Disclaimer: I don't own Zelda, but my ideas are mine.

Triangle 10 - The Comforting Sound of Silence.

I'm falling?! No, don't fall!

Have to... get this guy off my shoulder, or at least get out from under him! Quickly! Quickly!

It's no good – there just isn't time. We hit the ground with a thump that does nothing but work against me. With the aid of momentum, jaws that encircle my entire upper arm sink their teeth in fully. Through the blistering pain, I write off the arm. There's no good way to get it out after they really sink in like that.

I try furiously to wrestle it off.

But it's the alpha.

Of one of the South Plains Wolfos clans.

The thing is like, twice times my height when on all fours? Eight times bigger on its hind legs? 30 times my weight?

I hate this trick. I'm getting repetitive with its use. And that I don't hear Navi screaming how stupid I'm being worries me. Where is she?

The bomb I jam at the wolfos's face ignites.

We both roll from the force of the explosion. I'm left clutching my shredded shoulder and the alpha looks mildly irritated.

So Alpha = 1 arm, Me = mild irritation.

I'm doing a fantastic job so far.

Because of the amount of Mana in me, I'm pretty resistant to damage. My blood clots extremely quickly, the muscles are tougher than they should be, ect.

But all Alphas – the Southern plane Wolfos Alphas in particular – had more mana than your average kokkiri.

So the bomb really didn't do much.

I unclasp my sword and hold it in my off-hand (my sword arm is truly dead weight now) as we stare and gauge each other.

It snarls.

With a swing the scabbard flies free of it's sword and nails the wolf in the forehead and I flash my pearly-whites to accentuate the mocking.

And as the world slows down I consider the opponent.

I understood how the army could use their lances and their teamwork like that. It's the same lunge as always. The exact same.

I was just never desperate enough to take the opening.

Well quick inventory: I've lost my sword arm, my fairy, have given away my magical gear, and have nothing to hold a shield with – so yeah, I'm desperate enough.

As the wolfos makes that characteristic lunge, I go low and forward as quickly as I can.

I'm going to need as much momentum as I can get to do any damage with this sword.

Well it's good that it is Goron-made. Anything less might have shattered – it feels like I'm stabbing into solid marble. The beast roars – he doesn't even gurgle or grunt or anything –as I ram the Goron-made blade into his chest. So the question now is did it work? Nope. It's not that I miss his heart – he's just so disgustingly big. Because of this, too, his superior weight means that he bowls me over anyways.

It flails and crashes into things – I'm clawed at awkwardly because I'm underneath it now – and objects shatter which I don't intend to pay for later.

It's a real struggle to get my feet under me because there is just no way I can abandon this sword. It's the only one handed tool I think can damage this guy. Because I was bowled over I'm almost on my back, except the wolfos is so big that I'm neither on my back, nor on my feet, but some awkward frustrating place in-between. My wounded arm flails around lifelessly behind me as a very large canine thrashes about in a very small space.

Somehow, the unthinkable happens. In the frantic struggle, I had ended up on my feet, yes, but on my feet in front of the wolfos.

Here I am, arm at full extension, grip on my sword weakening, and so close to a head three times mine in size that it even has to tilt its nose down because its snout just can't fit between us.

Ah – as the Alpha rams me into something wooden that, obviously, gives way – it suddenly comes to me through a daze. I knew I had been forgetting something. Knew there must have been a reason I never just charged in under the wolfos when it jumped at me.

It was a really, really stupid thing to do.

The thing it slammed me into must be the wall because I go tumbling through it when the wood and my stubbornly stuck sword both finally yeild.

Shake it off. Shake it off.

By Naryu it's not easy to shake this kind of damage off. My ripped arm keeps clotting blood, but that wolfos slamming me into things keeps the wound fresh. My ears are ringing and my vision still hasn't cleared up – if it hits me now I'm done. That's it.

I'm very cross at Navi. What was she doing, letting me do something that unbelievably stupid?

Where was she?

That wolfos is just crazy. What massive damage resistance. What ferocity. Even removing the sword was a pain but I got it, thank Nayru. I almost don't believe it, but did it tighten it's muscles around it – as if it didn't want to let me have my sword back?

First Volvagia and now this thing. When did monsters get so bloody smart?!

Still, this sword was worth every green rupee I shelled out for it – and it wasn't so cumbersome once you got used to it.

It's so light, too – like it has suddenly come alive on its own. I don't know if it's the adrenaline, or some latent magic coming from somewhere –

Or – I don't believe it.

Or my hilt could be without a blade.

Yeah. Staring at the distinctive lack of anything pointy and sharp attatched to the thing in my hand I come to the awesome realization: having no actual sword might do it.

The blacksmith. That, that, that utter total…

Oh, I need a swearword. My life for a swear-word. A real good swear word.

I was so sure it was a good sword. That goron was a masterful swindler – if I survived I was was going to take him to town.

Wait, focus.

Drown out the unnecessary. There are others here – soldiers, now that we're out of the wagon. There is a general panic as they see the biggest wolfos they've probably ever laid eyes on slink out of a ruined wagon wall.

Ignore them all – I don't have time for them.

Go to your unhappy place, Link.

Your bloody, lonely, empty, ass-kicking unhappy place.

I reach for it, and it pulls away.

Why can't I go to that place?! What's wrong with me?!

The wolfos hasn't pushed the fight. He seems to be reveling in his own victory. He imperiously stares down at me, quietly gloating about it. Because he's laden with Mana, his blood – like mine – clots like lightning and I don't think even a swordtip more than halfway to its heart is going to really slow it down much.

I can practically read its head. I took your fang, kid. Now what?

Why that cocky…

Now that it's sure that I know how much trouble I'm in, it's on me in an instant.

I reach for my shield and only with what literally amounts to years of practice do I bring it up in time.

I am still sent staggering backwards by the blow and there is a scraping sound that I don't really care for.

The Alpha bears down at me, snapping its jaws to devour.

I duck it and jump aside the next attempt – getting a good look at its pearly whites in the process.

My first thought after the narrow escape from being devoured is to use my new position to take make use of the bottom of my shield and jab out one of its eyes but no – I'd never get away with that. Not with this guy.

I leap back instead, so that I can re-think all this.

It leaps back, too, which means that it wants to charge me again.

I need a plan – no.

I need a proper weapon.

And I need a break. Without my Triforce active I'm getting so fatigued.

The soldiers around me finally enter the realm of things I actually pay attention to when they get off their buts and surround the wolfos.

I need to make the most of the distraction. Need a decent weapon but… no. The swords these people carry look too heavy for one-handed use. The grip would be all wrong too. The lances are right out.

And the metal wouldn't hold up against claws like that. Wouldn't Peirce either.

My vague suspicion is realized, when I return my attention to the wolfos and find it no worse for wear, but surrounded by a litter of blood and warped, shattered metal.

It wasn't even chasing down the fleeing armored troops.

It knows that they're not its concern. They can be cleaned up as he likes later.

When. Did. Wolfos. Get. So. SMART?!

So this is an Alpha!

Again I bring up my shield. Barely in time.

Kuh! This thing!

And I know as I lay here on the wooden wall of yet another wagon, debris digging into my back, bleeding from an arm that's been flung around too much to clot…

I can't do it…

Vainly, I reach for that place again – that lonely careless place in my mind where everything become so clear and all the pain feels so far away.

But I can't do it…

After everything, I don't meet my end in some ancient ruin or some desecrated castle. I die upon the wooden floor of a transportation vehicle.

I don't fall to an unstoppable evil but to a natural, meaningless squabble between two races.

And I know: this is right. This is how Heroes die – anywhere at all, except against the big bad guy. It is only the evil that we can never let kill us.

Sliced up and rammed through multiple walls by a creature just as alive as I am? That made sense. It was a creature just as angry as I would be if my water had been stolen and my people had been slaughtered that would kill me at last… this was right.

This was fair.

But what's this? A face? Don't tell me this blurred, blonde outline is something as cheesy as Nayru come to take me to heaven. Hah.

Wait.

That's all wrong. That face – what I can make out of it – it can't be her?

It - no.

Melly?

No. No, what are you doing out of the forest? Where's your sister? It isn't safe here.

Go back. Have Mido and Saria protect you.

Get out of here!

The floor is dipping - the wolfos? Move it!

Melly!

Melly: my friend. She and her sister had made my clothes, I was to understand, since I was a babe.

We ate cake together. We played tag. She had terrible nightmares about brustle sprouts and avocado. And when she laughed her right cheek had this really small dimple that she never stopped being embarrassed about.

But she had always laughed for me.

She screams and I'm there before I know it. I'm at that place in my mind where all I can hear is the wind and the thump, thump, thump of a heartbeat.

Mine or my enemy's, I never knew.

I was there too, before the wolfos – ramming it for a change. And it seems so ludicrous that I could push it around at all but I had to get it away.

Away from Melly.

The wolfos rolls with me as much for its own benefit as mine. The wagon is meaningless to it. It's fight lies with me.

I find at last, through my blurred vision, a weapon.

That it could be called a weapon bordered on ludicrous. Maybe it was due to the state I had reached, or maybe it really was the delirium...

But at that moment, picking up a knight's damaged and discarded helmet, everything becomes crystal clear.

I knew the wolfos's weaknesses. I knew my weapon.

I could see how this would end.

Thump, thump, thump.

I'm panting as hard as I've heard epona do, as I run pell-mell at the wolfos, giant yet usable helmet on my head.

Using the helmet, I hurl my own head at the beast like a bettering ram. The force should at least stun him.

But he's fast – unbelievably so. Instinct moves faster than thought. He proves that as his jaws clamp down on the helmet.

But that thing's too big for me.

I can slip out of it with ease.

It's confused. Its mouth is full, but I've disappeared. Its ears are ringing from the crunching sound it itself makes as it chews up the metal and finds no blood of victory.

I'm below it with my shield out and with all the desperation musterable I slam it repeatedly into the protruding back of my broken off blade – hammering it the rest of the way home.

It sounds like thunder.

The broken blade is swallowed completely by bloodied fur and more progress is impossible. The chest shuddered in time with my blows – the entire body jerking in pain and overwhelming shock.

There is a fresh out-pour of blood, but not more than an artery's worth.

Still not enough.

And although a human would not have known how to react in time, Wolfos run on instinct.

But it was that instinct that would destroy him, as it had destroyed his fellows.

It allows me to define his choices – it was his weakness.

When it pulls back and comes to bite my head off, and I instead roll my left shoulder and fling a meaningless bloody limb at his face, he is compelled to rip in.

But he knows that it the wrong target. There I am, arm in his mouth, pain feeling so far away now as I calmly use the small bit of extra time to angle the lip of my shield perfectly with the wound before its heart.

My dead arm is still being victimized by its massive jaws as it gives a sudden, single, violent full-body jolt.

One massive eye rolls to look at me in the face, and it might just be the blood loss talking but I see disbelief there.

I had started this fight by stabbing my sword into its chest – it was the same move that would end it. I had braced the bottom edge of the shield against the end of the dethatched swordblade and used a knee strike to hammer the blade that little extra half-foot to its heart.

Now, the blood river flowed.

Now, he had lost.

But we both knew it wasn't over. He could still make it a tie.

He growled. I sighed.

Reaching with my good hand, I stretched around and clung tightly to the fur behind his head. He would rage, now, to take me with him. I was too tired to put up more of a fight; my only hope was to stay too close for its claws and fangs to be effective.

I was in for a wild ride.

But Melly was safe.

--------

It lumbers groggily on all fours, a majestic giant even stained red.

I pant and even wheze – I've never actually done that before - and I struggle to stay standing.

It's over now. The once proud Souther Plains Wolfos clan laid a bloody mass upon Hyrule Feild.

Sadly the end of their legacy came with a whimper, not a roar. On the balance, the scores of wolfos had been mowed down by superior numbers and crude tactics.

But at least their Alpha had fought one-to-one. He died well.

And as I stare at its last expression I see bitterness and hatred. But underneath all the anger and hatred there is something common that is communicated to me. It doesn't translate well except:

Good fight

Yeah. I guess it was.

Thump, thump, thu–

Silence.

His, then.

A/N:

Wow. The action started out as like, a half page snip, but then looking at the events that would transpire afterward I deemed the length and form to be far too unimpressive for the event to be as significant as I need it to be. Also, Link deserves to have his awesome quota met properly. Though no one can possibly fill the bottomless potential of WIN he embodies, we must try.

So anyways, good triangle. I really like it. I don't know about you readers but I have, like, some serious authorly pride going on here. I've gotten way better at action scenes since I began my writing career (Hurricane Yoh was just sad). I don't really know about my ability with first-person writing but with more attention, maybe...

I contemplated just sort of leaving it there - abandon this stuff just as we were getting to the forest like 'Ascension' did, one of my favorite post MM fanfics (and it did actually inspire the general plot - I tread merrily down the path that author carved out into an exciting and woefully unexplored area of potential).

Then I thought: Nah. The second I get Link to hit Terminan soil again, I will have (even in only one respect) exeed one of the greatest Zelda fanfics of all time.

Then I'll discontinue (Joking. Seriously.)

I'll only discontinue if reviews stay this dry (Nah I'm just joking again. Really.)

Keep the triangles rolling, dammit.