The inside of the stump was quite barren, yet, it felt full of life.

The stump was hollow, and while it look naturally formed, slash marks all about seemed to scream that it had been clawed empty. While it was generally open in feel, the dugout also felt labyrinthine, in a way. Every time either Link or Saria chose a direction to go in, it wasn't long before they hit a dead end or an impassible obstacle. Throughout their exploration, however, no one had run across a single living creature, let alone a beast strong enough to claw out the hollow. Everyone kept their voices to a whisper, in fear of waking a monster too fearsome to handle.

"This place is huge, the harp could be anywhere! Can you feel it anywhere around here, Saria?"

"What am I? A relic detector? No... it is obscured by all the life energy around us."

"What life energy? The stump? There's nothing here!"

"Oh, believe me, there's something here. Whatever it is, it's all around us... I don't like this place."

"Well, neither do I, but we owe it to Mandgrova, and Mayor Briggi, to find what we were sent for."

Link remained tense and battle ready every step of the way, but Saria had lowered her shield and sword to save her strength. The world around them echoed with every step. Surely if something was down there, it could hear their every move. Soon, they reached a wall of rotted wood blocking their way.

"Oh great now we have to turn around!"

"Wait, there are vines here, perhaps we can climb them?"

Link jumped up onto the overgrowth, but the vines he grabbed gave way quickly, and he landed back on the ground.

"Oh, they're nearly dead, poor things. If only we had brought some water or something. No, it would take more than that to bring the life back into these. Does some sort of a spell exist that can aid a plant's growth?"

"Well, I suppose we had better find a different way, this tree maze has plenty of those to offer. Come on."

"Yeah, I suppose..."

Saria and Mari walked off, but Link stood his ground. He stared down the wall for another few seconds. Some way to return the life to the vines... Link drew his ocarina and thought for a moment. How did that song go? After thinking carefully, he played the song Mandgrova had taught them, the melody of bounty. The woodwind's whistle had been enough for Saria and Mari to turn back around.

"Hey, wasn't that the song Mandgrova taught to us?"

In response to the song, the vines turned a brighter green color. They appeared to grow and edge along like a snake, slowly and in wiggling motions. Soon, the entire wall was covered in the weed. Link walked up and took a tug at it. It held firm to his grasp, and offered support when he started climbing.

"Way to go Link! We're definitely going to need to keep that song around!"

Saria followed Link up the vines, and Mari buzzed after them. Atop the wall, they were met with a large clearing filled with hundreds of strange looking plants. They looked rough and pointy, similar to a palm tree, but their trunks were short and bulb shaped.

"What are these? I'm not familiar with them."

"I don't know, it's too dark for me to properly identify any of them."

Saria walked up to one and touched it, probably not the smartest thing to do. As soon as she did, the plant started to wiggle. Were these really plants?

"What the... What is this thing?!"

Link recognized the danger and quickly dove to pull Saria out of the way. The bulb emerged from the ground, and attached to its lower half, a rotating fan of razor-sharp leaves that propelled it into the air. Link and Saria landed chest-to-chest, and they couldn't help but chuckle awkwardly and blush at their situation.

"Oh you have got to be kidding me... get up you two!"

Link rolled off of Saria and sprang to his feet in one quick motion. Saria pulled herself up a bit slower, still a bit of red on her face.

"It's not a plant, it's a peahat! It looks like there is a ton of them sleeping! We had better take care of it before it wakes any of the others... that would not be pretty."

Link reached behind himself to draw his bow, and realized it was no longer in his possession. He really hated having people rifle through his equipment. Instead of shooting it down, Link tried to strike it down manually. He awkwardly approached with his shield up to his face. If the scratches in the rotting wood all around them were any indication, those spinning limbs would leave a pretty ugly mark. He ran under the whirring creature and attempted to stab it from below. He landed the stab, but was greeted with another problem; the creature was now descending! He dropped to the floor, his face to the beast, and held his shield to brace for the inevitable gruesome outcome.

While Link had been dealing with the peahat on his own, however, Saria had been up to something. She had climbed up the side of the hollow, and braced herself to jump. She went flying down on top of the peahat, and managed to land on its body and not in its blades. The new passenger surprised the monster, and it flew back up into the air. Link jumped off the ground, glad he didn't have to taste the slashing of the beast, and regained a fighting stance. Saria hacked at the beast with her sword atop its own body until not much remained of it, and the peahat finally ceased its spinning. It crashed to the ground in a heap, and Saria hopped off and cheered.

"Yeah! That was fun!"

"Fun? Clearly, you and I have different definitions of fun... try to keep your voice down, remember?"

"Oh yeah... I hope we didn't wake any more up."

The girl's debacle had not gone unnoticed, however. After Link returned to the group, more stirring was heard. Several peahats had begun to leap to the air, and as each one woke up, another woke up. The entire army of peahats had soon awakened, and they were not happy. Mari's pinkish shade nearly faded from her completely.

"Oh no... quick! Find some cover!"

As soon as she shouted, the army of rampant buzz saws let loose. They flew all about the hollow haphazardly, striking into walls, but not each other. They whirred around violently, whittling deeper groves into the stump, slashing lose bits to shreds. Mari tucked herself under Saria's hair to try and avoid the painful blades that filled the air. Link grabbed Saria by the hand and lead her to what looked like the only safe spot in the entire tree, a very small pocket tucked into the wall, hardly big enough for the two to fit in if they lay. Link slid under, and Saria started to follow, before she realized something.

"Eek! There's a dead man in there!"

Link turned over, and sure enough, a skeleton lay next to him, wearing tattered and ripped clothes.

"Saria, if you don't get in there, there's going to be another dead person! Move!"

Saria turned and saw Mari's reason for urgency, a peahat was hurtling straight towards her!

"Lemme in! Lemme in!"

She scrambled in just before the beast completely shredded her. She cut it so close, however, that it scratched her shoulder when it ricocheted off the wall.

"Ow! That was close... what do we do now? There's no way we can take care of all those with just swords!"

"Well, now we know why the woods looked so beat up. There's no way we get through that in one piece."

Link's face remained determined. Despite being only ten years old*, he had been in worse situations. He rolled over and inspected the skeleton. Surely the pile of bones must have something useful.

"Ew, Link, what are you doing? Leave the dead guy alone!"

After inspecting the corpse vigorously, he was met with reward. A bow and a quiver full of arrows! This man must've been an archer of some sort. He shuffled through the tight space and climbed over Saria.

"Oof, what are you doing? Careful, you might squish Mari!"

"Hey!"

"Just a joke, my friend."

Having wiggled his way to the other side of her, Link readied and drew the bow. He aimed carefully and held his breath. He released his finger, and an arrow went sailing through the air. It met its stop when it lodged into the body of an unlucky peahat. Its flight pattern immediately staggered, and it crashed into another peahat. Soon, the tree hollow was filed with awful sounds, and in an instant, the beasts shredded each other to bits! Now, only two or three remained, and Link crawled out from under the hiding spot. He shot each of them with one arrow, and they spiraled out of their flight into the ground.

"Wow!"

Saria enthusiastically climbed out and joined Link. The dugout was now covered with the shredded carcasses of what was an army of peahats. The area stank now too.

"Eeegh... that is some stench. Brilliant shot though, Link! Where did you learn to shoot like that?"

Link, in his usual fashion, just shrugged.

"Well, either way, you saved us! You always were my hero!"

Saria jumped and gave Link a big hug around the neck. This took Link quite off guard, he could only smile and return the hug. When he did return the hug, however, Saria leapt back.

"Ow!"

She grasped her arm, there was an open wound on her right shoulder from when one of the peahats sliced her. She clutched it with her left hand and winced.

"Ooh, are you okay, Saria? It looks like that thing got you pretty good."

"No, I'm fine, just a scratch, it should heal up pretty quick."

Saria feigned a smile, but Mari and Link still eyed her with worry. The girl wasn't fond of the excess attention and spoke up again.

"I swear, I'm fine! Now, can we go find the harp? And see if the mayor's son is still intact after that?"

"Of course, lead the way, Link."

Mari passed one last glance at Saria's wound, and then put her gaze ahead of herself again.

*Yes, I know Link was nine in Ocarina of Time, but this occurs a fair amount of time after Majora's Mask