Hi everyone! Welcome to the sneak peek of my next project! It's not going to be out for a LONG time, but I just want to show you all a snippet of what's to come. Ooh, this one's gonna be fun. You guys asked for it, and here it is! Also, I'm gonna try doing this in first person. See how it goes.

DISCLAIMERS: See any other modern fic I've done. It'll be there, I promise.

Prologue

I was nearing my wit's end.

Frankly, the small part of me that remained sane was surprised as to why it had taken so long.

By this time, I'd combed through seemingly every square inch of that accursed forest, but there wasn't a lick of anything close to familiar. I'd been on my own for a significant amount of time, searching everywhere for it. When the food grew scarce, I'd been forced to send Epona back to the Ranch. Whether it was Lon Lon or Romani Ranch, I didn't know. The rust-colored filly was intelligent enough to find her way back to either, whichever was closer. The sane part of me would have liked to go back with her. To give up. To eke out a life there, and live out my childhood like Zelda intended. But for some reason, I just couldn't. I'd lost too much when Navi left, seen too much in the future past, learned too much in Termina. I had to keep going.

I had to keep going before I could find a way back to Hyrule. Because I couldn't bear to abandon it- I had to stop that gnawing feeling at my very core. I was missing something- something too important to overlook, yet I could never quite place what it really was.

At first I'd been searching for Navi, my beloved fairy companion. Why had she abandoned me? Why had she gone without a word? That was the part that I truly couldn't wrap my head around; even now, I could come up with increasingly fantastical reasons for her to have left, each more improbable than the last, but none of them accounted for this singular wrinkle. I had loved her, and surely she had loved me as well, so why did she leave without a trace, without even trying to say goodbye? It was maddeningly vexing. I still hate it, but I could no longer find it within myself to continue the search. I've accepted that I'm not going to find Navi, so I made my peace with her, and moved on.

But there was still something… missing. She'd taken something from me when she left, and now that it was gone, I couldn't rest until I filled that hole again. I had had it before I'd met Tatl and fell into Termina, but after that, it had suddenly gotten so much worse. What was I missing? Try as I might to think of something, it was like grasping at the ocean. No matter what I tried, every explanation I could muster slipped between my fingers.

The forest around me was gnarled, and I had to watch my step lest I twist my ankle on an exposed root. There was a faint wind coming from directly ahead of me, and there was more light than usual. That meant beach, that meant ocean.

That meant the edge of the Lost Woods. But by an ocean? None of the Kokiri had ever mentioned seeing such a body of water. I must have been further east than I thought.

About an hour later, I exited the underbrush of the Lost Woods and was greeted by a beautiful view of dusk setting over the ocean. It must have been much more magnificent at sunrise, to be sure. I figured I might as well settle down for the night. I'd covered a lot of ground today. Plus, I had all the time in the world to find whatever it was that I had lost. It wasn't like I could bring myself to do anything else. Right?

Right?

A quick blast of Din's Fire ignited the loose sticks I'd spent time gathering together. My ears had been perked to find anything worth hunting, but the forest had been eerily silent. It was disconcerting, to say the least. The Lost Woods were always abuzz with the sounds of the wildlife. Maybe it was because I was by the ocean, whose waves drowned out the noises of the living things behind me. Maybe.

Having not found anything to cook, I opted to withdraw my most valuable treasure from my pack- a whole apple, or at least the remains of one. I'd had to nibble on it several times to keep my energy and sate my stomach, especially now that Epona couldn't help me. Today was a special occasion, though; he'd traveled through the entirety of the Lost Woods in a more or less straight line. Now I could just double back and eventually get to Hyrule. The Hylian wasn't too concerned with getting lost; I had the blessing of the Great Deku Tree, he'd be fine.

Well, I had had it before the Great Deku Tree died.

Nevertheless, I finished the apple in its entirety, and all I was left with was a handful of seeds. So I tossed them behind me, into the Lost Woods. Maybe they'd grow into a tree someday.

Probably not.

Already, the heavy force of sleep began to tug at my eyes. Delirious from hunger and tiredness, I doused the fire, crawled to a nearby tree trunk, and sat down against it. I closed one eye and partially shut the other, allowing it to go dun as I drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

!0*0!

There was the unmistakable sound of a leaf crinkling a few dozen meters away.

My ears twitched as I snapped awake, hastily scanning every square inch of visible space around me for the source of the noise. I saw nothing save the moon over the waves, gently lapping away at the shore. Was I mistaken? That couldn't be. It had never been wrong before, so remained perfectly still for a few moments, but I heard nothing. Hesitantly, I drew my blade, silently, every nerve afire with adrenaline. Still, there was silence. As wrong as it felt, I must have just imagined it. I forced myself to relax, letting the tip of my blade hit the rough grass below me. Then I shifted, assuming a slightly different position that was slightly more comfortable against the scratchy bark of the tree trunk I was using to support myself.

No sooner had I closed my eyes than a loud cracking noise became apparent.

I burst to my feet in an instant, sword hilt in hand. Tired as I was, I could stay up the rest of the night if I really wanted. It looked to be about three-quarters of the way through the night; sunup would occur in just a few hours. Never was the night darker than it was now.

The woods were alive with the chirping of crickets, the ominous cacophony of something alien, the whispering of the wind, the distant creaking of some kind of ship, the-

Wait.

Ominous cacophony of something alien?

I latched onto the source of the noise, eyes straining to pierce the thick shroud of the darkness. There was something there, something hungry.

Something intelligent.

Then I saw it. A massive grub thing, easily two-thirds my own size, dashed out of the gloom directly towards me. It was quite similar to the maggots that often appeared in rotting meat, even sharing the white coloring. The very sight of it was nauseating; this was a creature with a mind, a creature that was hunting me, and it looked like this?

Two more creatures crawled out of the darkness. One was white, like the first one, but the other was a mottled red and black. They made small squeaking noises as they approached me, cutting through the night like a blade through flesh. My blade did cut through their flesh, leaving bloody gashes in the maggots' skin. Interestingly, the red one seemed to bleed fire, leaving behind a surface of flames underneath it. The fire then promptly spread to the other maggots, igniting them. A quick slash ended their lives.

Unfortunately, there was no meat on the bones of the creatures, just raw and lumpy giblets that hardly looked appetizing. I was drawn from my reverie by the threatening skittering of something behind me. I whirled just in time to be greeted by a blue-shaded behemoth charging out of the dark straight towards me. It had the same sheen in its eyes as the maggots that betrayed its intellect, but it was much bigger. It was vaguely insectoid in shape, complete with six legs along a segmented body. Unlike an insect, its torso traveled upwards like a Lynel and ended in a massive many-eyed head, dominated by an enormous pair of mandibles jutting forth from its mouth. It snarled at me before rearing its face towards the sky and squawking. Was it calling reinforcements? Evidently not, as three heavy icicles fell out of the sky and made contact with my flesh, chilling me down to the bone. This thing was a cryomancer? Well, fire beat ice. I cast Din's Fire, creating a puddle of water under my boots as the frigid monster burst into flames. It didn't seem to like that very much, and it darted forwards to bite at me with its gargantuan, serrated teeth. I tried to dodge, but wasn't quite fast enough, and received a gash along my forearm. I retaliated with a heavy, over-handed strike that successfully knocked the oversized bug onto its side. Before it could right itself, I brought my blade down over the monster's head, piercing its skull and killing it instantly.

I looked every which way, scanning the darkness in front of me now that the current threat was dead. What were those things? I heard nothing for a long time, but my frayed nerves wouldn't let me relax until the toll of a bell permeated the space around me.

I whirled towards the ocean, where the ship was ringing. Oh right, the ship. I'd forgotten about it in the struggle. Maybe they could sail me back to Hyrule, or at least pity me enough to spare some food and clean water. The boat appeared to have just dropped its anchor- odd, considering this appeared to be the middle of nowhere. Whose ship was this, anyway? Hyrule was landlocked, and didn't possess much of a navy. Termina had the Great Bay and the Gerudo Pirates, but he'd been on those ships, and they didn't look like the large vessel currently present. They probably wouldn't cause me any threat, and if they did, I could just hold them off for long enough to get away.

I was awfully good at running away from things, after all.

!0*0!

A much smaller boat had hit the mainland, filled with a man and a woman dressed in red along with what looked to be a cross between a bloodhound and a terrier. They disembarked from their schooner and set foot on the mainland.

"Well then," one of the people said. She was clearly human, what with the rounded ears and all. "Voidwoken here too?"

"Damn," the other responded. "They're everywhere. It's everywhere. There were no signs of them when we approached. Did you see any, Vel?"

"Can I help you?" I interjected.

Both the people and the dog jumped, evidently having not noticed my presence beforehand. "A child?" the man inquired.

"Sandor, that means there's a settlement around here somewhere. We could ask them for any Voidwoken spottings," the one named Vel responded.

"There's no settlement for miles and miles," I informed. "And if you value your life, you won't search. These woods inexorably drain the life out of anyone who enters unwelcomed."

The dog slowly approached me, sniffing at my hand and side inquisitively. He was muttering 'Source' under its breath. I could understand him and other animals of his ilk, like with the frogs that had once lived in Zora's River, but I opted not to reveal that just yet.

"Well then, what are you doing here, if the trees kill people?"

"I'm welcome. You're not."

"Can we become welcome?" Vel asked tersely.

"No. You're best off just going around the woods towards the other side. If you're lucky, you'll hit the Great Bay soon enough. Now, what's your reason for coming here?"

They shared a glance. Their dog was incredibly close to me, practically licking my hand.

"I'm Sandor," the man introduced, "and this is Vel. We're Magisters of the Divine Order. Surely you've heard of it."

"The what?"

"Different continent, Sandor," Vel chastised. "We didn't know about them until just a while ago, why would they know about us?"

"Right," the male magister consented. "We're looking for someplace without Source- a type of magic that attracts Voidwoken, those dead beasts- for us to go to. This was one of our best chances, but… well… actually, who killed these Voidwoken? Your father?"

"I don't have parents," I stated. "And I killed them."

Vel blinked. "I… of course," she eventually settled on, clearly not believing Link. The dog that was currently sniffing me began to yip and whine, scratching at its nose. "Now that we're here, we would like to speak with the rest of the elven stead here-"

"Elves?" I stated quizzically. "What elves?"

"You… are an elf, right?"

"Er… no?"

"Our apologies," Vel said. "We just thought… since you had the pointed ears and… never mind. Anyways, we'd-"

The dog suddenly snarled and began to bark maniacally, screaming "Sourcerer! You nasty bad Sourcerer! Found Sourcerer! Sourcerer you!"

I merely raised an eyebrow. I understood that the dog was going crazy, but I sure as hell wasn't a 'sorcerer'. I'd never seen these things before. Sandor and Vel sighed. "No wonder there are Voidwoken here," the magister lamented. "Bruno's never reacted quite that bad to anyone… you've got to be one hell of a Sourcerer. You've got to come with us."

"What?" I demanded. "I'm no sorcerer! If I was a sorcerer, I'd know! And for that matter, what the hell is a sorcerer?"

"Sourcerers are people that can use Source," Sandor explained. "Their use of Source magic attracts the Voidwoken, which causes destruction and chaos. Bishop Alexander, our Godwoken and son of Lucian the Divine, has outlawed Source. All Sourcerers are to be brought to a place called Fort Joy, where they can be freed of Source. For the safety of the people. Vel, could you get a Source collar?"

"Sure," the woman assented, moving back towards the boat.

They were going to take me away, I realized with a start. Away from the forest. Away from Navi. I couldn't let them do that to me! "Never," I said.

Sandor's mouth tightened into a thin line. "Child, you must. Don't make me do this the hard way."

Hard way… that was a good idea.

I reached into my pouch and withdrew the Goron Mask. I wasted no time in slipping it onto my face, allowing its transformation magic to turn me into a Goron bearing Darmani's countenance. "Over my dead body."

Sandor quickly grew horrified before drawing a wand, crackling with electric energy, before firing a bolt of lightning directly at my Goron form. Unlike a physical attack, which would bounce off of a Goron's stony exterior, the bolt succeeded in electrocuting me. I immediately seized up, literally shocked, but I continued to charge forwards, hoping that I could knock him away so I could focus on Vel and the dog. Sandor then made a complicated motion with his hands, and it began to rain. The water conducted the electricity currently shocking me, succeeding in paralyzing my disguised form for a time. Something began to tug at my face; I assumed it was Vel. It was hard to concentrate on anything except the electricity holding me in place and the dog gnawing at my shin. The mask came off with a flash, leaving me alone in my vulnerable Hylian child form.

By the Three, I hated that body.

Vel clamped something around my neck. It didn't appear to do anything, but I could tell that some form of strange magic coursed through it. The magister woman then proceeded to pick me up like a burlap sack and haul me onto the boat, where I was promptly restrained with iron shackles. Sandor and Vel then clambered into the skipper and sailed off towards the larger vessel awaiting us.

"Siwan's not going to like this," Sandor muttered. "We barely have enough room on the boat as it is."

"We have enough," she countered. "Besides, we can always come back to this place later. Maybe the rest of it doesn't have as much Source."

And so we sailed, away from Termina. Away from the forest.

Away from what I'd lost.

I wanted to scream.

And the stage is set!

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