wind strong enough that he almost didn't hear the crash of stone on stone as the door exploded inwards. He did see the chunks of stone fly by and see the grey armored knight stride into the room carrying the hammer of one of the grove guardians, though now the hammer bore dark violet runes glowing on it. Through the light he could see the shattered remains of the destroyed guardians lying in the other room. The knight was followed by two stalfos who were ordered back as the knight approached as closely as he could and still remain outside the master swords awakened power. The knight swept the hammer into the air and with a mighty swing slammed it into the ground releasing a shockwave towards the sword. The shockwave impacted and in a second flashed back towards the knight impacting with enough force to drop him to one knee. Link felt his paws slipping on the stone and strained to stay put noticing as he did that the gold flecks in his vision began to take up more space. Every now and then a grouping of flecks would seem to float together and the world seen from that eye would turn a bright shade of yellow for a moment. And each time it happened he would suddenly get a brilliant view of the temple as it had been long ago, as if he was looking back through time. For just a moment his eyes focused on the knight and he saw silver and gold armor adorned with an unknown marking. The helm was not closed off but open, and inside he saw the bearded face of a man with kind eyes looking out at the world. And then his view went back to seeing the world around him and the grey armored knight who was now standing up once more.

"After two years I will not be denied!" The massive hammer began to glow with a dark violet light and with a mighty heave he threw it forward just as Link strained forward with all his might. The mighty hammer impacted one side of the sword as Link managed to touch the blade. The world turned to light and pain.

Rock shattered as the dais buckled upwards in the center and the pedestal exploded. Link smashed to the floor skidding backwards nearly ten feet before coming to a stop, his eyes clenched shut to try and drive out the blinding white light. Those eyes snapped open when he heard a clanging sound near him. And with horrified and shocked eyes he stared at the broken master sword now lying near him. The blade ended nearly a foot and a half from the hilt and he saw shards of the blade lying nearby as well. Struggling upright and trying to ignore the pains that shot through his body he could only stare at the broken blade while his mind reminded him of two things. The first being that he was still in wolf form, and the other was the knight. The master sword, his last hope, broken by the unknown evil knight who had followed him to the sacred grove. Link spun to look towards the knight letting loose a feral snarl only to get an armored boot to his ribs flinging him across the chamber and nearly into a wall.

"I have completed my mission. I would normally reward you for leading me to this place. But you are obviously no ordinary wolf." The knight drew a sword of green metal from a sheath at the back of his waist and was about to step forward again when a musical note played and several puppets dropped into the room. Two of the puppets grabbed the knights arms and flung him backwards to the floor sending him sprawling even as more puppets entered the room and moved towards the downed knight. Link was so surprised by the attack that he almost missed seeing the small glowing light that suddenly was in front of him. A fairy? He stared at the fairy for a moment and then realized that she was making movements as if he was to follow. Looking to the master sword he saw fairies all over collecting the pieces of the sword. A second later one fairy landed on his muzzle managed to get him to look towards where the fairies with the pieces of the sword were going. He quickly followed even as the puppets behind him were sliced apart and more showed up to engage the knight, slowing him down enough for Link to leap to branches and logs and escape the temple out into the forest following the fairies deeper into the woods. The gold flecks were slowly fading until only a couple floated in his vision and even they quickly vanished. He crossed streams and rushed through grass and bushes on his way following the fairies. As he continued along he was surprised to see the shattered remains of buildings strewn here and there among the trees. He was so engrossed in staring at the ruins that he almost ran into several fairies as they stopped at the edge of what looked to have once been a fountain. A green mist floated forward and then reformed into the Great Fairy who strode through the water to where the wolf now rested by the edge of the pool looking mournfully at the shattered blade he had worked so hard to reach.

The great fairy knelt and reached forward placing her hand on the wolfs head healing his injuries and at the same time letting her nature as a fairy let her see into his heart, what she saw worried her but she had no choice in her actions. "Despair not hero of twilight. Travel to the lands of snow and ice and seek an ancient power. There you will be able to return to the form you seek." She smiled as the wolf perked up turning to look at her in excitement "The sword that has broken will travel with you, for though it is shattered its power yet slumbers within."

Link watched as fairies slid the pieces of the master sword into a sheath they had managed to produce from the goddesses knew where and then attached a strap to it while putting ties over the hilt itself to make sure it stayed in the sheath. They flew over and settled the sheathed blade onto his back and secured the strap around him to hold the blade in place. He noticed the great fairy look up worriedly "Darkness approaches. The child is unable to slow it any longer. Leave this place swiftly. Seek the power that sleeps in the lands of snow."

ORDON VILLAGE

Bo limped down the stairs looking around the village and it's now much larger size. He had always been proud of their small village, and though he still was there was also a part of him that wished all these people hadn't come here when the trouble started. They had even ended up with about 15 soldiers who, like everyone else, spent their time trying to keep the village fed and protected. The loss of Castle Town a mere two years into the conflict had hit everyone hard, especially considering how many people had been unable to escape the place before it was consumed by the dark power. Rusl had taken it especially hard as his friends in the resistance had been based in Castle Town and had been there when the attack had hit the place. Their fate, along with everyone else who had not escaped, was unknown even to this day as getting any information from outside Ordon was nearly impossible.

The mayor sighed wishing he could get rid of the limp that he had ended up with when they had mounted an assault on the creature living in the spring of Ordona. The attack hadn't gone well and it had only been Rose disobeying her father that had allowed a good chunk of the warriors who had attacked to escape. Rose had peppered the creature with bomb arrows which had disoriented it enough for them to slip away. Rusl of course hadnt been very happy with his daughter at that point and Bo had been forced to play mediator between the two before Rose did something her father would regret, like running away from the village to, in her words, 'Save the world'. The girl reminded him a lot of Link at that age and he knew that Rusl had seen it also and was worried that he'd lose his daughter the way he had lost Link. Bo tried to banish the pang of guilt he still felt so long after Link had disappeared. And yet through it all he still found it impossible to believe the boy had been killed somewhere. Having known the boy since he'd been nothing but a small child Bo simply didn't believe he was gone. He knew he was in the minority on that belief but he wasn't going to give in, not even as the last breath left his body would he believe that the kid was dead. And in the end he knew that with no knowledge of his daughters whereabouts, and no idea if the kingdom had any chance whatsoever, the hope that Link was still out there was one of the few things that kept him going.

Authors Note: The part with the master sword was the hardest to write for some reason. I revised it over and over again trying to figure out what to do as each time I couldn't get it to feel right. It even now seems a little on the weak side but I ran into a writer's block on how to make it better so I just stuck with what I managed to dredge up from my mind.