One of the interesting things this time around was that rather than everything fading to white then being placed simply at the front of the Clock Tower right at the start, I had a pause at the white stage. To one side, blurred and frozen in time, was that same location, Clock Town. On the other side of me was the Deku Palace, just inside the town itself. Perhaps by some agreement between the freed Guardian and the Goddess of Time, I'd been permitted to start at the dawn of the first day, at the Deku Palace instead.

This, especially if I added other locations with the other three Guardians, would come in very useful – but I wasn't a Deku Scrub right now, and I didn't think it'd be a good idea for a human to appear out of nowhere in the centre of the Deku town, so I headed to the familiar Clock Town.

"Another helping run?" Tael asked as time started around us, with the usual complete lack of attention regarding my appearance.

"Yeah," I agreed. "We'll find somewhere we can consult the notebook, probably the laundry pool again, then see how many people there are to help. I'm willing to bet we'll have to work a lot harder to figure out who's who an where to find them. And I think we'll let them see the real me, so you can see the kinda reaction we'll get."

"Really, you don't have to," Tael told me. "I got to see with your friend."

"I want to see it as well, so it's no problem. Laundry pool first though."

There were some very interesting looking people in the notebook this time. One, for a moment, I thought was still unclear until I looked closer. Whoever it was, they looked like some kind of deformed cross between a Skulltula and a distorted human face – perhaps a curse?

"I heard there was a place called the Fearful Skulltula House in the swamp," Tael remarked. "Supposedly there's some kind of treasure there, but they also say there's a curse on it. Maybe he fell foul of it?"

"Can't hurt to check it out," I replied, making a mental note of this then continuing down the list of faces. Quite a few were much clearer now, but very few were clear enough to signify I could help them right now. Perhaps I might be able to help some, but not finish the chain of events that would follow?

There was a tattooed Zora that looked very weak, by the looks of the surroundings he was in some water. Perhaps he was the one the Great Fairy had told me about? I'd have to go search the beach at the Great Bay and hope I could find him before time and whatever had weakened him carried him off.

Also among them were five Goron faces – one far older than the others, another belonging to what I assumed was a Goron child. A third was so large that it had to be some relative of Biggoron, if not the massive Goron himself on holiday, and the fourth was a pearly-grey that suggested he was already dead.

The fifth had a mask on his head – or hers for all I know, there was as far as I could tell no way to, well, tell the difference, which must make Goron relationships rather cautious affairs. It could be a bit embarrassing if you asked a Goron only to find she may well have been a he instead – or the reverse.

"Lot of Gorons," Tael remarked. "Practically confirms Snowhead to be the next location to visit. We'll want to go north for them, and any Gorons who are up there can help direct us to those who aren't."

"Right. I want to visit this Zora first, then we'll check up on the Skulltula house of yours before we visit them," I decided. "But first... anyone around?"

Tael flew a ways up the path back into the main part of town, but appeared to find nothing so I restored my own form. As comfortable as I was being Hylian, I wanted to at least try to spend some time as myself.

The beach and Great Bay were to the west, and despite the carnival crowds my very appearance meant people seemed to want to get out of my way. No one actually said anything as such, but I got the impression that people were trying to decide whether I was a monster, or had as my clothing suggested some semblance of civilization to me.

It was rather disappointing, to tell you the truth. I was almost hoping that someone would say something, but not even the guard did. Either he wanted me to leave, or he saw the sword more readily this time and just let me.

Once out on the field I dropped any pretence of being normal and took to the air instead, partly because I had no patience for the Leevers, and I didn't want to miss the Zora entirely. He hadn't looked like he was going to hold on for long as it was.

The Great Bay was Termina's opening on to the ocean, and but for a few landmarks and large rocks, there was very little there but beach. Two huts were nestled between some rocks, and further up I got the idea of monster life.

Fortunately it didn't take long to find the stricken Zora. I looked out toward a platform out at sea, and as I scanned the water I found what I was looking for – a tattooed Zora floating limply on the water's surface.

"Good Gods," Tael breathed. "It can't be, can it? Silver, is he still alive? You gotta be able to tell that, surely! Is he-"

"Give me a moment will you," I replied irritably, landing on the shore as I reached out to him. I got the sense of the Zora's presence, but very weakly. "Only just," I reported. "Give me a moment to concentrate."

Having found the Zora's mind already it was easy to take hold of him, carefully in case he was injured at all.

"Leevers, Silver," Tael warned. I just touched a hand to Din's Fire and sent it blasting behind me, keeping the most of my focus on getting the Zora to shore. "I suppose that's one way to do it," he sighed. "He looks bad."

"You know him, don't you?" I asked, setting him down on the sand. "Don't tell me you don't, you acted as if you did."

"Roll him over Silver, I have to see him from the front to be sure."

I did so, noting that the Zora was in even worse shape than before, battered and bruised and with a lot of injuries that looked as if he'd only just had enough strength for his wounds to close and get out to sea.

"Well?" I said impatiently.

"Oh hell. It is and all," Tael said. "That's Mikau. He's the lead guitarist of the Zora band the Indigo-gos."

I recognised the name. When I'd been defrosting Zora's Domain in Hyrule's future, the Zora shopkeeper had made a mention of him being Mikau's cousin.

"That's me," Mikau said in a weak voice, warbling slightly the same way other Zoras had when out of water. "Tell Lulu... I'm sorry. The pirates... they have the Zora eggs. I couldn't get them back."

"Take it easy there," I told him. "You're in a bad way. Tael, where do the Zora's live? We've got to take him there to see if they can do anything."

"No," Mikau protested. "Too late. But you..." he focused on me with some effort. "Green... and a fairy. Lulu mentioned... are you Silver?"

"Yeah. How did Lulu know? No, don't answer that, I'll ask her, you save your strength."

"Silver. Lulu said. If I saw you... the song that heals."

Sound familiar? I wasn't certain how Lulu had heard of me, or how she'd known about the Song of Healing, but even though I'd never met this Lulu I did exactly as she had told Mikau and played that song.

There was a bright flash, then I was in a blurry dream-scene, much like when I'd been turned into a Deku Scrub, only this time I wasn't a Deku, a Hylian or even myself. I had no control over my actions in this scene, but I was walking, and I occasionally caught sight of a Zora-blue arm with Mikau's tattoos on it.

Next to me walked a tall Zora woman who reminded me of Ruto a bit. Somehow I knew this was the Zora Lulu that Mikau had spoken of. We walked through the darkened scene for a time, then stopped as two spotlights illuminated us. Three more lit up, revealing three more Zoras each with an instrument. One sat behind what looked like a piano made from bone.

Beside him was a Zora with what appeared to be the Zora equivalent of long hair and a similarly made guitar, and the last Zora was a rather rotund one sat behind some drums that had been coloured to look like Zoras.

As Mikau, I turned in the spotlight and brought out another guitar. Lulu turned too, and as one Zora band, the Indigo-gos, I played their song – and knew the song, the Ballad of the Wind Fish. I knew how to play Mikau's guitar, remembered as he'd braved the Gerudo Fortress to rescue Lulu's Zora Eggs only to be attacked and thrown out, barely alive.

The song ended with another flash, leaving me stood along but for Tael on the Great Bay shore. Mikau was gone, but his guitar remained in the same hands that had been playing the Song of Healing. It was his hands holding the guitar.

"Silver?" Tael asked hesitantly. "Is that..."

"Yeah," I answered, my own voice Mikau's complete with the out-of-water warble. "I guess... the song did this. I don't seem to have his injuries so..."

"Maybe he wanted you to try to do what he couldn't?" Tael suggested. "Man... look at you! Everyone's gonna be mistaking you for him, even the rest of the band!"

"That's alright. I think I've got his memories too, and the skills with it. I wonder though..." I trailed off, then felt just behind the ears and tugged slightly. Mikau's face became a mask, the Zora mask, and I was returned to my own form. "That's a relief," I breathed. "I half expected to be stuck as him until I did what he'd tried to do. Not that I'm not going to, but..."

"Right. Gorons first, there's a lot of them that need helping," Tael agreed. "Then we'll come back here, you can become Mikau again and go help the Zoras."

"Wait, you actually became him?" Sonic asked, disbelievingly.

"Sure," Silver replied, still in his Hylian form as he'd talked. "Remember what I said the Mask man told me? It heals troubled spirits and turns them into masks – just with Mikau, it's as if the mask was applied while I was experiencing that flashback of his."

"And the skills?" Knuckles asked. "Were you right about that too?"

"Watch and see," he said with a smirk. He took off the Hylian mask and replaced it with the same Zora mask he'd just told them about, becoming the Zora guitarist once again. When he took out the Ocarina of Time it blurred into Mikau's guitar, which he then played a short tune on.

"Damn," Tails laughed. "Now I envy you. I reckon you got a way better transformation than mine with that."

"Alright Silver, lets hear you play a real song on that," Knuckles said. "You said Mikau was in a band, so you must know a few."

"Well sure, but they kinda need the rest of the band-" he broke off and looked thoughtful. "Actually, there is a way. I used it once while I was still in Termina, but if I do it now you'll only ask questions, because it uses a song I hadn't learned at this point in the story, not to mention the fourth transformation mask."

"Well get on and tell the story then will you?" Scourge told him. Silver waved one blue hand at him.

"Don't be so impatient. I've got more than a few abilities as a Zora that make me just as dangerous you know."

"Well then we'll just have to gang up against you, won't we?" a new voice came from the doorway.

A/N: So who's the newcomer? You probably have a few guesses, but I'm keeping quiet until the next chapter.

As you've noticed though, there's a couple of deviations I didn't want to spoil, hence this at the end instead of the start. Since he didn't take Epona to Termina, that lets him sequence-break just slightly, and then of course there's the differences to the mask. I figure since the Goron and Zora masks are the spirits of Darmani and Mikau, the masks actually lend their form to Silver instead of creating a form, like Goron and Zora Link. This, as you might imagine, has some interesting story implications later on.

Very interesting implications.