Sorry I haven't been on lately. There are a number of reasons I could give you for why I haven't but they seem pointless at the moment.

I finished this a while ago, but the thing wasn't letting me log on. Then I read the note that said that they wouldn't be letting people log on for a while, looked at my watch, which can tell the date, and noticed that the it was during the time that I couldn't log on. Heh, I guess this is all moot as well.

Okay, so on with the fic!

Chapter 3: Searching

The horse tracks disappeared as soon as Link and Epona passed through the gateway of the village. Link looked back as soon as he passed the threshold of the entrance. Epona was leaving tracks, so where were the other tracks? Link was utterly confused at this.

Then he thought of something else. He had heard, while staying at Hyrule Castle, that in other parts of the world, there were specific spots that only specific sorceries could work. Could this be some kind of location specific spell? Some kind of anti-tracking location specific spell?

If so, then that meant that he may have lost the golden soldier. The girl who had been kidnapped by him may have been lost forever.

Link shook his head to clear that thought. He would find her, no matter what, and he would do so before anything happened to her. He vowed it.

And the first thing he had to do was to see if anyone had seen anything the night before.

The people were of no particular help, being that none of them had seen a white horse with a golden armored soldier carrying a young girl. But he was sure that the townspeople were holding something from him. They seemed nervous about the questions, looking around as they said they had never seen him. They shuffled their feet, and tried to run without looking like they were running from him. Something was going on, and Link would have to figure this out by himself.

Link decided to let Epona wonder outside of the town. People would try to capture her if she stayed in the town.

He found a place to stay at for the night, expecting that this mystery would take a little while. Then, while in the confines of his new room, he pulled a shining blue stone out of his pocket. This was the gossip stone, a recent invention of the king of Hyrule.

"Zelda," He said, "Are you there?"

"Link!" Zelda's voice came in clear through the stone. "I was wondering when you would check in!"

"Well, I had a little bit to do. I'm trying to track someone who came through a town just outside of Hyrule. This may take a little while, so I don't think I'll be home for a while."

"Okay, just let me know if you find anything."

"Alright. I'll check in every now and then."

"Okay, I look forward to it."

Link put the Gossip Stone back in his pocket. Then he left the room to do some tracking on foot. First thing he did was look around to see if he could find any people that matched the description of the golden soldier that the captain had told him about.

There was no one in town that looked like him. He checked in all of the bars, knowing that the Knights of Hyrule would often be found in the Hyrule bar if they couldn't be found elsewhere. Nothing. It was as if the golden soldier had disappeared into thin air.

Link tried many different ways of tracking. None of them seemed to work. He finally found himself outside, looking for split tracks. Also none, and it was already night.

He pulled out the gossip stone and spoke into it again.

"Zelda, I am out of ideas."

"Well, you may have to come home then, and leave it to someone else."

"As much as I hate to leave this unsolved, I guess you might be right." He let out a sigh. "And I was really hoping to bring that child home alive."

"Well, you can't do anything else."

Just as Link came into view of the gate, a bright light flashed right in front of it. Out of the light came hundreds of knights, led by the one and only golden knight.

"Zelda," Link said, "I think I just found what I was looking for."

He pocketed the gossip stone and ran forward, trying to get to the golden knight before he decided to leave. He ran out of the forest and right in front of him.

The golden knight looked at Link, obviously confused as to why he had just come out like that. Surely no one from the village could be so stupid or reckless.

"What business do you have before us?" He said.

"I want to return the girl you stole from a village not far from here back to her home," Link responded, not knowing if this was foolish or not. "Return her, and I will leave in peace."

The golden knight laughed at the insolence of such a puny looking person.

"Either you have guts, or you're the stupidest person who ever came before me. We do not appreciate people talking to us in such a condescending manner."

"Maybe if you didn't do the stuff you did, I wouldn't have followed you and decided to talk to you like that. Think about that."

"Such arrogance is not tolerated." The golden knight snapped his fingers, and two of the knights who followed climbed off of their horses. Then the golden knight continued talking. "We crush all those who oppose us."