"Colin! Wait!" Talo sped behind me, but I didn't care. Even though I couldn't control where I was going, I knew exactly where my feet were planning to take me.
The huge tree loomed into view once more and sure enough, I veered to the right. Surprisingly, ropes had been strung across the once impassable gaps. Without hesitating, I hurtled across. This is just like those games we'd play in the forest, I thought. One of those games included leaping from tree to tree and shimmying across thin branches. This was slightly different, but possibly there was some extra balance lent to me from being controlled against my own will.
Talo carefully picked his way through, not as confident as I was. Beyond the ledge were more invisible islands strung together with ropes. I passed them with ease, finally landing in front of a huge archway beckoning me into the darkness.
"Slow down!" Talo called, his voice bouncing off of the circling walls. "Stop! This is- this is crazy!" He stopped next to me, panting, hands on his knees.
"Let's go," I said encouragingly, slapping him on the back. "This is it."
He peered into the gloom. "I'm not going in there."
The feeling of being controlled faded, but I still felt an urge to step through. I did so, causing Talo to exclaim in surprise and sprint after me.
The arch opened onto a short but dark tunnel. I could hear someone shouting- no, cursing- ahead. We stepped into the sunlight to hear-
"Music," Talo said wonderingly. "I can hear a flute playing."
"Me too," I agreed. It was a jovial and melancholy tune all at once. We glanced around to see where the flutist was, but our search yielded nothing but trees.
Meanwhile, the cursing had turned to one long, unbroken scream.
We followed the noise until it stopped, suddenly, leaving us faced with two pathways. Chills suddenly ran up my spine- were we lost?
"It came from the left."
"I'm pretty sure it was the right."
Right? It was left. I was certain. I sighed. "We can split up and meet here later."
I continued alone. The floor angled sharply downward, and I skidded a few feet to the bottom before I could stop myself. I had come to a room of boulders in a circle. Leaves were strewn everywhere. I almost stepped over Jack before I even realized he was there, sniveling on the ground.
"I thought he was my friend," he mumbled, over and over. "I thought he was my friend…"
"Jack." I grabbed his shirt and lifted him with a strength I didn't even know I had. "Where is it?"
His rattled gaze fell upon me. Immediately, I knew.
"You don't have it anymore, do you?"
He made a little choking noise. "He- he promised me…"
Something hit me from behind- hard. I fell, wind knocked out of me.
"Run!" Jack squealed, taking off. I stood, wobbled, and ran after him.
But whatever had attacked me wasn't going to let me leave. I spun to face my assailant.
It had positioned itself high in a tree. Donned on its head was an orange, pointy hat, and on its feet were matching shoes. It wore an outfit of leaves in every color. None of that was frightening, but his skull-like face and red eyes were enough to make me shiver.
It readied another projectile, but I rolled out of the line of attack. It missed me and exploded a few feet away. Deku nuts?
I turned around and sprinted back the way I had come.
By the time I caught sight of Jack again, he'd pinwheeled through another tunnel. I tried to keep up as he hurtled over streams and waded through tall weeds. Either he was just as lost as I was, or he knew his way around this alien forest as well as he did Castle Town.
I almost smacked into him as I rounded a corner.
"He can't follow us here," Jack intoned as I came to a halt. When he saw my baffled expression, he enlightened me a little further. "This place is sacred. Only a handful of people can set foot in here."
"Then why can we?" I asked, trying to see what was so special about the room. A gray, brick-sized stone sat in the center.
Jack shrugged, and then sat down. "I don't know. That's why I didn't come here earlier… I wasn't sure that I would be allowed in." He peered at the stone. "That is very strange…"
The Skullkid rounded the corner as well, and howled ferociously at us. So it was true; while we stayed here, we couldn't be touched.
I sat down next to him. "What's so strange?"
He sighed, all previous enmity focused toward me lost. With a jolt, I realized I felt the same way.
"It's just that in every legend I've heard about this place, there's a sword. It's supposed to be wedged in that stone over there." He paused, his bafflement written all over his face. "But there's nothing."
"What does the sword look like?" My curiosity got the better of me.
He lifted an eyebrow. "Well, we might be penned in here for a while." He described the sword, telling me about its purple hilt decorated with the Hylian Royal crest, its strength, its ability to cut foes down mercilessly and smite all evil with its pure blade. I listened, forgetting our predicament, completely enraptured by the story.
"Tell me more!" I begged after he finished. He didn't hesitate, just as entertained with telling the tale as I was to hearing it, and soon I was in the middle of a story of a maiden from the sky and her knight of green. I didn't even notice as the sun fell and the Skullkid, still hovering outside, growled in frustration. All I could see, as my eyes closed, was the image of a man carrying a princess to safety, purple-hilted sword under his belt.
I awoke suddenly, dreams of legends dissipating in the cold night air. "Jack," I said, calling to him. He hadn't gone to sleep; instead, he'd kept a wary watch on the gathering Skullkids.
"They've brought reinforcements, I see," he said coldly.
Now dozens of pairs of eyes glinted under the moon at us.
"I always thought that Skullkids didn't really exist," I said. "But if the stories are true, we can't let them get near us, or we'll turn in to one of them."
"I thought that was only if you got lost here."
"Well, we've been here all night and nothing's happened."
Jack glanced cagily at our pursuers. "I wouldn't put it past them to try anything."
Suddenly, one of them raised the Gale Boomerang in the air, taunting us with it. I stiffened, fists clenched, anger at Jack renewed. "Why did you steal it from me?" I asked, trying to contain my resentment. "What did you have to gain from handing it over?"
"I'm sorry for what I did. I thought that you had stolen it from them." He shook his head. "I met him- the Skullkid- a few years ago. He didn't have a name, but… he told me that he would have wanted to be called Rohl... I'd been sent to Faron Woods to find a particular poultice-maker; she was often called the best in the world. Someone in Castle Town needed something from her, I forgot who and what. But by the time I got there, her shop and home had been raided. The potion-maker was long dead. And the robbers themselves had been living there for weeks." He pulled his knees to his chest. "I had no choice but to run, and the robbers were hot on my tail; they couldn't have anyone blabbing about their new secret hideout.
"I managed to outrun them for a little while, but they would have caught me if I didn't run here. Back then, there'd been temporary bridges across the gaps. Probably been set up by some excavation group or something. Anyway, I hid in these woods and the robbers eventually left. They were too scared to follow me in.
"That's when Rohl showed up. I was hopelessly lost, and night fell very quickly. I thought I would turn into a monster at any moment, but instead Rohl showed me the way out." He stared at the moon. "I don't know why he did it. But I almost wondered… maybe it meant I was destined for something greater. Something better than living in a gutter my whole life.
"I came back with ropes- I wasn't sure if the bridges would still be here, and sure enough they'd been packed up. I wanted to thank him for saving me. He was glad that I'd come back to see him, and soon we became friends. I'd visit every so often, hitching a ride on a carriage or just walking across Hyrule field. Whenever I had something to deliver, I'd stop by. He was really fun to play with, and we'd invent games, play hide-and-seek, or just watch the stars." He lay down, setting his hands behind his head. "One game that we loved was using the Gale Boomerang to stir up the leaves. Then we'd run through-"
"That was Rohl's?" I interrupted, watching them raise the boomerang again in an attempt to goad us. "When you said it was a friend's, I thought you meant…"
Jack's eyes settled on it. "Yeah. It was his. One day, he told me he didn't have it, that it had been stolen from him."
"That's why you gave it back, then."
"Yeah."
A silence fell over the clearing. The Skullkids parted abruptly.
"I've got a bad feeling about this," Jack said with unease, standing and unsheathing a knife. I did the same- minus the knife.
One Skullkid stepped forward and held aloft a single, red headband. It fluttered gently, looking for all the world like a stream of blood.
"That's Talo's," I said quietly. Then, with an inhuman rage, I screamed, "THAT'S TALO'S!" My feet left the protective room.
"Colin, no!"
Too late. I lashed out at the Skullkids, reaching a few, gripping them by their spindly necks. Their cocky chattering melted into fearful shrieks. A few began to disappear, and somehow the ones I was holding slipped away like oil.
"You're not getting away from me," I murmured, "You can't escape!" The same feeling that had held me captive only hours ago came back, only I now knew exactly where it was coming from.
I summoned my weapon. It whisked through the air and landed at my feet.
I reached for the hilt, raised it, and brought it down mightily. A head rolled.
The next few moments blended into graceful arcs and powerful blows. My prey cleverly dodged around trees, but my aim was true, and every swing felled another demonic child.
They didn't stay down for long, though. I occasionally glanced back at the trail of carnage I'd left, but mounds of leaves had replaced the still bodies. Then I would see even more grinning at the head of the pack.
They fled swiftly. It became harder to slice as the spaces between the trees narrowed, and everywhere I looked I found fewer Skullkids. How quickly their siege had turned to retreat! I couldn't help but laugh at that.
"COME AND GET ME!" I shouted deliriously to the moon. "I'M RIGHT HERE! COME AND JUST TRY TO MAKE ME ONE OF YOU!"
"Colin!" Jack broke through the trees, trying to reach me. "We have to leave. While we still can."
I grinned. "Who will kill them if I leave?" I hefted my sword, but the thrill of battle whooshed out of me abruptly. I fell to my knees.
"What have I done?" I couldn't answer myself. The boy who'd entered this cursed forest, who'd hunted and murdered countless Skullkids wasn't me. It couldn't have been.
Jack gulped. "Where did you get that?"
I caught a fleeting look of my mysterious white sword gleaming, before I saw it for what it really was-
The Gale Boomerang.
I lifted it, curiosity filling my mind. "I have no idea."
"You must have transformed it, somehow. I mean, I've never seen it do that."
I inspected it in the moonlight, willing for a sign of what I was becoming.
"As I have said, I am the Fairy of Winds, King of the fairies, imbued upon this magical object."
"It talked!" Jack's eyes went wide. "Mr. Fairy King, how long have you been in there? Howcome you never popped up before?"
"I have resided within this boomerang for several thousand years. I have awaited one suitable for my task."
I remembered what Link told me- something about unlocking its true potential?
"What is it… this task?"
"You must journey to the desert. There dwells the Great Fairy, who I must meet."
"The desert." Everything seemed to have a tie to the desert. "Why should I do what you say?"
Jack grabbed my shoulder. "Shouldn't we look for Talo?"
Deep down, I already knew what had happened to him.
"He's gone, Jack. He's either a Skullkid, or worse-"
"The Great Fairy may be able to heal your friend."
Something dawned on my mind. "Of course! If we can get to her in time…"
I leaped to my feet. "I might even get to meet Link on the way. Let's go, Jack!"
Jack smirked. "You barely know me, but you ask me to go on a long and perilous quest with you, risking my life for two people I don't care about?"
I frowned. "Oh. That's right, I guess…"
He grinned again, and I saw that he had been joking. "You'll come?"
"Of course. Did you really think I would go back to stealing that old doctor's lunch after an adventure like this?"
"'I guess not." He led the way outside. Along the way, he picked up a sword lying beneath a bush. "So careless," he muttered. I didn't have the heart to tell him it belonged to Talo.
As we passed under the archway, I made a quiet promise.
"I'll find you again, Talo. And I'll find everyone else too." I turned to leave, but then another thought struck me. "And I'll also beat Andim, so no one else can mess up our town ever again-"
"You coming or what?" Jack asked, twirling Rusl's- no Link's- no Talo's-sword. "Gerudo desert take a while to get to. We can't waste time!"
