The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

by Annie Felis

A game novelization. Link had finally found peace living in Ordon, when he was suddenly dragged into a magical field called the Twiight and transformed into a wolf. After meeting a strange creature named Midna, he discovers that he has been chosen by the gods to be the next Hero of Hyrule. Thrust into this unlikely role, he must save his home from an enemy he knows little about.

4. Chapter Four: The Forest

Chapter Four: The Forest

Coro had built a gate out of scraps of wood and cucco wire, and then chained it shut across the remnants of an archway that lead deeper into the Faron woods, attaching it to the ancient carved archway with chains and a fat iron lock. It wasn't exactly designed to keep things out of his depot and his supplies, but instead was to keep humans in and away from everything that was in the woods.

"I like you Ordonians, since most of you have common sense and don't try to head west into the woods." the short merchant said. Coro was brown-skinned with a wealth of bushy, curly hair on top of his head and large brown eyes. While Link wasn't a very tall man, the merchant was even shorter, with a pot belly and skinny limbs. Like most humans in the region, he was of the ordinary variety that did not have pointed ears or a lick of magic. He tended to wear mismatched clothes that didn't suit him, very much like the mismatched pieces of wood and metal that he had assembled himself to make the buildings that sat just to the east of the road through North Faron. He liked to smile frequently in a manner that had nothing to do with pleasing his customers, and liked to talk even more.

"I've had a bunch of problems keeping people out of those woods, dummies from Hyrule that have heard about ruins and treasure and suddenly dream of riches." Coro was saying, "If I had a rupee for every time some treasure hunter decided to go into what is supposed to be enchanted woods full of spirits, uh...I'd have a bunch of rupees, I guess."

Link turned to look at the heavy gate, which Coro had attached onto a thick wooden pylon with a number of old door hinges so it could swing open if necessary. The little man had actually done a good job at blocking off the entrance to the ancient stone road that went west. The edges of the wood were full of buckwheat and blackberries, making it a bit more difficult for any person to bypass the gate, not unless they were really determined. He turned back to Coro once the man started to speak again.

"I have to keep the kids and teenagers from your village out of there, too. Not that you weren't part of that group until recently, Book Guy." Coro seemed to have problems remembering names, but not faces. Because of this he gave his customers strange little nicknames that he actually could remember, based off how they looked or behaved. For some reason, Link was "Book Guy" despite being the only Hylian visiting him from the south, and the only Ordonian with his own personal horse other than Rusl. Then again he would probably have been called something like "Long Ears" or "Horse Guy", which was equally stupid. "Book Guy" had come about because in more recent years, Link had taken to spending his few rupees on the books that had wound up at Coro's store. Most of the people in Ordon could read, but not all, and many of them had no interest in reading for leisure.

"So what brings you dressed like you're heading off for a fight, huh?" Coro asked, sitting on a bench in his open yard and throwing stale crumbs at the bright blue songbirds that gathered. He often fed the animals.

"A bunch of people were taken from Ordon by riders on giant boars. I'm trying to track them down so I can figure out how to get them home." It was a partial truth, something that he had planned to do eventually. "But for right now, I'm after some of the kids that went into the woods to chase baboons. Your gate is good for adults, but you have to admit a kid can fit under it pretty easily." Link himself could fit underneath it easily, but then again he wasn't all that large of a person. At least he was larger than Coro.

The little man dusted his hands off, done throwing the remnants of a stale loaf of bread at the little birds. "Oh, those baboons? Yeah, they're just not acting right, not at all. Some of them would visit me to hang out, which was pretty nice, until they started coming to steal stuff from my shacks." The word was accurate, as he kept his extra supplies and the food he had planned to trade out to Hylians in buildings that were nothing more than three walls and a roof. "Something's wrong, if they're acting that way. And now you say that there's some kids who think they're going to take care of it?" He shook his head, his thick hair bobbing back and forth. "Foolishness."

"Would you be willing to open that gate for me, then? I'm not after treasure." A lie. The ancient relic that Midna needed, whatever it was, likely would be considered treasure. There were magical relics and items scattered all over Hyrule, lying in old ruins and hidden underground in the basements of old buildings or forgotten shrines. Many of them had been seized by the military in recent years, but that didn't stop people from looking for them.

"Yeah, sure….but it might get dark when you're in there. You got oil for that lantern?"

Link wasn't sure if it was a sales pitch, or a genuine concern. It was mid-afternoon and it wouldn't be too long until evening. He had no idea how far he had to walk, but it was entirely possible that he'd be going through the woods while it was dark. He doubted that he could explain to Midna that he'd rather wait until morning. "Actually I'm out. I need to buy some."

"Never let yourself run out of oil, guy." He stood up, pushing his hands off his knees as he did so like an older man might do. Coro's age could have been anywhere between twenty-five and forty-five, but some of his mannerisms were that of an older man. Maybe he had an older father like Ilia, somebody he picked up odd habits from. "Come into the shop." The man turned and walked back to his ugly-looking main building. If he hadn't been the only merchant in Faron that was willing to bridge trade between Ordon and Hyrule, people probably wouldn't bother stopping at such a poor-looking establishment.

Link followed him through the rusted door, the second time he had entered this building today, although this time he didn't have to bite down on a disgusting insect. The though of it made him want to gag. It didn't help that there was a dark stain on the floor where the big bug had died, either. At least Coro had taken care of the body.

Coro noticed him looking at the messy spot on the wooden plank floor. "Yeah, sorry about that mess there Book Guy. One of those parasite bugs found its way into my shop, the biggest darn bug I've ever seen. It was fixing to chomp on me and make me its slave, but it suddenly started running around all bonkers and died."

"Parasite bug?" He had never heard of anything like that before, and had assumed the big insects were some kind of giant tick. Then the Shadow Beasts had sealed the fragments of light into an actual native insect, and either from being in the Twilight or absorbing the light magic had made them grow in size. He hoped that if there were other Light Spirits that needed help, their light hadn't been sealed into spiders.

"Oh yeah, they're around these woods, and they give me the heebie-jeebies. They bite down on you and then it does something to your mind so you start acting all funny-like. You start doing what the bug wants you to do, and you go where it wants you to go." He shuddered and went behind his counter. "If you ever see one of them, kill it good and dead." The little merchant bent down to rummage through the shelves that were set into the back side of the counter. "Let's see here...I've got a pretty good supply right now. How many you want, Book Guy? Each vial fills a lantern of that size."

"Link." he corrected him.

"Huh?" Coro looked up, his brown eyes peeking over the counter at the Hylian. "A link to what?"

"No, that's my name: Link. I'm tired of being called Book Guy." He had been tired of being Book Guy for a while, but hadn't bothered to correct Coro up until now. It wasn't as if the man was going to remember any names, although Link was different enough that he might.

"Oh yeah, you're a Hylian, and that's a pretty common Hylian name for a guy, isn't it? I'll do my best to remember, but don't get mad at me if I don't the next time you come here." There was a gentle clinking of glass from behind the counter. "So how many you buying? Ten rupees each. No no...I'll give you them for five rupees each, since you're doing something important in those woods. Gotta get those kids back, right?"

"Four." That ought to get him through the dark woods and leave him with extras. He reached into the pouch where he had put his money, and pulled out some small gem-shaped glass coins. "And I'm the only Hylian in Ordon, and the only one who rides up on his own horse, so I would hope you could remember me." He counted out some money, trying to get rid of some of the lesser green coins that were only worth one rupee.

"You're not the only Hylian that visits here, you know." Coro stood and placed four small glass tubes full of yellow liquid on the counter, each of them stoppered with a cork and capped with black wax. He held out his hand and Link dropped the money into his open palm. "Thank you kindly. I want to tell you something, since you mentioned that those boar-riding monsters took a bunch of people. I saw them come in through here yesterday morning. When I heard people ride up I thought it might be some merchants, but when I had a lookie-loo out my window, I saw that they weren't people at all. I hid up in my loft, and heard them go through my shacks for a bit before they rode off. They stole a bunch of produce and cheese, but left me alone."

Coro would have seen the Bulbins ride through, since his depot was right next to the only road heading north out of Faron. "Did you see them ride back north?" Link asked him, scraping away some of the wax on a vial with his thumbnail before removing the cork.

"I didn't see, I heard. Every time I heard the sound of something riding up, I'd hide. Not very brave of me, I know, but Bokoblins give me enough trouble. I don't need any more from those green monsters." He took the rupees and put them in some container or tray underneath the counter. "I could hear the people, though. Crying, screaming, sounding scared. It was terrible. I wasn't sure what I could do other than tell the next people that came through here. And now, here you are, with a sword and everything." He watched Link refill the reservoir of his lantern, and then accepted the empty vial from him once he was done. "Sword or not, how is one guy going to take care of all of them? There had to be thirty, forty of those things that rode through here."

"If they're headed north, then there should be somebody willing to help up in Hyrule. If anything I can go to Castle Town and figure out a way to convince the king to help." Probably not, but he had no ideas right now. He hoped that something would come to him before he made any rescue attempts.

"Well good luck with that Book- uh, Link. Old King Bert doesn't have a lot of bats left in his belfry, if you get my meaning." The little man pulled out a keyring from somewhere beneath the counter. "In any case, let's see about opening that gate up for you."

---

Once he was some distance away from the main road, the North Faron woods were cooler with far more tree cover, and far more undergrowth. The trees seemed to be mostly ash and oak, and their wide mossy trunks were thickly packed together in some places. The gaps between trees were often filled with large bright green ferns, thriving in the dim light where other plants could not. There was not the usual chatter of birdsong, but in the far distance he could hear some crows croaking their rough cries at one another.

This forest was wild and untouched by human hands, but did not look as if that was always the case. As he walked he could see signs that this wasn't always forest: a bit of a stone wall, the stony remains of a foundation for a building, a rusted-out wood stove standing alone. At one point, somebody lived here. There were the occasional worn cobblestones still set into the dirt road he walked on, and if the road was paved, it meant that it was going through populated areas. Hyrule's forests and cities tended to move and relocate every few centuries due to the kingdom's inclination to fight wars, whether among itself or invading armies. It had its own share of civil wars that Link could remember from what he read of history, the latest one being about two hundred and fifty years ago. The only thing that stayed constant was the royal family: there was always a king, and every few generations there was a princess named Zelda.

The ruined settlements changed as he walked through the gloom of the quiet woods. There were no longer structures of stone made by Hylians, but instead there were half-rotted catwalks spanning between the massive oak trees. As he looked up at one of them, he noticed that some kind of ruined wooden structure was built out of the tree. Not constructed out of wood and nailed to the branches, but actually made from the tree itself, a bump in its trunk that had a doorway and a wall. It was odd. Who could make a tree form into homes like that? As he walked pass, he thought he saw something in the darkness of the doorway, a small green face with two beady eyes. He stopped suddenly, wondering if the inhabitants still lived here.

Midna appeared, sliding out of the shadows beneath his feet. "What's the matter? Do you see something?" She turned her shadowy body in the same direction as his, and her red-on-yellow eye flickered around as she tried to spot what he was seeing.

"Up there." Link pointed, but what he saw was gone. There was no face, nothing standing in the dark doorway of the strange house. He frowned. "I would have sworn I saw something in that little building up there."

The shadowy creature looked up to where he was pointing, and then shrugged, the curling thorns that jutted out of the base of her neck lifting slightly. "I don't see anything. It probably was a bird or something."

"It didn't have a bird face." He looked up at the structure one more time and then shook his head. "Never mind." They didn't have the time to stop to stare at things if they were going to use what daylight they had left, so he began to walk again.

Midna bobbed in the air next to him, following along as he moved. "People can see faces in all kinds of things if they look hard enough. I wouldn't worry about it." She glanced over at the ruined structures that clung to the tree. "Although I have to admit, there's some kind of magic here that I'm not familiar with. I've run into a few places like that since I came to the light world. Your world has a lot of old ruins, you know."

"I was thinking about that when we walked through the stone ruins a ways back." Link said. "Hyrule is very old, thousands of years old. There are many different races living here other than humans, and we've had our share of wars and invasions, so where people live has changed. For all we know, these ruins up in the trees are from some race or tribe that went extinct." Although that would mean that he saw a ghost, then. These didn't need to be haunted woods on top of what Faron said about them being enchanted.

There was a small amount of movement from near the base of a tree trunk, and he thought he saw something small and light brown dashing behind it to hide. He didn't mention it to Midna, though. She wouldn't believe him and dismiss it again. So far whatever he was seeing was small and seemed harmless, so he shouldn't worry about it.

The fork in the path wasn't too far ahead, and was just as Faron had described it: the sparsely-paved road he was on continued straight through the shell of a fallen tree, and then to his right the road became a barely-visible track that went between two tall and gnarled thornapple trees, their branches interwoven above to form a natural archway. The right path seemed to be shrouded in even more gloom, while the way that was supposed to be enchanted seemed brighter, although that could have been due to him walking towards the sinking sun. He wasn't keen on going through the woods in the dark, but he also wasn't keen on wandering lost for eternity, so he turned right and went through the two thorny trees.

The gloom was due to the area surrounding the northern path being mostly cleared of ancient trees, and more densely- packed younger ones crowding each other out to try to reach the light. He then saw the houses: more buildings formed entirely out of a tree, as if some magic had been used to shape them that way. Their doorways and windows stared emptily at him, making the distorted trees appear like staring skulls in the distance. It was the kind of place that he didn't want to find the children in; they would have been terrified here.

Link could still see little bits of movement in the darker woods: something rustling through the fronds of a fern, a little face in the leaves of a half-grown maple, faint glimpses of something moving at the edges of his peripheral vision. When he would turn his head to look directly, whatever it was that he saw would be gone. Something was still watching him and Midna, something that lived here, and the two of them were outsiders that did not belong.

"What the heck?" Midna exclaimed, and he tore his eyes from the woods that held things that he could not clearly see. Up ahead was a massive tree, far larger than any tree he had ever seen in his life. Its branches reached up through the canopy to the sky above, but they were withered and dead. Like the other trees, it looked as if this one had been shaped in some way to create dwellings, or perhaps to make the tree itself into one large building. It had windows and walkways between the dead branches, and strangely enough he thought the front of the dead tree looked like it could have a face, although that could be his imagination, just like Midna suggested.

What the little imp had commented on wasn't the strange giant tree, but what was sitting in the path in front of it. There was a white wolf there, calmly sitting and watching them with one glowing red eye. The wolf itself seemed to throw off a golden light, casting it on the young trees that had grown close to what was left of the old road that ran through this strange wooded settlement. When Link stopped next to where Midna was floating, the wolf stood up.

"What is that?" he had to ask. Obviously it was some kind of magic creature, but he was hoping the other magical creature that he was traveling with would have an idea. At the sound of his voice, the white wolf took off running, barreling at the two of them with incredible speed. Link barely managed to draw his sword in time, but he still wasn't fast enough to use it as the wolf leaped off the ground and tackled him squarely in the chest. He felt himself fall over, but his vision went dark, and then he could feel nothing at all.

The darkness turned into a world of white...white clouds floating above with glimpses of a starry sky, white roiling mist that churned on the ground where he was laying on his back, and a strange kind of generalized white light that was far too bright to be cast by the stars above. There was no moon in that sky. He slowly got to his feet, looking around in confusion. There was nothing else here other than the mist swirling around his legs.

Then there suddenly was: he turned one way to try to see anything, and when he turned his head back, the wolf was standing there, watching him with its one glowing eye. He quickly drew his sword again, which had somehow become sheathed, and the wolf wavered as if seen through rippling water. The animal shifted into a human form in golden partial plate armor, the outline of an athletic and strong form seen in a wraith-like shadow between the pieces of scarred and rusted armor. Beneath the shadows resembling a body was a skeleton, its bones dark and gray from the shadows, although its skull was not covered by them, and its left eye glowed with a pinpoint of red in the middle of its socket. Was this a Stalfos? Link had heard about them, wandering undead that were cursed due to ancient magic.

Whatever the armored skeleton was, it set the rounded shield covered in ivy onto its right arm and drew a worn sword with a golden hilt from over its shoulder with its left hand. Then it advanced on him, its aged plate armor clanking slightly as it walked. Link managed to get his own shield off his back and on his right arm just in time for the wraith to stop in front of him and raise its sword in a salute, holding the point high and the hilt in front of its bony face. This is meant to be some kind of duel between swordsmen, then. He raised the blade Rusl had made in a similar salute, and then decided that he would attack immediately. No sense in giving this Stalfos or whatever it was an advantage.

His attack wasn't that clumsy, at least he didn't think so. It was more that this skeletal shade was far faster than he was. When he jabbed at the unprotected shadowy abdomen, the skeleton quickly turned its body to the side to dodge his thrust, and then swung the round shield in a fast backhand, slamming into him and knocking him onto his back easily. Then it took one step forward to point the end of its blade at the center of his chest to indicate that it had won.

"Again!" it commanded in a stern male voice, the tones of it echoing and hollow. Then it stepped back to let him rise.

Fine, so that's how it was going to be. Link got to his feet, considering how fast the shade had dodged his attack. He could move that fast himself if he wanted to, after all he had dodged an arrow the day before without realizing that he could do so. He settled into a stance again, and this time swung low to go for the skeleton's legs. To his surprise, the armored wraith moved faster than him again, but instead of simply hopping out of the way it performed a backflip of all things. How agile was this thing that it could just pull of acrobatics in the middle of a fight? His surprise at what happened lead to him not responding in time to the blade coming in his direction, and the flat of it sent him sprawling on the strange white ground.

"Again!"

Something about the tone was infuriating. Link was already growing to hate this armored skeleton. He rose again, and started what became a trial in patience and endurance that he failed over and over. His opponent was simply too fast, too skilled for him to touch, and every time he was knocked on his back it would point its blade at him and demand "Again!". He soon was sweating and panting from exertion, the duel dragging on as the shade kept parrying his attacks, dodging them or even disarming him. After a while it would stop barking the command to fight him again, and it simply waited until he rose and made another attempt. Even the anger that would help push him forward in a fight wasn't helping him here, and he certainly was angry and frustrated at this thing that kept attacking yet not trying to kill him, in this place that likely did not exist. His body hurt enough to make it seem real. Was it testing him? Or perhaps this was some kind of training? He breathed heavily with fatigue, glaring at it angrily while holding his sword and shield at his sides.

The shade shook its helmeted head finally, and lowered its sword. "A sword wields no strength unless the hand that holds it has courage." What kind of nonsense was that? He thought he was pretty courageous, fighting this damn thing over and over for well over an hour only to get knocked on his rear end every time. "You may be the hero chosen by the gods, but your current skill is lacking in discipline, and thus you disgrace the green garb of the hero you now wear." Now it was insulting him verbally instead of just physically. Link grit his teeth together in frustration and scowled at the skeleton, and would have considered attacking again if he wasn't so tired.

"If you are truly of the hero's bloodline, then you should find courage and use that to help the world that so sorely needs you." the wraith continued, not sheathing its weapon but not attacking either.

"What does that even mean?" Link asked angrily. What bloodline was it talking about? Wasn't he chosen by the gods because of the strange glowing power he had on his hand? It had nothing to do with his family lineage, at least he didn't think so.

"The fact that you are willing to come to this ruined temple to help another despite your own personal concerns is an act of courage." It waved its right arm at him in a small gesture. "The fact that you transformed into the form of a noble wolf is also due to your powers, the ones related to courage. You may be young, but you have the potential to be the true hero that the gods desire and Hyrule needs."

Link continued to glare at it, taking in this information and trying to make sense of it. So his power that turned him into a wolf was courage? Did that mean that his willingness to face danger somehow manifested into a golden light on his hand to protect him? He wasn't sure he understood it. Magic tended to work in a fairly simple way: a magic user would use spells based off a specific school of magic, such as how Midna's was shadow. It wasn't based off emotions or concepts like courage.

"Do you know how I knocked you down, over and over?" the shade asked, pointing its sword at him. "Do you know how I was quick to put my blade to your chest every time?" Link was angry about his failures, but chose not to speak. Whatever he said would probably be the wrong answer. "It's because as soon as I disabled your attack, I immediately came in with a different attack. Your enemy won't wait for you. You must strike when given the opportunity. Do not hesitate, and you will succeed." It sheathed its sword and reached behind itself to put the round shield up on its back in a manner just how Link had done before. "Consider that your first lesson." The skeleton said, and then it pointed a bony finger at him. "And watch that anger of yours. It makes you reckless and clouds your judgment."

Telling him not to be angry made his anger flare, but he shut his eyes for a moment and took a few deep breaths to calm himself. Then he opened his blue eyes and put away his own sword and shield. "So this was training after all."

"Indeed." stated the bony wraith. "You are certainly as strong and as fast as I am, but do not yet know how to use that ability that sleeps within you. Although you do have admirable skill with the blade, you still must learn the skills of your ancestors."

"My ancestors?" Link asked. "Do you mean the knights?" He knew that his father came from a line of knights that had served the royal family, although he hadn't told anyone about it. This ghostly warrior seemed to know much more about him than anyone else.

It nodded at him, its one-eyed gaze unblinking, never-ending. "I will be watching your progress, and I will visit you again to continue with lessons from your ancestors." Did that mean this thing was one of them? One of the knights that had fought for the king in the past? "Until then, you should focus on your footwork and not so easily display what your next move will be. That will cause you problems if you run into a skilled swordsman." The wraith stepped backwards into the mist and vanished into it, although its echoing voice still reached Link's ears easily. "Practice when you have the opportunity. We will meet again soon."

The mist then churned violently and rose up to obscure his vision, turning everything a brilliant white. The brightness faded into darkness, and then he was aware of something hitting his face. He grunted, and it did it again, and he opened his eyes. Midna was directly above him as he lay on the ground, slapping at his cheeks with her shadowy little hands. From how they felt, she had been doing it for a while.

"What's gotten into you?" she demanded testily.

"I didn't plan on that happening." he said, irritated that she was acting as if he wanted to be attacked by the wolf. He pushed her to the side and sat up. The sword was to the left of his body, and his shield was still on his back.

"You were careless." Midna said. "That wolf entered your body, you know. It ran into your chest and you absorbed it somehow. You've been laying here for about fifteen minutes, which was certainly long enough for me to get tired of waiting for you to open your eyes. I went around the area to look for the wolf to see maybe if it had passed through you, but nothing. Then I came back and decided that I'd try to wake you up."

"Fifteen minutes?" It was over an hour, he was sure of it. Yet his body didn't have the fatigue it had when he was fighting in that strange white world with the shade of what was likely a knight. He picked up the sword and stood up to sheath it. "That wolf was a spirit that needed to talk to me, although it chose a really weird way to do it. Everything's fine now."

"Not really." Midna said. "Look around."

Link did as she commanded, and glanced around at the surrounding forest. The light from the sun was starting to turn a golden orange, casting the dim forest in a strange amber color that reminded him of the Twilight. The trees themselves were now occupied by dozens of gray baboons, the animals staring down at him with their round brown eyes. There were more perched on and around the large dead tree at the end of the path, watching him warily. Maybe what he saw in the woods was baboons? Although he would have swore that the one little face had looked like a leaf.

"They're just baboons." he told her. "If they wanted to come hurt us, they would have come down when I was knocked out."

"I don't have a lot of monkeys where I come from, so I don't know how they act. They look like weird little people so I thought they might act like people would." She raised her palms upwards in a shrug. "Anyway, that big tree seems to be the place Faron was talking about. We should get going before the sun goes down. I can see in the dark, but you certainly can't."

"I agree. Both about the tree, and about it getting dark." He started walking down the path to the big dead tree, and the animals in the trees started to hoot and call to one another. None of them climbed down, but they did start to scream and bare their sharp fangs at him once he got close to what was the temple Faron had mentioned. Was this place their home?

Not all of the baboons screamed at him, though. A group clinging to the side of the massive tree watched him carefully. A few from that group had babies clinging to their backs, so Link had to guess that they were a bunch of females banding together for some reason or another. Did that mean the screaming ones were male? He didn't know that much about baboons, other than they lived in big tribes and liked to steal food sometimes. The book that Midna had been reading before hadn't said too much on the subject.

Then most of the animals retreated a bit or hid higher up in the trees, both the screaming and the silent varieties of baboons. A much larger baboon with a silvery ruff of fur around his chest and neck started to climb out of one of the open windows of the massive tree, and it came to sit on a gnarled branch that would have been an eyebrow if the tree indeed did have a face. Link still wasn't sure about that. The larger baboon screamed and bared his fangs at Link, raising his long arms up threateningly. He could see that this one was indeed male now that he was closer.

Midna laughed in her mocking way, covering her mouth with a small hand. "Ooh, what a tough guy. What does a dumb monkey think he's going to do against a human with a sword?"

Link wasn't paying attention to Midna, however. He was focused on two things: some kind of lump on top of the baboon's hairy head, and then something he held in his paw. The thing that the animal held seemed more important, so he tried to figure out what it was. He was able to figure it out a few seconds later: the baboon hurled it at the two of them, and it proved to be a boomerang. He ducked under the flying weapon and watched as it sailed back to the baboon's waiting hand, wondering how an animal of all things could accurately throw and catch a complex weapon like a boomerang.

A sudden strong gust of air knocked him over and sent Midna flying back a ways. What was that? There was no wind in these woods, they had been still as soon as he had gone through Coro's gate. Link got to his feet and immediately had to jump back out of the way of the boomerang as it was thrown at him again, and he was hit by another blast of air. He leaned into it, trying not to get knocked over again, and felt Midna clinging to the right sleeve of his tunic, her smaller body pushed around by the wind.

"Don't just stand there like an idiot!" she shouted at him over the sound of the gale. "Do something!"

His hat flew off from his head, and he considered his options in the brief moment he had before the baboon could potentially throw the enchanted boomerang again. It was the source of the wind, that much he was certain. There was no way he could reach the animal with his sword, and he didn't really want to kill it anyway. What he did have was a long-ranged weapon, even though it was more of a toy than anything else. He took the slingshot out from where it was stuffed into his belt, and looked around for any kind of ammunition. There were no stones in this place, a place where there was nothing to be found but dirt and wood. There were oak trees, though.

Link pulled in his arms and ducked down into a crouch, weathering in the next blast from the boomerang, and then he ran over to the trunk of what looked to be an oak tree. He didn't know if it would be seeding in mid-summer, but he had to hope. Otherwise he'd have to use his own rupees as ammo, and he only had so many of those to go around. Midna still clung to his arm, pulled along by him as he ducked behind the tree to look for acorns. There were smaller ones scattered beneath the tree, but the size of them didn't matter so much. All that mattered is that they stung when one was shot by them.

He scooped up a handful, still out of the path of the boomerang's magic, and then he ran back to the dirt road in front of the massive tree. The baboon screamed at him again menacingly, raising the boomerang. Before it could throw the magical weapon again, Link quickly loaded the slingshot with an acorn and fired, hitting the monkey in the leg. The baboon howled in pain, and screamed at him angrily. He was trying to hit the arm that was holding the boomerang to make it drop it, but the shot was at least successful at making him stop throwing the damn thing. Link shot another round, hitting the baboon in the arm this time, but the animal didn't drop the boomerang. It instead howled loudly and retreated into the window from where it came, taking its magical weapon with it. After the big male had left, he could hear other baboons from the nearby trees answer with their own howls and retreat.

Link looked at the acorns in his hand, and wondered if he should keep them or not. The slingshot was effective, but it seemed kind of cruel to shoot the poor animal when it wasn't behaving right. He had seen what was on its head, and understood why it was suddenly so aggressive.

"Did you see that?" Midna said, floating up from where she had been holding onto him. "He had one of those parasite bugs on his head like the merchant mentioned."

"Yeah. I think I suddenly understand why these animals started behaving strangely, if that big one is in charge. What I don't understand is how he has a magic boomerang." He decided to drop the acorns and put the slingshot back into his belt.

"He probably found it here. Faron said it was some kind of temple, right? Temples have relics and the like in them. The people who used to live here probably left it behind when they left...or died off, whichever." She pointed then with her shadowy hand at the group of female monkeys that were carefully making their way down the tree and towards where they were standing, but didn't say anything.

A larger female baboon knuckled her way towards them, likely the leader of their smaller group. She stopped a few feet from Link and Midna, who were standing still and silent as to not alarm the monkey. She turned to her companions and waved them over in a very human motion. Weren't baboons just dumb monkeys? Maybe these were smarter because they lived in a magical forest.

The lead female approached Link, unafraid. She was large, about as large as a Bokoblin. Up close, he could see that her eyes were indeed intelligent, and she looked him up and down before tentatively reaching out to his waist and patting at the slingshot nestled there in his belt.

"What does this monkey want?" Midna muttered to him quietly. "Is there some kind of ridiculous monkey war, and we're being asked to take sides?"

"Monkeys don't do war, they're just animals." Normally that would be true, but something seemed different here. He watched as the female moved past him on all fours, the animal grabbing something from the forest floor before returning. It was his long green hat. She held it up to offer it to him, again doing something quite human and not much like an animal. He took the floppy hat and dusted a few fragments of dead leaves from it before putting it back on his head. As he did so, some of the other females approached, carefully reaching out to touch at his boots and legs, and even one sniffing at him. "I think something else is wrong." he said quietly, and the group of baboons quickly raised their eyes to his face at the sound of his voice, but they did not retreat.

Their leader moved past the group to the entryway of the large tree, and then stopped there, turning to beckon them over with one of her hands. The rest of the group went over to him, but Link and Midna did not follow.

"Do you think she understood what we were saying?" Midna asked.

"I doubt it." Link said, looking at the female baboon, who was watching him patiently. "What they understood is a show of strength against their leader. It's possible that they've seen me fighting in the woods before, since I've had to kill my share of Bokoblins here."

"Bokoblins?" Where was she from that didn't have Bokoblins? The things were everywhere.

"Human-sized goblin things with about as many brains as a rock. They know how to use weapons and will attack humans, so they're dangerous if they get too close to a settlement." He frowned at the baboon, who now turned to look at him straight on. What was she waiting for, him? "They likely think I'm strong enough to handle whatever problem they have."

The female baboon made a sound at him, and waved her hand again to indicate that yes, I want you to come over here, you dumb human. Whatever monkey logic there was didn't matter. They needed to go into the tree anyway to try to find this thing that Midna needed, although Link still had no idea what it was they were looking for. He started to walk towards the group, and they all turned en masse and went into the massive dead tree that also doubled as a building.

He followed them inside and looked around. It wasn't as dim in here as he had thought. There were old metal braziers set at regular intervals throughout the tree, and somebody or something had lit them. Was the problem hunters, then? If humans had come this way, Coro would have said so. The tree itself had a large spiraling ramp structure heading up along the outer wall of the tree, with large antechambers here and there on the bottom floor, doorways heading into rooms from the spiraling ramp, and large gaps in the wall where the dead tree had rotted out. There was vegetation growing in clumps near the walls, some plants that had managed to work their roots into the dead wood of the tree. The whole place smelled of rotting wood, the dampness of moss, monkey dung, and the faint scent of woodsmoke.

Link noticed that in the middle of the central chamber there was a large circular hole heading down to somewhere, but there was a massive chunk of rotten tree blocking entry, meaning he would be unable to go down unless he figured out a way to move it. "Your relic is probably down that hole." he told Midna, who looked at the giant chunk of wood that was wedged in place.

"I might be able to move this, but it looks like it's stuck good." she said. Link knew that she was strong after watching her wave around a Shadow Beast like a weapon, but how strong exactly? A hunk of wood this size would weight hundreds of pounds.

"We'll worry about it later. Our friends want us to go elsewhere." He followed the beckoning female as she waved him on towards one of the antechambers on the ground floor, the baboon doing this while standing up against a wall, likely to not let what was in the room see her. The rest of the baboons in her group hid behind her, watching him with intelligent eyes. When he got there she leaned around the corner of the doorway and pointed in. Link did the same, leaning his face around the corner enough to peer into the room.

In the large mossy room beyond was a small smoldering fire, and seated around it were six Bokoblins. Lighting a fire in a place entirely made of wood seemed foolish, but then again Bokos never were very bright. There was a simple wooden cage nearby, with a pair of baboons huddled together inside of it. The Bokos were cooking something over the fire on wooden skewers, something that was likely monkey meat. The "monkey war" that Midna mentioned seemed to be more complicated than he originally thought. Not only was their leader acting strange due to the parasite bug, but the chaos that caused had allowed Bokoblins to invade the baboons' home and slaughter them for food and hides.

Six. He could take on possibly two at a time, but six would be a problem. If he had the bow Rusl used to let him use when they'd actively go hunting for Bokoblins, it would have made things a lot easier, but as it was he only had a slingshot with no ammo. His eyes took in what else was around the room: a midden heap with some bloody bones laying on top of it, two drying racks with gray-furred hides on them, some hide bedrolls for the six Bokoblins, five spears next to or in the hands of the Bokoblins, a rusty sword next to one of the Bokoblins sitting near the back, four crude bows laying against the wooden wall with quivers that were little more than hide bags with arrows sticking out of them, and two Bokoblins that were actually holding bows. He absolutely could not let them use those bows. Fighting multiple melee opponents at once was difficult enough, but fighting multiple archers as a swordsman was near impossible.

"Midna." he said in a whisper to not alert the nearby monsters. She leaned in to hear him better. "I need you to distract them."

"Me?" she said, in an equally quiet whisper, her head close to his. The imp rolled her eyes. "Why do I have to do it? Can't you take care of them yourself? You fought off a group of Shadow Beasts before."

"Yes, but only because you were helping." he whispered. "I can't do six at once." Link put his head directly next to hers and pointed, and her eye followed the line of his arm. "See those bows? Go and grab them. It should cause some confusion." She turned to look at him doubtfully, her shadowy face so close, and yet transparent enough that he could see right through her. He smiled in response. "It's fine, I'll be right behind you."

At least he thought he looked confident. He had never fought six things at once before, and he hadn't actively used a sword against Bokos more than a handful of times. He wasn't about to tell Midna that, and hoped that she might step in to help him a little if he was in trouble. She did need him, after all...so maybe she wouldn't let him die. Hopefully.

He slowly drew his sword to do it quietly and then set the wooden shield on his right arm. It wasn't going to be the best shield to fight with, but it could at least stop arrows. He then nodded at Midna. "Go." he said, slightly above a whisper. The little shadowy creature blurred then, shooting towards the bows on the back wall as a streak of shadow. She scooped up the four bows with her little arms and moved up a bit higher in the room, closer to the ceiling.

The Bokoblins immediately screeched at her and reached for their spears in response. Link sprinted at the nearest one with a bow, and before it could even turn to look at him he had run it through and moved on. He deflected a clumsy stab with a crudely-made stone-tipped spear with his shield, and hacked partially through the neck of that particular Boko, blood pouring from its wound.

"Link!" Midna cried, the first time she had actually spoken his name. He turned his head to look and saw that she was dodging thrusts from a spear that was little more than a sharpened stick, not able to turn into orbs at the moment due to the bows she was holding, but still quite fast. "Hurry up!" The one attacking her overextended its thrust, and she grabbed it with her hair to slam it hard into the floor with a solid cracking sound. It did not move.

It was good that she could handle herself, because now the Bokoblin with the sword was advancing on him. He remembered what the knight's shade had told him, and he waited patiently until it held its sword ready, and then disarmed it with a quick horizontal slash. The Boko sucked on its fingers and gibbered at Link in its own language, and whatever curse it was saying in its own language became its last words; he ran it through.

Midna meanwhile had given up dodging and now was moving around the room with one spear-wielding Bokoblin chasing her, with another attempting to shoot her with its bow. She moved to the fire and dropped the bows in her arms into the flames, likely as another distraction. The other monster with the bow nearly hit her with an arrow, but it was the last arrow it ever fired. Link knocked it down with a backhanded swing of his shield, just as he remembered the spirit of the knight doing, and then stabbed it through the chest as it lay prone on the floor.

The remaining Bokoblin fearfully dropped its spear and fled, running out of the antechamber and into the central room. It didn't get far. There was shrieks as the baboons that were watching from the doorway rushed it. The doomed monster cried out as the monkeys beat it with their fists and whatever they could find nearby: sticks, chunks of wood that fell from the rotted walls, a tree branch.

Link watched calmly, letting the monkeys get their revenge on the monsters that had killed their brethren. After a few minutes they moved back, hopping up and down aggressively and hooting. He stepped up to the body of the Bokoblin, thinking that he would kill it quickly out of mercy, but it was no longer breathing.

The baboons surrounding him start to scream instead of just hoot, and then from somewhere within the giant tree sounded a Bokoblin war horn. Of course there would be more of them, but he knew the cowards wouldn't bother coming out of their holes unless they were there in numbers. If they were there in numbers, there would be more horns answering back. Link walked back to the camp and wiped his sword clean on one of the bedrolls there before sheathing it, and then looked at the bows that Midna had thrown into the fire with a disappointed expression. "It's a shame you had to chuck those in the fire. It would be useful for me to have a bow in this place."

"I had to do something to try to get them to stop chasing me." she said a bit defensively. It was interesting: now that he had come up with the plan for how they would go about fighting, she had taken a secondary role. She hadn't ordered him around other than to tell him to hurry, which was reasonable. She had called out his name at that point too, instead of calling him something crude or insulting.

"That's the first time you actually said my name." he said. She had heard Faron say it, so she knew what it was, but so far she hadn't referred to him as anything other than "you".

The little imp crossed her shadowy arms and fixed her red gaze on him. "I know your name is Link. That's much better than Alphonse, by the way." That got a small laugh out of him, and she smiled in response. "And that's the first time I've heard you laugh as a human, not to mention just before was the first time I saw you smile. I think we're actually getting along like Zelda wanted us to."

Link returned the smile. "It does seem that way, doesn't it?" He knelt down near the body of of one of the archers and picked up its bow, testing its string with his fingers. It was even more poorly-made than he thought it would be. "This thing is lucky it can shoot at all. Oh well." He rose and went to the cage that held the two frightened monkeys, and undid the simple latch to let them out. They scrambled out of the cage and ran back to the others, who patted them gently in a soothing manner. These two also seemed to be female. There probably was a lot more females than males, he thought.

"No wonder the monkeys hate these monsters." Midna said, glancing at the uncured hides drying on the racks. "They're eating them and using the skins of their friends."

"Bokoblins eat anything they can catch. They're not picky." He went around the room and gathered up the five crude spears, only two of them having actually been constructed with flaked stone tips, the rest being sharpened with some blade, likely the rusty sword. Then he went over to the baboons, who had calmed down now that two of their friends were rescued, and handed five of them spears.

"Is that a good idea?" the little shadow creature said, watching as the baboons held the spears in their hands as if they understood how the weapons worked.

Link shrugged. "I'd rather they use these instead of bludgeon anything else to death. Besides, these baboons seem to be a lot smarter than I thought. They seem to understand a lot more than a normal animal would."

"Too bad they don't understand Hylian or we could talk to them." Midna watched as the group of gray-furred animals started up the ramp, weapons in hand. "I guess we're moving on."

The two of them followed the lead of the head female baboon, who grasped the spear in one of her hands as she moved along on three limbs up the ramp, leading her troop of sister monkeys. Link decided that if the animals had their weapons ready, he should do the same, and drew his sword again. His shield had remained on his arm, as taking it on and off his back required him to twist in a bit of an awkward motion to reach up behind the small of his back to grab the bottom edge of it. Perhaps he was simply not used to moving that way, or perhaps it would be far better for him to reach over his right shoulder instead. Something to consider in the future, anyway.

His thoughts of how to better arm the shield were interrupted by the baboons up ahead, who were suddenly erupting into aggressive screams and rushing into a doorway. Link ran up the ramp and into the room to find that there were two more Bokoblins with shoddy spears in their hands, standing near a snare that had a monkey dangling from it. The expressions on the monster's piggish faces were that of total surprise and shock as five armed baboons bore down on them, jabbing with their spears and taking care of things before Link could even get there. There was a brief scream of pain from one of the Bokoblins, and then silence other than the sickening sound of the animals stabbing the now-still bodies.

He turned his head away from the gruesome scene and looked up at the snare. The room they were in was open to the sky, much of the outer wall and part of the ceiling had rotted away, making a fair place to put the snare. He wondered how it had gotten caught if these monkeys were smarter than the average animal, but then he saw a hacked-up bit of pumpkin laying beneath the snare. The Bokos weren't only taking advantage of the head baboon behaving irrationally, they were also taking advantage of the rest of the monkeys being hungry. Did that mean that the big male and his loyalists were hoarding food? The pumpkin itself looked like the variety that they grew in Ordon, so it was stolen either from the farms or from Coro's shacks. Bokoblins were at least bright enough to know how to hunt. They wouldn't survive if they couldn't.

The animal stuck in the snare whimpered pathetically, so he went over to where the bottom of the rope was attached to a gnarled branch sticking out from the outer wall of the enormous tree. It would be better to cut the line over here instead of trying to untie the slip knot of the snare with the animal's weight pulling on it. It was a young male and smaller than the females of the group, but it still probably weighed half his weight and he didn't want to try to grab the rope on his end. "Midna, can you catch this one so he won't fall?"

The little shadow being tore her eyes away from the bloodied corpses of the Bokoblins, which were no longer being mutilated by the armed monkeys. "Oh, sure. He's just a kid, isn't he? Poor guy."

Poor guy? Those were words of compassion, and not ones he expected to hear coming from her mouth. Before she had been insulting and rude, not to mention flippant when Zelda tried to suggest what she should do. Now that she was out of the Twilight, she seemed to be a completely different person...at least after the two of them had their ugly argument on the road. Perhaps that meant the mean girl act was put on to try to control a wolf, and not a human who could talk back and make his own decisions. Or perhaps she really did have an attitude, but at the same time wasn't completely heartless and selfish. The little imp seemed to be more complex than he initially thought.

She gently wrapped her hair around the frightened animal and held him so Link could cut the rope. The other baboons watched her, but did not interfere. Since she was with Link, they trusted her as well. Link was finding that he could trust her too, now that he was given the option. He cut the rope and Midna continued to hold the young monkey as Link put the sword and shield away, stepping over to untie the slip knot from around the poor animal's ankle. Once it was free, Midna set the young animal down and he scampered over to cling to one of the females, likely his mother. She patted him gently, as did the others in a repeat of the previous time some of their group had been freed.

Link stooped to pick up a piece of the pumpkin and walked over to the young male, holding it out to him. The baboon looked at him nervously with his round eyes, and then at the piece of food that had gotten him trapped in the first place. He suddenly grabbed at the pumpkin and crammed it into his fanged mouth despite it being too big for him to chew all at once. Link smiled at him, and then watched as a pair of the females came over to gently pat at his legs in gratitude. They understood compassion, something that animals didn't generally get. If anything most wild animals were selfish, driven by their own needs. What had the magic of these wooded ruins done to these baboons?

He was far more prepared the next time they came across a group of Bokoblins, moving alongside the head female with his sword and shield drawn. He did in fact find that reaching for his shield over his shoulder was a lot easier, not to mention faster. There was another large antechamber with a wide doorway about halfway up the long curved ramp, with another familiar scene of the red-skinned monsters standing around a fire with hides on drying racks nearby, and baboons in cages. This group of five was prepared, however; they already had their weapons drawn and were waiting, although like the previous two they seemed quite surprised that a group of armed baboons was rushing towards them. The number with spears had now increased to seven, two of the females going and picking up the weapons themselves without Link handing them over.

The baboon's rush was not without danger; one of the Bokoblins in the back fired its bow at the group, and hit one of the monkeys in the leg, just above its knee. The animal shrieked in pain, and the sound drove the head female into a rage. She quickly closed the space between herself and the Boko archer by launching herself in the air at it, thrusting her spear into the monster's skinny chest. A nearby Bokoblin with a sword turned and raised its blade to attack her, but Link moved nearly as fast as the baboon had, and he stuck his blade into the ribs of the Boko, dropping it. He caught movement to his left out of the corner of his eye, and hopped out of the way of a clumsy spear thrust. Again, he was much faster than he had realized he could be, able to move out of the way without too much difficulty despite having his opponent come at his side. Since it was coming from his left, it was nothing for him to extend his sword arm and run it through.

There was a loud thump that was punctuated by the cracking of bones, and he turned to see that Midna had once again picked up a Bokoblin and slammed it into the ground with incredible force. This time it struggled weakly, so she grabbed it with the strange hand at the end of her hair again and smashed it into the wooden floor two more times to ensure that it was dead. There was a scream as the final Bokoblin fell to the stabbing spears of the baboons, and then the fight was over in the matter of moments.

Link cleaned his blade and sheathed it, putting his shield up on his back again. There was a series of whimpers coming from the baboons, and he spun around to see what was wrong. One of the females sat on the ground with her long-fingered hands on her face, whimpering in pain at the crude arrow sticking out of her leg. Two more baboons gently touched at her to comfort her, and a third gingerly reached for the arrow before yanking its hand back, unsure what to do. He walked over and knelt down in front of the wounded animal, and looked at the arrow jutting from her leg. It had gone in at a bit of an angle, so it wasn't in too deep. Should he remove it? Wounded animals tended to lash out, and these animals surrounding him had weapons, and some were in the process of procuring more from the dead Bokoblins.

He couldn't leave it be, though. He put a hand on the side of the animal's leg to let her know what he planned to do, and she peered at him through her fingers, still making the sound. Was this the baboon version of crying? Link wrapped his hand around the arrow and pulled it out as gently as he could, and then tossed it aside with only a single glance at it: it was little more than a sharpened stick with very rudimentary fletching on the back end.

As they had done the last time he had shown kindness, a number of them reached out to gently pat at him, looking at him with their intelligent brown eyes. If he had told anybody about what had happened here in this giant tree, likely nobody would believe him. Midna had said these baboons had looked like little people, and he felt that she was right. They couldn't speak, but their other behaviors were quite human. He watched as one of the unarmed baboons helped the injured one up onto her back, and then heard a loud crack behind him. He stood and turned toward the sound.

Midna hadn't opened the latches of the cages, but instead had simply ripped off the stout wooden bars of one with her hair. The three monkeys inside climbed out of the hole, ambling towards the rest of the group, all three of them mothers holding their young. One in particular had a fairly tiny baby clinging to her chest, its wrinkled little face peeking out from between her arms as she walked. There was another crack of wood as the little imp removed the bars from another cage, letting out two more baboons, these being a young male and female. The freed monkeys reached the others and there was again the greeting ritual of gentle patting.

"I've noticed that so far, almost all of these monkeys are female. Is that normal for monkeys?" Midna was right in her observation, and Link had noticed it already.

"A lot of animals that live in groups will have one male in charge, and he keeps a large group of females around him." he told her. "That big male with the boomerang is probably the father of these babies."

She floated up to where he was standing and gave him a fang-toothed grin. "Ah, yes. It is a male fantasy to have his own personal harem, isn't it?"

"It isn't mine." And it wasn't. It sounded morally wrong to Link.

"Oh, why?" Midna said, pushing at his chest lightly with the index finger of the hand formed out of hair. "Are you too much of a good boy to have indecent thoughts like that?" Yes, she certainly did still have that attitude.

"No, it's because I'm not a creep." The idea of being surrounded by women who answered to his every whim had never appealed to him. Not that he hadn't heard other men talk about the idea, but it seemed to be a foolish fantasy. He didn't want a group of women, he wanted only one, and she was imprisoned somewhere by Bulbins at the moment. Was she in pain from being wounded? Worry gnawed at his stomach as he followed the pack of baboons out of the antechamber and up the ramp again.

As the group moved up the ramp and neared the top, it grew brighter and the light more orange. Link could see that the top dead branches were lit up a bright golden orange color from the setting sun, the crown of the ancient tree extending far above the forest canopy. He had no idea how high up they were, but he didn't look over the side of the ramp. Looking that far down probably would make him dizzy.

The ramp ended at a large room at the very top of the tree's trunk, the walls made of dead branches instead of a thick layer of magically-sculpted wood. His baboon entourage stopped just before the doorway and all turned to look at him expectantly. He didn't have to guess what was in the room, and stepping around the corner proved that this was indeed the lair of the large male. The light from the setting sun filtered through the twisted branches, lighting everything up orange and casting purple-tinged shadows.

The head baboon, or king of monkeys, or whatever he could be considered sat on a wooden altar in the middle of the room, the altar itself flanked by two carved wooden totems that indicated that this room likely had some kind of religious significance for the tree's previous inhabitants. Beneath the altar, scattered around haphazardly in a rough pile was a bunch of...stuff. That was how Link would have described the odds and end there: stuff. The loot that the monkey had acquired seemed to mostly be from Ordon village: stolen laundry, baskets, pots, silverware, even a pair of sandals and a woven straw hat. Intermixed with the hodgepodge of items were pumpkins and green melons, some of them half-eaten. The whole thing reminded him of a dragon's hoard, except considerably more pathetic.

Four dead Bokoblins were in the room, the corpses laying in mangled heaps. The necks and limbs of the bodies looked like they were snapped and bent at wrong angles, and two of them looked as if they had been pounded against the wall of woven branches repeatedly, if the bloody smears on the walls were any indication. It seemed like the head monkey had used his magical weapon to slam these Bokoblins into the walls and floor until they died. He had sat here on his throne of stolen loot, able to defend himself, while the rest of his tribe was being killed one by one by the Bokoblins. This was not how the lead male of an animal tribe would normally behave, especially one of this size. He was larger than Link.

The large gray baboon then saw Link and leaned forward on his perch to scream at him, and in the light of the setting sun the parasitic insect was easier to see. It was green and red, with the same fat abdomen as the dark insects that he had killed earlier in the day, its large mandibles stuck into the scalp of the baboon, just behind the ridges of his brow.

"I have to kill that bug without hurting this guy too badly." Link told Midna, who hovered beside him.

"Does it matter? He's caused trouble for the others." He noticed that she was on the shaded side of him, out of the reach of the orange rays coming from the sun. Even when the light was weaker, she avoided it. "If you kill him, it might make things easier."

"If I kill him, I might make things harder for us. Don't forget these animals have weapons and know how to use them. They might not be happy if I kill him, since I'm going to guess they understand why he isn't behaving right." Link watched the king of baboons as he pounded his chest and bared his long fangs in a display of aggression. "I don't want to cause any more trouble for the Ordonians, either."

At that point, the head female moved a bit forward of him and raised her spear in the air, screaming a challenge at the large male. She then scampered back to behind Link and pushed him forward. Ah, so that's how it was. He didn't really expect these baboons to fight their leader, anyway.

The lead baboon stood up on his back legs to his full height and hurled the boomerang at him, not giving the human standing in front of him an opportunity to do anything. Link ducked behind his shield and planted his feet to lean into the gust of wind, and he could hear the startled screams of the female baboons behind him as they were bowled over and pushed back. He could feel Midna cling to his back, sheltering behind him to stay out of the wind. Once the green and white boomerang was back in his long-fingered hand, the baboon king jumped onto one of the totems and hauled himself up to the top of it. It wobbled a bit as the animal climbed up, since it was merely set down on the floor instead of attached to it. Link used this chance to run at him, hoping to dodge enough to the side to avoid the wind, or at least hide behind his shield again.

It didn't go as he planned. Link was caught in mid-stride when the wind hit him, his right foot extended forward to land as he ran. He was sent flying, tumbling back over the wooden floor and dropping his shield in the process. Midna grunted behind him as she clung to his back, but it didn't feel as if he landed on top of her. The boomerang returned to the baboon, and he raised it up while baring his teeth before throwing it again. It didn't matter that Link had been blown back too far to actually be hit by the boomerang, since the wind was the thing that really did the damage. He managed to stand up again and lean forward into the wind, his squinted eyes watering from the force of it on his face, his brown cloak fluttering behind him. Midna held onto the scabbard on his back with a death grip, if the tugging of the leather strap on his chest was any indication, and he felt his hat blow off his head.

"You have any bright ideas?" he shouted over the wind at her. It seemed like the boomerang could send sustained blasts if its owner desired, and this one went on for quite a while. She was quiet as the gale continued to push at Link, who was doing his best to remain on his feet without dropping his sword.

Then the blast of air ended, and in the brief lull between that and the next throw the imp shot forward towards the totem the baboon was on, a mass of shadow that reformed quickly before she connected with it, extending her hair in front of her in the form of a fist. The totem toppled over from the force, and the large male baboon was knocked down to land on his back, the boomerang flying from his hand from the impact. Link did not hesitate and ran up to kick the boomerang away before quickly stabbing the parasite bug in its fat green abdomen with the tip of his sword. It shuddered and let go of the monkey's head, some kind of venom dripping from its mandibles as it fell to the floor. He stomped on it to make sure that it was dead, and then looked at the baboon.

He was laying there with his eyes closed, but it didn't appear as he had been injured. It was possible that removing the controlling insect did something to his mind, and it took the animal a bit to recover. Link sheathed his sword, now that the insect was dead. Midna wasn't anywhere in sight, having vanished into some nearby shadow as soon as she bowled over the totem in order to get out of the now-pink light of the sun. She had gone out into the light to help. He probably should say something.

"Midna?" Were the shadows nearby large enough for her to form, or was she completely hidden within them? He couldn't tell.

"Here." her voice said, coming from the shadow of the altar. "Can you come over, please?" Please? She can say please? Yet fifteen minutes ago she had jabbed him in the chest and called him a "good boy". To be fair, she did sound a little testy from where she was hidden.

Link moved until his own long shadow was touching the one for the altar, which now that he thought about it was likely the resting place of the boomerang before the baboon had picked it up. "I know you went out into the light to do that. I appreciate it."

"You just stood there like a dummy, so I had to take care of things." she said from about the same location, so he couldn't tell if she had moved or not. First a please, then an ungracious response. "I'm with you, now. You can move. Maybe you should go pick up that boomerang before some other animal decides to play with it?"

"Yeah, that thing's dangerous." He was going to let the "dummy" comment slide. It would be so easy to argue with her, especially since every little comment like that grated on his nerves, but they didn't need to have another shouting match. She probably didn't even realize that she was being abrasive. Link walked past the fallen baboon and over to where he had sent the boomerang skittering across the floor. After picking it up to examine it, he could see that it wasn't made of painted white wood like he expected, but seemed to actually be made of pure white feathers assembled in the shape of a wing on one end, with curved wood and green-stained leather connecting the two straight ends together. A rather large pale emerald was set into the wood. It never would have flown if it wasn't enchanted with some kind of magic, and the feathers probably wouldn't have remained attached either.

A voice spoke then, from the magical weapon in his hands. "I am finally free from being abused by that beast. Thank you." It startled him and he almost dropped it. "Do not be alarmed, hero. You wear the green garb; you are the hero, yes?"

"Uh." He felt a bit foolish talking to a boomerang. "Yes."

"I am the Fairy of Winds, and I reside within this boomerang." the talking boomerang said, or rather the spirit within it said. "I once protected the people of this tree, but then darkness came and I knew nothing. When I was aware again, the dark magic had seeped into the very trees themselves, and the forest folk were gone. Now that I am free, take me with you and use my power. Please do not leave me in this dark and dead place."

Link had never actually spoken to a fairy before. Occasionally he would spot one near Ordonia's spring, but when he got too close they would move away and vanish. Those were lesser fairies though, unlike the larger ones that were supposed to possess considerable magic. Was the one in this boomerang one of the larger variety? "Don't worry, I won't leave you here." He had planned on keeping the boomerang anyway.

"The darkness sealed in the shrine below the tree is influencing the animals here, and now has manifested into something horrible." the Fairy of Winds said. "Please, hero. I implore you: go below and dispel that darkness."

That did not sound like a good time. Still, he was here to get a magic relic for Midna, a relic of darkness. The "something horrible" most likely had that relic, so he was due to take care of it anyway. Link tucked the boomerang into his belt next to the slingshot, and returned to the baboon that was still laying on the ground. Was he supposed to leave him here?

"Hey." he said, nudging the large gray-furred animal with the toe of his boot. "Wake up. I can't leave you here, buddy."

The male baboon's eyes flew open at being touched, and he glanced around for a moment before settling his brown eyes on Link. Then they widened until he could see the whites all around them, and the large animal scrambled to his feet, backing away. The baboon made a small sound that almost sounded apologetic and then fled, climbing between the woven branches of the wall and disappearing out of sight. Did the lead monkey understand what he had done while under the control of the parasite? He likely wouldn't have run away like that if he didn't.

He picked up his shield on the way out, inspecting it before putting it back up on the hook on his baldric, and then found and put on his long green hat. The pack of mostly female baboons waited for him just outside of the room, on the ramp. They made soft little hooting sounds and patted him as he went by, thankful that he did exactly as they had hoped. The whole experience was extremely strange and unlikely, and yet it wasn't the strangest or most unlikely thing Link had done that day.

All that was left was to try to figure out a way into the hole at the bottom floor of the tree. Link carefully stood at the edge of the ramp and peered down below into the gloom. As he predicted, looking over the edge at that height made him a bit dizzy. The gigantic chunk of wood was illuminated by a few lit braziers nearby, the fires lit by the now-dead Bokoblins to provide themselves some light in the constant gloom of the tree. Even if he was here midday, it probably would have been dark inside. Dark or not, he could see that the hunk of wood was wedged in the hole tightly.

Midna materialized from his shadow and popped up next to him to look at the wooden barrier that prevented them from proceeding. "You know, if you jump on it from here, you might be able to pop it through like a cork." she said.

"Uh, no thank you." he said, gesturing to the blocked hole far below. "This has to be at least four stories up. I'm not breaking my legs." He did consider dropping something heavy on it from above to try to pop it through, but odds are it would get stuck worse.

His baboon friends went to the edge to stare down at the wood, a little less cautious than Link as they did so. When he waved his hand at the hole below while speaking to Midna, the lead female raised her face to look at him. He felt her gaze on him and turned to look at the monkey, and she made a small sound and hurried down the ramp on all fours, her spear abandoned. She took a shortcut as she descended, leaping from the ramp to the wall a bit below it, and then lowered herself to a group of shrubs rooted in the wood ramp about halfway down. The baboon picked something from the group of plants and then hurled it at the wood blockage below. It exploded on impact.

"What the heck was that?" Midna asked. "You have exploding bushes in the light world?"

Link realized what it was after he heard her say the word "exploding". "It's a bomb flower. They're fairly rare these days, but I guess they still grow in abandoned places like this. They're a plant that has a pod down near the roots that has some kind of reaction inside of it when it's hit hard enough, and it explodes."

"If it's a plant that blows itself up whenever anything touches it, no wonder it's rare." She watched with him as the lead female picked another bomb flower and threw it at the blockage again. Chunks of wood flew from the explosion. "Link, is it just me or is it really weird that these monkeys use spears and throw bombs?"

"No, it's really weird. Did you hear what the fairy in this boomerang told me?" Now another baboon was yanking up bomb flowers and throwing them.

"No, I wasn't paying attention."

"She told me that the dark magic sealed beneath this place has altered the animals in the area. What is this relic you're after? It's dangerous, isn't it?" He tore his eyes away from the strangely fascinating sight of baboons methodically destroying a giant chunk of wood with explosive plants and looked at her.

Midna glanced at him briefly, and then flickered her single visible eye back down to the work that the monkeys were doing for them. "It's not dangerous to me."

It was not a satisfying answer, just as he expected. He thought about asking for more information, but then below the two baboons were hooting and standing next to the hole that was not only cleared of the chunk of wood, but had grown in size due to the bomb flowers. The head female saw him looking at her and beckoned him down with her hand. He didn't say anything else to Midna about the relic, and started walking down the ramp to the bottom floor. There were jagged pieces of wood embedded in the walls closer to where the explosions were. How the two animals had managed to blow up the wood and not get hit was a mystery.

Link stood at the end of the now-jagged hole and could see that there was another spiral ramp heading down into complete darkness. It was good thing that he bought that oil from Coro, although he wasn't sure if he could fight whatever it was down there while holding his lantern. "Can you do me a favor?" he asked after he had gotten the lantern off his belt.

"Are you trying to make yourself owe me even more?" It was hard to tell if it was a joke, or a snide response.

He lit the lantern and closed the glass door. "Are you able to hold a lantern like this? It's a bunch of light." Once he lit the light, several of the baboons retreated for some reason. Did they not like fire?

Midna rolled her eyes dramatically, with a little sigh for emphasis. "It's just plain light, not sunlight. The two are completely different, you know. Sunlight has magic in it. Normal fire doesn't." She used the slow and almost singsong tone usually reserved for carefully explaining things to very small children. Ah, a snide response after all. He should have expected that.

"Here." Link shoved the lantern into her small shadowy hands. "Hold this so I can see. I'm going to need to use my sword." He didn't wait for her to argue and immediately started to climb down the jagged handholds left from the explosions until he reached the ramp.

The room below was rather large, but he couldn't exactly see how large it was from the light shed by the lone lantern that Midna held. Once he had gotten to the bottom of the ramp, he could see that while the walls were wooden, the floor was made of ancient stones. The floor appeared to slope down until it disappeared beneath dark water that extended to someplace beyond the light of the lantern. If only he could see that water better, but he didn't want to ask Midna to take the light away from him.

It was then the baboons descended into the room below, carrying lanterns and torches that were in the Bokoblin camps. So that's why they had left when he lit the lantern: they weren't afraid of it, they remembered seeing things like it and went to retrieve them. They climbed up the walls of the room, clinging to the thick vines that either grew down from above, or up from below. Soon the large room was illuminated fairly well, and a group of monkeys stood near him with their spears at the ready. The lead baboon now was holding one of the swords, and she patted at it and made a small sound at him. He blinked at her a bit stupidly before he got the idea, and drew his own sword. The female pulled back her lips from her pointed teeth in a grin.

"Beware, hero." the voice of the Fairy of Winds came from the boomerang on his belt, echoing in the chamber. "There is something dark and dangerous here. Be careful, and good luck."

The sound of the fairy's voice awoke whatever was in the water at the back end of the room. Dark, murky water began to churn as something moved beneath the surface, and then suddenly large vines shot out of the pool and wrapped themselves around some of the monkeys, who shrieked in terror as they were violently tugged back towards the water.

"No!" Link shouted in alarm. These animals shouldn't be here with him, they could get killed. They had weapons and were determined to fight with him, but fighting whatever was in the water was completely different than stabbing a few Bokoblins. What could he do? He very well couldn't tell them to get to safety.

He stopped looking at the shrieking baboons when a larger segmented vine lifted out of the water, drawing his attention. It had a large bud on the end of it that shed water as it slowly rose and pointed itself towards him, a bud that reminded him of the plants he had encountered on the road while still a wolf. It briefly pulled back like a snake about to strike, and then shot forward and grabbed him with a mouth full of jagged teeth.