I kinda wished I didn't rush the last chapter now, reading over it, its kinda crap. I apologise. If anyone wants, I'll rewrite it. If not, then when I go over the whole fanfic I'll touch it up a bit. Also, a question: should Selene be more like Silver or do you want someone slightly more innocent and feral?

Also, I meant to upload this 2 days ago but fanfic wouldn't let me log in. Strange…

Chapter 36

A Dark History

The oni was dozing in Epona's room, waiting for Silver. It kept one eye trained on the magic seal on Epona's chest, watching for the warning flash of a cardiac event. Grudgingly it had allowed the clerics in to tend to her, though it had watched their every move like a wolf watches her prey.

While the oni was distracted by the clerics bustling around their patient, Midna pulled Zant aside in the corridor. Sparing a glance at the oni to make sure he wasn't listening, she spoke to him in hushed tones.

"Do you think you can locate the source of darkness in Link? Find out what's making him keep his oni form?"

Zant looked at her, confused.

"Why?"

Midna resisted the urge to shout at him in frustration.

"I want to change him back. But, when I tried to locate something was blocking me."

Zant tilted his head, thinking.

"He doesn't like me." Zant looked genuinely forlorn as he said this. "You said he try to eat me if I too noisy."

"You don't need to get close. The dark will recognise you as an ally. But I really need you to do this for me."

Zant's face split into a smile.

"Zant wants to help. I'll try!"

Midna smiled and patted his arm.

When they re-entered the room, the oni was eyeing them warily. Had it overheard them? Midna couldn't be sure.

Zant walked up to the oni. It began to growl as he came within a three metre radius. Zant stopped and smiled in what Midna assumed he thought was an innocent smile but looked more like a sardonic grin.

Zant closed his eyes and lifted his hands. A little ball of teal magic swirled into existence in his palm. The oni snarled threateningly, but the ball of light did nothing. It floated there calmly, bobbing up and down mesmerizingly.

But inside the oni, the darkness called out to the little ball of magic, it recognised Zant as a previous host and actively tried to connect to him. The little ball of light turned dark, as if poisoned from the inside. Shadows curled from Link's fur too, reacting to the connection.

The oni snarled louder, swatting at the shadows that eddied around him.

Then in the little ball of magic, an image formed.

It was dark as pitch, and in the centre of the darkness was a small boy curled up. Images floated around him, like pictures on a screen, of a forest fire raging in a crater and of shadows fighting greys. Midna peered closer at the area the boy was in. It looked like a burnt out pyre. The charred remains of trees lay broken around him, but Midna thought they looked like pines. On one tree Midna could make out a small sigil pulsating faint green light. A moon eclipsing the sun eclipsing the moon. The symbol of Farore. And it was in this sigil Midna saw the Dark remanant inside the oni. Like a serpent it was coiled around the sigil suppressing its power.

That was where Midna would find the source of Darkness. If they could destroy it, maybe Link would change back on his own.

The oni roared and slashed the ball of light with one huge paw, knocking Zant into the wall.

The message was clear in its eyes. Back off.

Zant cowered and crawled under a table with a whimper.

"Link." Midna said to him. "Stop that he's trying to help."

The oni snarled, and for a moment Midna thought it would attack her.

Then it froze, ears pricked.

"Eye spy with my little eye, something beginning with E."

Nubia's singsong voice floated in the air, echoing eerily through the castle.

"Can you guess what I spy little oni?"

It was a challenge.

"Link!"

The oni was out the door before Midna could even shouting his name.

Silver longed to be out. The Great Fairy was still asleep. She could actually walk around without falling over now and she longed to be gone. Who knew what had happened to Link in her absence.

Eventually, Silver couldn't take it any longer. Calling her mist, she changed into her wolfos form and padded out of the room. Link's mist took the shape of a wolf and followed her out. Did it know what she intended to do?

Outside the hotel, Silver saw Zelda in the spring talking to…was that the gold wolf?

She ran up to join them, Selene had said to ask the gold wolf if she needed help. Well, at this point in time she didn't even know where Link was.

"So, it's inevitable?" was Zelda crying?

"Some things are set in stone. Fate will always repeat itself."

"But it's not fair."

The wolf looked down, ears low and tail limp.

"You know I would tell you if there was another way. I hoped they would have a chance…to survive everything that happened."

The wolf looked up and noticed Silver.

"Eavesdropping isn't very ladylike little one." He said.

Zelda turned around.

"Silver, you're meant to be in bed."

"I got sick of listening to the Great Fairy snore. I'm fine, my wounds are healed. Who are you talking about?"

The gold wolf looked away, leaving it up to Zelda to answer.

"No-one." The princess told her, roughly wiping her face with her hands.

"It's not 'no-one' if he's here." She gestured to the gold wolf. "It's not 'no-one' if you're crying."

"Just drop it Silver."

But Silver wasn't going to let anyone keep any secrets from her anymore. No-one seemed to trust her. Maybe if Link had trusted her to help him fight Nubia, none of this would've happened. Well, Silver wasn't about to let Zelda do the same.

Selene's words echoed in her mind.

"It's Link isn't it?" It wasn't a question, "Selene said the way Link is going, he's going to be destroyed."

"Who?"

"The dead lion in my head." Zelda looked at her as if she were insane, then again in hindsight that probably did sound rather mad.

"How do you know the first's sister?" The gold wolf said.

Looking at the wolf, Silver thought she knew him. She recognised him from somewhere, aside from when he had been with Saria and when he had taught Link to fight. She knew his name.

"She said I was her incarnation. And do I know you?"

The wolf tilted his head.

It clicked.

"You're Pan? I mean your markings are different a bit, but you're him."

The wolf looked confused.

"The fifth hero."

The wolf smiled.

"Yes, I am."

Zelda looked at him strangely, but the wolf shook his head.

"You're dead, why are you here? Why were you teaching Link to fight? Why were you with Saria?" The barrage of questions fell from her mouth so easily, finally someone with some answers.

The wolf chuckled.

"I'm here because I'm still needed. I didn't get to live a normal life because I was the hero. I wanted to make sure your Link does. As to why I taught him to fight. When my time came, I was thrown into a war, I didn't know how to use a sword let alone fight. I had to learn as I went, and I suffered for my ignorance. I wanted to make sure Link didn't. And as to why I stayed with Saria, she was my best friend growing up. Cursed to be a sage, I kept her company because it was my fault she lost her chance to be a normal kokiri. Does that answer your questions?"

"Yeah, but why are you here now?"

"Because I don't want another Link to be lost to the hero's fate."

When Silver looked to Zelda for an explanation, she dipped her head.

"Since the first hero, it has been fated their lives would be short. Like a sword, they would be tempered and tested in battle before being broken over the enemy's neck. Heroes don't get happily ever afters."

"Not this time." Silver's eyes were blazing with a cold determined fire. "Selene said we could save him. He doesn't have to be a hero alone."

The gold wolf looked at Zelda, and something passed between them.

"Maybe…" he whispered.

"So can we please go and get him!" Silver said.

The oni ran out of the palace, following the sound of Nubia's voice.

"Give up? Then I spy with my little eye something beginning with C."

The oni snarled, leaping up to snap at the wisps of shadows that kept pace above him.

He ran until he came to an island, uninhabited by the twili. There he stopped and roared, challenging Nubia to come to him.

"No? My, my you aren't very good at this game."

The oni roared again, impatient for a fight.

"Shall I tell you the answer then?"

Shadows swirled around him, forming a ring like the one enclosing him when he had fought Ganon. Only this time the wall was black, and the oni didn't want to know what horror it would unleash if he touched it.

"I spy, with my little eye something beginning with E." Nubia repeated.

From the wall stepped Epona's shadow. The oni snarled, but there was a falter in its posture. It couldn't attack Epona.

The shadow shook its long face, its dark mane the colour of biting steel shimmering in the twilight. Its eyes glowed red as the hell's fire, the only colour in this nightmarish creature. It had grown like the real-Epona, no longer the leggy filly which had attacked them in the forest. Every time it stamped its hoof, shadows splashed upon the ground, dark and foreboding.

Then like a mirage, it shimmered and became a woman. Its hair was so curly and thick it was like a mane, reaching midway down its back. Its face was long and narrow, almost gerudo-like, but with round ears like Ilia's. It wore sheep-skins and leathers, looking much like the Ordon villagers, only with light leather armour. A dagger was strapped to its left leg, and on its right hip hung a whip.

Would Epona have looked like this if she hadn't been cursed?

It was all his fault, Link thought. Second by second, the change was becoming more and more permanent.

"Yes, if it weren't for you, Epona would be able to live a normal life. But you cursed her to a half-life."

The oni roared, attempting to attack the shadows around Dark-Epona.

A crack of the whip drew blood from the oni's shoulder and it turned to face Epona.

Destroy the Dark.

It attacked.

"I spy with my little eye something beginning with C."

Behind him came another shadow, this one an older version of Ciara. It was dressed in twili-style clothes, with long flowing robes and armour made of shining silver metal. In her hand was a katana, made of the dark metal as Zant's scimitars.

More and more shadows surrounded him. His mother and father were there, childhood friends and their parents. They were all here.

"Now you can pay for what you did!" Nubia screeched.

The shadows leapt as one. The oni didn't know what to do, for a moment Link's persona was in control begging it not to hurt his family, then the oni smothered him and it was back in control. Too late. In that second d of hesitation the shadows were on him.

The oni swiped at Dark-Ciara, but Dark-Epona attacked him her whip opening a gash in its face. Then Dark-Callum, Link's father, was on its back, clawing and tearing. They mobbed the oni like a pack of wolves on a crippled stag. The oni staggered as a shadow-mare reared and crashed down on his shoulder, the bones snapping like kindling.

As the bones knitted back together, a shadow-wolf went for his throat. The oni reared up and grabbing the shadow with its claws, tore it off and flung it away. Another attack came, knocking the oni off its feet. It tried to stand, but an eagle swooped down and knocked him back.

Now that he was on the ground, it was all over.

Attacks rained down from above. The oni was strong, but it was fighting an army of shapeshifters. It was designed to fight the Dark, a one-on-one duel of sorts, not this melee.

The oni couldn't be destroyed, but the Dark had found a way to immobilise it. It didn't need it to change back into that useless mongrel called a hero. As it was now, the Dark could do what it wanted and the goddesses' great champion couldn't lay a finger on it.

Why hadn't it thought of this earlier?

With a chuckle, the Dark-incarnate dissolved into shadows. Time to find the sages.

Farore burst into the golden throne room of the goddesses.

"Sisters! It's Link!"

"We know." Nayru said, not tearing her gaze from the chessboard in the centre of the hall.

This time, neither goddess was fiddling with small projects, their entire attention was on the chessboard. The oni lay in the Twilight Realm where it was surrounded by shadows. The piece was lying on its side, completely pinned down by the army.

"Please, we have to help him." Farore was in tears.

"I said no interference." Din's voice was hard and cold, like granite.

"Sister!" Even Nayru was taken aback by the goddess' verdict, and her blue eyes were wide as she looked at the elder deity.

"I forbade interference. Nayru, do not look at me like that you know the laws are cannot be bent for a single hero."

"This is about the hero anymore." Nayru said, daring to argue. "If the fierce deity is trapped, then the Dark can do what it likes when it likes. It'll destroy the sages then come straight for us. This isn't revenge anymore, its strategy."

"Please Din. You can't leave him like that. Please!"

"I said that we could not interfere. This is a matter for the greys to settle, and settle it they shall." Din watched the shadows convulsing around the oni on the chessboard. "It is time the seven generals returned to this war."

Despite her fear, Farore couldn't stop the smile spreading across her face.

"You'll resurrect the Fallen?" Farore could barely contain her excitement.

"Yes, but understand this. As soon as this war is over, they will return to their springs."

At this point in time, Farore would take any deal Din gave her.

Din stood, her long fiery robes swirling around her feet. Next to her, Nayru also stood, barely level with Din's shoulder.

"Then let us go."

Hehe, I could've gone on, but I figured here's a good place to stop. I should get the Legend up before I write the next chapter so you all know what I'm on about. Do review, I love them.