I don't own the Zelda series or associated characters, Nintendo does.
"Midna, what did the spirit mean with 'that which you are looking for?' " Link asked his companion. "Well, my headpiece has three other parts, the pieces of the fused shadow, when they're combined, they'll form a weapon so powerful it could save your world…. Or destroy it." Midna explained. "So… If we find this, my land could disappear or worse?" Link summed up. "Yes, but it's very unlikely. Now, lets go to that temple." Midna said, as always in light, from Link's shadow. But Link didn't go in the temple's direction. "Hey! The temple's that way!" Midna almost screamed. "MY village is that way, and because I care for people, which, it seems, you don't, I'm going to check on them, and they're my friends mind you." Link yelled back. "But we nee-" Midna started, but was cut of by Link, now walking over the bridge over the gorge. "YOU need to find the fused shadow, but your 'puppet' as you think I am, has personal needs too, afterwards, we can go take a stroll in your temple." Link ranted. "Fine." Midna sighed. Link walked past the spring and past his home in silence, still a little mad.
"Link! You're alive! We thought you'd died!" Rusl came running to his friend who was entering the village. Links face cleared up. "Rusl! I'm glad to see you're fine!" He greeted back. "I'm glad you're alive, the mayor's losing it trying to plan a funeral." Rusl sighed. "Then I'll visit him, shall I?" Link suggested. "Good idea, he'll be happy." Rusl agreed to Links plan, so Link ran up to the mayor's house, and he knocked. "Not now Rusl, I'm thinking." Was the answer. Link knocked again. "Alright, alright, I'm coming." The mayor gave in, sighing loudly while walking to the door. "Link!?" The mayor's mouth fell to the floor. "How." He sighed. "I was merely knocked out, not killed, it's for Colin and ilia you should worry. Ilia was shot in the knee, making her unable to escape, and Colin was knocked out and kidnapped along with Ilia." Link explained. "Yes, yes, we know, Talo and Malo escaped on Epona, so all the kids are gone." The mayor sighed again while explaining this. "I'm sorry to hear Talo and Malo are gone too. But I have to leave now, I have things to attend to." Link said, waving goodbye to the mayor. "Yes, yes." Was mayor Bo's answer. He didn't even ask what Link needed to do, he just agreed with him. "Alright, can we go now?" Midna appeared, a black shadow leaning on his shoulder. "Yes, good. But how are you taking shape? Doesn't light hurt you?" Link asked, seeing her next to him. "I can stay out of shadow when close to the one that owns it, and no one else can see me." Midna explained, floating around Link to prove her point. "Now get a move on. We don't want to be too late for anything." Midna said, annoyance back in her voice.
Arriving in the forest, at the hut of the lantern salesman, Link wanted to go through the gate, and into the little cave-passageway, but remembered the gate was shut and locked, "And now?" He sighed to himself, walking to the lantern salesman, sitting on his tree stump chair again. "Hello there traveler! Oh! You're that Ordonian, how are you?" The man shouted at Link. "I'm good, thank you, but did you know who locked the gate towards the deep forest?" Link asked. "I did! It's dangerous there now, but if you want to go through," The man looked at Links sword and shield on his back. "You can get the key, here you go." The man took out an old key, and waved Link away. Link nodded thanks to the man and went to the gate again. While walking he thought about Epona and the kids, where were they, and how were they doing? "Hey there sleepyhead, get a move on." Midna pulled him out of his thoughts. "Yeah, yeah. Sorry." Link replied grumpily, Midna didn't allow him a moment's rest or thought, this was going to tire him out. He unlocked the gate and went trough the cave/passageway deeper into the forest. And again, even though he'd saved the forest of twilight, he saw a poisonous mist covering the forest, so he took out his lantern and waded through the mist, his lantern making the mist subside around him. When he arrived at the path before the temple, Midna suggested something that made him really happy. "Wouldn't you like to sleep? I need these fused shadows quickly, but I can't kill you due to exhaustion." And indeed, Link wasn't feeling well, he hadn't slept since the night before he left Ordon, about 3 days ago, and it was almost night, so he was naturally getting tired. So he went to bed, right before the clearing leading to the temple.
"Wake up! C'mon! adventure awaits!" Midna said, yelling while laughing. "Yes, yes." Link said, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He got up and continued to the temple, arriving there, he saw a golden wolf, it looked at him, and braced to attack him, it jumped forward and bit into Link's head. Everything went blank.
Link shot up, he was alive, although in a weird white landscape, behind him, a miniature forest, and in front of him, a volcano, and the Castle of Hyrule, and to his left, behind the castle, a frozen mountain. In front of him? A skeletal man, wielding an old sword, and he had old Hylian armor on, and was covered in moss, as were his shield and helmet, Link also saw he missed an eye, one eye was red, and the other was just gone. "Who are you?" Link inquired. "I am death, or your mentor, depending on your mastery of the sword." It answered, and charged forward, at Link. Link barely shook his shield before him, blocking the attack, he countered with a stab, but the creature jumped away. Then, it shot forward, and hit link in the chest, with the flat side of it's sword, so Link wouldn't die, and it jumped into the air and thrust it's sword downward, landing with a leg on either side of Link, and it's sword just missed Link's head. "The ending blow, let me teach you." It whispered into Links ear. "Alright." Link nodded. And the being stood, and pulled Link up."When your foe comes towards you, you will stab it." It said, taking position in front of Link. "And then, when it falls to the floor, not if, but when, you jump up and strike it in the chest, now try it, you will not hurt me." It continued. Link did as told, he stabbed the skeletal man and he staggered back and fell, and taking the opportunity, Link leapt in to the air and struck it's chest, where the heart would be in a live being. "Very well." It spoke, getting up, ignoring Link's sword as if it wasn't there. "The ending blow has been passed on." It said, as Link woke up on the forest floor, next to Midna.
"You're alive! Are you alright?" Midna asked, for the first time, Link noticed, with a worrying tone in her voice. "I… Yeah. I'm good." Link nodded, standing up. "But." Midna replied. "No but's. You wanna get to the temple, stop delaying yourself." Link retaliated. "Good point." Midna sighed. Link headed towards the temple entrance, walking into the old temple. Inside what must've been an entrance room. That entrance room looked as if the trees were forming walls, and the leaves a roof, a few torches burned for lighting, and a few pillars stood, as part of an ancient construction. All the way at the back of the room, there was a raised section, there was a vine wall to get up, and up on the raised platform was a door, carved from out of the walls. "This looks promising, won't fall on our heads at all, it's all tree." Link said. "Exactly, wouldn't you fight those?" Midna pointed towards the base of the raised platform, there stood two of those pig-men, again guarding a wooden cage, this time, only the monkey that had been trapped before was in it. "Good idea." Link said, taking his sword in his left and shaking his shield onto his right hand, he ran forward. He sliced at the first, almost making it lose it's arm. "Huh, this one's powerful." Link smiled at the blade. coming back to reality, he blocked an attack from the right while keeping a steady attacking rhythm on the left beast. After a few more strikes to the shoulder and chest it fell, letting out a yelp of pain as it's last words. So Link turned his attention to the beast on the right, it had been repeatedly hitting his shield in the exact same way, these things weren't smart. It sliced at Link again, but since he hadn't adjusted his shield yet, the wooden club hit him right in the shoulder. "Arghh, I'll get you for that." Link growled, pain in his shoulder. "Ohh, my beast is still in there." Midna giggled. "Midna! you're distracting me." Link sighed, going in for a counter, and it was a hit, the creature fell, sword sticking out on the other side of its chest. "Now to free the monkey." Link nodded towards the cage, he cut a few of the little support logs down, and he pulled the monkey out. "There you are, safe." Link said to it, putting it on the floor. It yelped sorrowfully, and jumped over to the door on the raised platform. "Wait one moment." Link yelled after the monkey, while trying to climb the vines. He finally got up, and saw the monkey standing at the door, with a hopeful shine in it's eyes. "Yes, yes." Link said. He opened the door, on the other side, was a completely flat room, in the middle stood two chests, and before them stood a sign. Walking over to read it, he looked around, nothing weird to this room at all. 'Hero chosen by the gods, take these items, one is for your future adventures, and one for this temple.' The sign read. Before Link could open the chests, a large wooden cage was dropped over the chests. "C'mon now." Link sighed, pulling his sword and shield from his back again as more pig-men waddled from out of the dark corners of the room. "Have fun!" Midna said, disappearing into Link's shadow. Doing a quick headcount, Link saw that there were 7 creatures coming at him, he slashed downward at the closest one, he felled it in one sweep. The next proved tougher, it had a purple skin, not blue like the others, what that meant was clear though, it was most likely stronger and harder too kill. When Link slashed at it, it fell to the floor, but was still breathing, so Link decided to use the skill taught by the skeletal warrior on the being in front of him. He gave himself some space and took a run-up, jumping into the air, he aimed himself just so that he'd strike the being in the hart, and like Link had thought, the strike was true, the beast died right there, with Link on top of it. The others were dispatched by a few spin attacks, not enough to cut them in half, just enough to fell them too. "Well done, my little wolf." Midna giggled, lifting the cage around the chests with her magic. "You could've took them down with one blast of magic." Link said, with a grumpy tone. "But I didn't, remember you serve me now, I don't need to help you." Midna said, feeling annoyed. "With that attitude? Don't make me laugh, I could've let myself die." Link said, heading towards the chests. "No, your gods would've stopped that, your their "chosen hero" after all." Midna said, disappearing into Link's shadow again. When Link opened the chests at the same time, one contained a gigantic key, which seemed a perfect fit for the door at the other end of the room, and the other contained a boomerang, it was made from feathers joined together in the middle, where the curve was, by a green wood, the feathers didn't flop around, they felt hard, like they were carved from wood. "Huh, a boomerang." Link said, throwing the thing away, and instead of just coming back, it spawned a little tornado under itself, and came back to Link, dragging everything in it's path towards the hero. "Cool." Link said. "Enough time wasted, move!" Midna commanded, from his shadow. "You really don't care for me, do you?" Link asked, moving towards the gigantic door and pushing the key in. "No, but I'll help you with that key, even I see that a human can't push that." Midna magicked the key around clockwise, and the lock fell from the door, landing right before Link's feet. "You could've killed me!" Link yelled at his companion. "Like I care, goddesses won't allow it." Midna said, sounding bored. "Alright then." Link sighed, moving through the door, with Midna again disappearing into his shadows. Behind Link, the door shut itself and bars dropped from the roof, blocking the door. And in front of him, a small lake came into view. "Now this is perfect." Link said. "Let's have a picnic." He joked further. Right when he said that, a big plant popped up from the lake, with the end, where a normal plant would have it's flowers, a mouth was, and in it, an eye in it, it screeched at Link and spewed the same purple gas from the forest. Link managed to jump out of the way. "How am I supposed to fight this?" Link sighed. "With your sword, did you really think that it would die on it's own?" Midna laughed from his shadow. "You know what, let's just not talk." Link said. A few moments later, a monkey appeared in an opening at the top of the room, holding a fuming creature, it threw the creature at the plant, and the little round creature exploded, dropping the plant monster to the floor, with its huge eye sticking out of its mouth. "Guess I'll attack the eye." Link said, running up to the eye, Link slashed, stabbed and cut it, And he almost fainted when the creature regained consciousness and raised it's top again, screeching at the hero again. "Could another monkey pop up?" Link questioned to the roof of the chamber. While he was saying that, the plant snapped at him, almost taking a piece off of him. "Apparently I have to wait." He sighed. Another monkey appeared, but it didn't throw the bomb creature. He got the hint and took out the boomerang, careful so that the plant monster didn't bite the boomerang out of the air, he threw it at the bomb creature, and in the arch it followed back to link, it hit the plant in the side, right around its mouth area, and again, it fell down, almost on top of Link. "Watch out, idiot." Midna scolded at his near-death experience. "It's not like you are helping." Link muttered, slashing at the eye, now aiming for the stem that attached it to the creature's mouth, after a few moments of repeated cutting, he separated the creature from the eye, and it screeched, getting itself off of the ground, it stretched upward, freezing abruptly, like an ugly tree, then exploded into the black particles of twilight, and formed something in front of Link. "Well done, this isn't over, two more to go." Midna said, popping out of Links shadow and floating over to the object, which Link now saw formed an identical shape to the one that rested on Midna's head. "It's… your headpiece… the same." Link stammered over his words. "it is. There are two more hidden in this wretched world of light." Midna explained, quite shortly. "Let us go." she added, creating a small portal on the floor. As Link stepped into the circle the portal formed, he felt weird, he himself also turned into black specs of twilight and disappeared completely. Outside, way back at the spring of the light spirit Faron, These same particles of twilight reformed into Link, now standing in front of the still waiting spirit. "Courageous youth, you have found the shadow you search for in my Forest, now I guide you, the last of the shards of shadow you seek lie in a dangerous mountain, and deep inside a lake. Go forth now, and good luck." It said, disappearing into the water. "A dangerous mountain and deep in a lake, let's go Link!" Midna said, happy for the guidance. "Alright then, where to first? Mountain or lake?" Link asked his companion. "The map from those glorified knight clothes indicates that the mountain is closest, so to this 'Death Mountain' we go." Midna said, holding Links map. "Goo… Hey that's mine!" Link said, sprinting at Midna, but she'd already disappeared into his shadow, leaving the map on the floor.