Yeah, I can tell this is gonna be a long story. :/

Hope you guys don't mind that too much. I mean I could cut down the number of chapters if I made each one longer, but I just don't like that idea. I like leaving a little space so it doesn't seem too rushed.

Anyway, 21 chaps, woo!

Link's POV

It didn't take long to trace Ilia's scent all the way to a bar. What she could possibly doing in a place like this, I did not know, but I would have to speak to her about it later.

I stood outside the door, hoping she was okay and wondering if she was scared, or under good hands.

"Hey, aren't you missing someone?"' Midna asked loudly, tugging on my ear.

I quickly looked around to find Eve was missing. Damn it!

"Evienne! Where did she run off to now?"

"Don't you think you should have kept a closer watch on her, I mean she is your girlfriend now," she said, humor in her voice.

"I know," I liked the sound of that.

"You know, that's like bestiality."

"I'm not naturally a wolf so it doesn't count," I growled.

She laughed and relaxed herself on my back. Did she ever walk?

Since I received no response to my loud howl, I ventured back around town in search of her, and luckily, found her floating still in front of the half opened gates.

She was silent and frozen, until I stood in front of her.

"Are you okay? Why are you just standing here, it's creepy," I howled.

She smiled slightly, "Ah, sorry. You know, I met an interesting character outside," she spoke quietly.

I instantly grew suspicious. Did this 'character' do something to her?

"Really? Who?" I asked.

"The golden wolf. He was sitting outside. I didn't get near him or anything, just looked at him, and he looked at me. Hm," she shrugged.

I growled under my breath. Was he trying to get into her head?

"That is interesting," I growled sarcastically.

"Eh, he was shiny is all," she said.

I was relieved.

"Link, do you love Ilia?" she suddenly asked, her small smile fading.

I scoffed, "Of course I do. She's like a sister to me, you know."

She smiled again, and she too, looked relieved.

"Okay.." she whispered.

I quickly lead Eve to the bar, she nearly hit me for taking her there, but calmed down after I explained Ilia was here.

"What the hell is she doing here?" she quietly asked, though of course, no one would hear her anyway.

"I don't know, she was probably taken in after the attack. We'll have to ask her later,"

Inside it was small and collected. The bar tender's table on the right, a small table far ahead, and several other tables all around.

There were a few spirits around the far away table, and three more near a group of crates. I quickly switched to my senses and looked around; The group of spirits around the farthest table appeared to be soldiers looking into a map. I turned towards the spirits around the crates and froze, the first was of a tall and heavily breasted woman with a long dark dress, the chest section bulging open, revealing her yellow undergarment. The second was of a small Zora boy laying down on huddled group of crates. He was breathing heavily and seemed to be sleeping. And the third, was of a small girl sitting on a crate next to the Zora boy, a worried look on her face as she watched over him. It was Ilia. And she was safe.

"Is this her?" Eve asked, circling Ilia's crate.

"You got it," I whispered.

I waited quietly, watching the three figures.

"This boy... Can you save him?" Ilia asked, her voice dripping worry all over the wooden flooring.

"All right, little lady, try to settle down, OK? I just now sent for the doctor!" explained the tall woman

"But this is strange... A child of the Zoras... I wonder if this is all related to the incident the soldiers were talking about in back..."

"Aw, what an emotional reunion! Yes, a girl and her wolf! Eee hee!"

Eve didn't seem to like the way Midna phrased that sentence.

"Sorry, but you know how it goes! These folks can't see you, either..."

"What happened?" whispered Eve, "I could only hear murmurs."

"There's a hurt Zora child here and the woman next to Ilia says it might be connected to something some soldiers were discussing."

She turned towards the table farthest away covered in spirits, "Why don't we see what they have to say?"

Sure enough as we got closer to them, a bit of their conversation became clear to me.

"I've received orders from above to investigate why we can't go to the spirit's spring in Lake Hylia! Got that!" instructed a soldier.

Meanwhile, Eve was busy snooping at the map.

"There's a mark here in the Lanayru province, on Lake Hylia!"

"Great, who cares what those soldiers are saying. Hurry up and head there!" smirked Midna.

Eve turned to me, "What did they say?"

I stayed silent and only shook my head, motioning for us to leave.

As we left the bar, and next town, I noticed the Golden Wolf's eyes on us as we stood in the middle of Hyrule Field. He seemed to be smirking at us. The nerve.

"Hey, Link, pay attention," Eve said, snapping her fingers in front of me.

I quickly turned towards her, "Oh, what is it?"

She sat in mid air in that girly one-leg-over-the-other kind of fashion, and pulled out our own map from her pocket.

"Right now we are in Castle town's area, around here," she said, leaning over and pointed to a path outside the marking of Castle Town, "If we head this way," she pointed to another path leading upwards and slid her finger over it, then stopped at a area over Castle Town on the map.

"I assume this is Lake Hylia," she said with a smile.

"Yeah, then I guess we're heading there anyway," I laughed nervously.

She folded the map back into her pocket and scratched behind my ear, "Don't worry about what the soldiers said, okay? That's the last place on the map we haven't checked and can reach."

"There are places we can't reach by foot?" I asked, poking at her pocket for the map.

She gently pushed my nose away and nodded, "Two actually, I don't know what they are though. the maps written in Hylian."

"So Lake Hylia's Location is just a blunt guess?" I asked, suddenly worried.

"Mmm, uh, yeah," she said with a shrug,"

I sighed, and decided to just let her lead the way, since she wouldn't give me the map.

Evienne seemed to be picking up the pace in the air, so I had quite a run. It was nice, actually. Running freely like this was somewhat relaxing.

The wind rushing past me and through my hair felt awesome. Who knew a chase would make me realize this.

Then, I crashed. Into Eve's back. I looked up at her and noticed she was walking slowly towards a bridge.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"I'm getting this weird smell from over there. From the bridge."

I slowly trotted over and took a look. The whole path of the bridge was covered in a dark fluid. I slowly walked along the bridge and sniffed as I walked, Evienne floating behind me. I stopped at the center as the fluid's scent became clear to me.

"Link, look!" called Eve.

I turned to where she pointed; on each exit of the bridge, there were twilit morphed Bulblin. Each one pulled out a flaming arrow, and shot it straight into the ground, creating a quick wall of flame that was slowly and steadily closing in on us.

"I knew it, it's lantern oil!" I growled as I searched for an alternative way out.

"Uh, uhm! That! That box!" Eve struggled, pointing to a small crate near the bridge's wall.

"Help me push it!" I called out as I ran to it and pressed my head against it, slipping on the oil below my paws.

Eve quickly got to her feet and pressed her hands on the box, helping move the crate a little faster. As soon as the crate was well backed against the wall, I hopped on and onto the edge of the bridge.

"Let's go, we have to jump!" I called to Evi who stood at the end of the box.

She turned towards the fire walls closing in on us and jumped onto the box.

"You better not kill us," she groaned as she jumped next to me, then off the bridge.

I quickly followed, catching up to her on the way down. It was increasingly dark along the way, but I could clearly make out her face. She had her eyes closed, and she was smiling. I followed her steps and closed my eyes as well, quickly feeling relaxed as the wind rushed past us. I wonder if this is what it felt like to fly.

It wasn't long before the darkness faded and a small puddle below us became visible. Neither of us had expected it, so of course we ended up falling in it.

I quickly surfaced, and Eve right after.

"That was a close one. Lucky there was a puddle down below, huh?" Midna spoke, "So this is Lake Hylia... But there's so little water... Anyway, let's take a look around, the spirit's spring should be somewhere around here."

"So Lake Hylia was drained again?" Eve muttered.

"Again?" I asked, paddling to land, Eve floating over me.

"Yes. The first time I came to Lake Hylia, it was drained, a bit like this, but all the water came back after the Water Temple was over with," she explained.

"Is that so," I wondered as I got onto land,

"Yeah, but the place was harder than a rubix cube," she sighed.

Okay, she lost me.

I sighed and turned away, in hopes of finding something more than rock and water. Luckily, there was a nice colorful building not far from us. This time, I led Eve around the puddle and to the building, where a single spirit stood.

"Go ahead, I'll wait here," she said, sitting on air.

I walked closer to the spirit and switched to my senses, uncovering the spirit to be that of a man with a strangely round gut and a light pink shirt hardly covering him. He also wore baggy blue shorts and a nice little end curved hat. He was an odd one all right. I have never seen anyone like him.

"I'm too old for this..." spoke the man, "Fyer and Falbi's Watertop Land of Fantastication... It's our grand reopening at our new lake-bottom location... Whee."

Poor old man seemed let down by the fact that the water was gone. Obviously his business isn't so well, but we can fix that.

"Yeah, nice lake," he said sarcastically, "Don't lakes have more...I don't know...water?" he looked up, past a waterless fall, "Did the Zoras who live upriver do something?" he then turned to a high up cave, "Or is it a curse from the spirit that floats around up there?" he mumbled.

"We have our location," Midna said, sitting up and patting me.

"Watever. It's not like I can go up there and complain anyway. Way too high..." muttered the odd man.

Then, he quickly turned to his right, looking at a moving figure in the distance, "Whuzzat, a customer?" he shouted in excitement.

I looked as well, but I saw nothing more than a morphed Bulblin.

"YIKES! IT'S A MONSTER!" he then suddenly called, ducking his head and shivering.

"Bulblin on the other side, let's go," I called to Eve, running ahead at the creature.

When we got to the Twilight Bulblin, however, it scrambled away from us, and cut a piece of hawk grass from the ground, then whistled the hawk's tune.

In response came a huge black bird with a concave head where only red markings were visible.

"How cheap," Eve hissed.

The Bulblin quickly ran to the bird and jumped on its back, then proceeded to shoot flaming arrows at us.

Since I didn't have a shield as I was, Eve was more than thankful to make a a shield out of her own shadow for me. When the large bird would swoop down, I would jump at it, and attack.

We kept this routine until, eventually, the Bulblin fell off the black bird.

Midna then stood on my back, and shouted, "Go!"

Eve then pulled out her sword and finished off the defenseless Bulblin, her once wooden sword covered in shadow and red markings.

"Whoa! Your sword!" I called out, running to her.

When she looked at her weapon, she jumped and let it drop to the floor. Once the sword met the ground, it returned to being just a regular wooden sword.

"What the hell was that?" she muttered, tapping the still weapon with her foot.

"A shadow cloak around your sword. It's the only thing really keeping it together," Midna explained, flopping back down.

"What are you talking about?" we both asked.

"The sword is broken. Like your arm, you were holding it together with that shadow."

Eve slowly leaned down and picked up her sword, and gently bent it in the center. Sure enough, it snapped easily.

"Oh," she said, slipping the broken object back into its sheath.

After defeating the Bulblin, Midna was more than happy to take over the huge bird, and have it take us to higher ground. I had to ride between its talons, unfortunately, and it wasn't the most comfortable place. I didn't complain on the way though, since Evienne was next to me, holding my paw the whole time.

"You know, you didn't have to be down here with me," I sighed.

She floated closer to me and rested her head against my back, "There's a difference between having to and wanting to," she muttered.

I mentally smiled and wondered if she could hear my heart beat.

After a long and dizzy ride on the huge bird, it finally dropped us off at the upper river. There was no water, of course, but there was another building with a single spirit sitting at its stairs.

"Look, the river's frozen!" Eve quickly called, making her way off the rocky path the huge bird had left us on, and towards the dried up river.

I followed her as she floated over a completely frozen stream. This must be why the water isn't flowing.

"It's cold," we all complained, missing a simultaneous moment by only seconds each.

We continued to go down until we ended up at a frozen over middle section of the lake, where it seemed like only a floor of ice, and no way around it.

"A dead end?" I asked, looking at Eve.

"It was worth a shot," she shrugged, "I didn't know we would end up here."

"Hey, you two, shut up," said Midna, "Look at that," she pointed to a bunch of icicle pillars seemingly going upwards one by one, "I think we can get up through there. Let's go."

Eve sighed and just floated her way up, while I jumped from icicle to icicle to reach the top.

This time, instead of running on the ice, we took another rout through a convenient path on either side of the frozen river. At the end of this path, there was a centered round section of thick ice with Shadow Beasts walking slowly over it.

"Them again?" whispered Eve.

"Stay here," I instructed, running into the Shadow Beasts range, causing the barrier's stakes to fall around me and hold up the barrier to prevent me from leaving.

A section of the barrier crossed between the battle field, slightly isolating one beast from two others. I quickly went for the one that was alone, jumping at it and sinking my teeth into its disgusting skin every chance I got until it finally gave in and fell to the floor.

"Okay. Get ready," Midna said as I returned to the other two beasts and caught their attention.

Midna's hair formed into a hand over me as a dark field slowly grew out from under me. When the beasts stepped into the field, I lunged at them, and in an instant, took them both out.

The three beasts then burst into particles and floated into the sky above us, forming a green marked portal over the round ice.

Eve slowly stepped towards me and padded my shoulder, instructing me to look down into the ice.

"There's so many in there, frozen.."

I switched to my senses and looked deeply into the ice. This was horrible. I couldn't help but gasp as I stared at the many still and possibly lifeless bodies within.

"All the Zora's, are frozen underneath us," I muttered.

"Oh my gosh," Eve whispered in shock.

Ugh, I tried to update once more on the same date, but I hadn't slept all night, and it was already 1 in the afternoon, I just crashed..

So sorry, xoxolovemehatemexoxo, but happy (late) birthday. :)

it's 8 in the morning and i didn't sleep last night either, ugh. I'll probably update again tomorrow or Tuesday.

And yay, no typos in past chaps.