Alex whistled rather cheerfully, still swinging the Kokiri sword experimentally now and then as she walked leisurely across Hyrule Field. It really should've been Hyrule Plain, or something, she mused inwardly. Too big to be a Field, too small to be a..

..Um... Too small to be a...

..Well, nevermind that.

She replaced the sword to it's sheath, pausing for a moment to lean against a tree and catch her breath, completely oblivious of the Hylian Fire-Ants slowly infiltrating her clothing.

She pulled a ragged scrap of parchment from one of her pockets, flipping it around with all the expertise of a kindergartener, half-aware of an odd crawly feeling. She scratched at one arm absently, not looking away from the paper.

"Right. Which way'd they say was up on this..." Alex stared at it, long and hard, and then flipped it over.

In rounded, childish handwriting at the bottom of the paper, words began to appear. She watched, enraptured, as a figure ran around in the small copse of trees at her back, luxurious blonde bangs on fire and what she would've called a giant pineapple chasing him. If she'd seen it.

"This side, you idiot.

Luv, Sar!"

She stared at the map for a moment, and then groaned.

"Lovely, I'm stuck with a two-dimensional nanny..."

She blinked, very slowly turning her head to look at her arm. Her eyes twitched for a few seconds, and then grew very, very large.

And then...

"OH DEAR GOD ON A POGO STICK, I'M--"

What happened next could be described best with a sound effect:

FOOMPH.


She sat up, rubbing at her head dizzily, half puzzled at the scorch marks on her clothing and the singed eyebrows, and half ready to run like a bat out of hell.

She stared blandly at the singed, ludicrously large ant corpses littering the ground, her clothing, her hair, and pretty much anything in a ten-foot radius to where she was sitting. They were as big as her thumb.

Alex stood up, stumbling a little bit. She managed to lurch forward a few steps.

And then she stopped abruptly, bending over to pick the ... thing .. .up.

In all honesty, it looked like a rather sturdy green windsock. Or rather, it had been green at some point in the past. It was now a kind of burnt, charcoalish colour. She rubbed it gingerly between her fingers, half expecting it to crumble. A layer of ash fell of, revealing a bit of green and confirming her suspicions. Either freaky sock-hats were all the rage, or he had been there.

She pocketed the bedraggled hat, and set off into the sunset, waving her sword dramatically.

Well, until she fell into the nearly invisible hole in the ground.

Really. There was no way she could've seen it coming!

..HONEST.

---

"YAUUUUGH--"

THUD-SQUISH.

"MY LEG--"

"AAAGH PERVERT!"

THWUNK.

Silence, except for multiple soft thunkings..

Alex beat wildly at the body under her, which she was labeling all sorts of things, some of which would not be suitable for mixed company and "Squishy." She screeched like some sort of furious battle goddess who has been recently and, quite accidentally, groped.

The being squirmed desperately, trying to free itself, and accidentally copping a feel. Thusly, she drove her knee into the person's groin, subconscious informing that the shriek she'd heard upon landing had been male, if somewhat high-pitched.

They went deadly silent, except for an occasional whimper.

She hopped off, fumbling for some other weapon and kicking the person into a puddle.

"..don'twannaDIIIIIE..." Pleaded a voice, before being silenced into a kind of unhappy bubbling.

Alex squinted in the dimness of the small cave, making out an added lump next to the chest near the end. A pair of Boko Babas had been chopped to bits, she discovered as she climbed over and managed to step on one of the head-bits. It was a rather unpleasent squelching sensation. She made an odd squeaking noise and hopped off it, over to the chest.

It had been opened, and a few dormant bombchus lay in a dusty heap at the bottom. She dismissed it, picking up the lump next to it for examination.

It was a kind of satchel - backpack - ..thingy. She flipped a flap of leather over, peering into it. It contained a wallet, a bottle of water, a few empty bottles, a small half-loaf of bread, some matches, and a few things she couldn't make out. She removed the matches, setting the pack down delicately, and struck one of them on the trunk. A small circle of light appeared around her, causing the puddles to appear glowing.

She paused, glancing around. She really didn't want to light the chest on fire, water quite obviously did not burn, and the small clumps of grass were --

Absolutely perfect.

She grinned, leaning over and lighting each one before blowing out the match. Smirking horribly, she returned to the captive / horrible rapist.

"Right then, you can either let me bring you to a horrible end or-"

She stopped short, having kicked the person onto his back.

Black tunic..

Black undershirt..

Pale skin...

Black hair..

...Closed, X'd out eyes -

"..aw crap."

---

Dark Link very slowly and cautiously opened one eye ever so slightly, hoping distantly through the dull pain in assorted body parts that the giant rabid wolverine was gone.

Apparently, she wasn't. He had the very unhappy sensation of someone bustling around him as light stabbed mercilessly at him, and he shut the crimson eye quickly. He hated bustling. That's why he'd ran away, really. Besides, it hadn't felt right back in Kakariko..everything was right in a kind of subtly wrong way.

He was almost 13. But not quite. Which, frankly, sucked. He was too mature for his age, which was, unbeknownst to him, both really odd and perfectly normal.

It was normal in that he was an odd, twisted mirror of a boy he'd never met - in memory - and remained only as a shadow of a past that no longer had officially happened.

It was odd considering he was a pubescent, horomonal boy who should've been acting a whole lot stupider than he did.

The girl was whistling a tune of some sort and he got the impression that he was going to be hearing a lot of this sort of thing for a while. So much for setting out to Seek His Fortune, and having all sorts of High Adventure. She'd probably be the clingy maternal type and end up falling off a cliff in a horribly tragic moment whilst he was kicking butt before he'd see the last of her.

Something broke him out of his thoughts with a kind of 'thunk' noise. He would've sworn it broke his skull, too.

"OW." He whined, sitting up and rubbing at his head resentfully.

"Light sleeper." She sounded sociable enough. He couldn't tell if this was good or really reeeally bad. From his experience (AKA the books lining the walls in Impa's house) this sort of thing usually led to Romantic Relationships. He sighed gloomily and blinked a bit.

"...What in the name of the Three Golden Godesses have you got on?" He said in a sort of really, really rude awe. She was wearing the strangest clothing he'd seen. Ever.

He'd seen old men wearing beaded loincloths and feathers for the Harvest Festival.

He'd seen a mirror once, too.

The girl raised an eyebrow and glanced downward.

"Uh. T-shirt, jeans, and some nikes?"

He decided dropping the subject was better than pursuing the "what in all bloody hell is a nike" topic.

"..You kicked me."

"You noticed." She clasped her hands in feigned enthusiam, oozing sarcasm from every pore on her body. Mostly from her nose.

"So, D-" She froze in mid-sentence, and he gave her an odd look while she mentally fumbled.

"..so..um..what's you name?"

"Knil Carpenter. And my middle name is..."

"RUNNING LIKE HELL!"

---

Alex sat, blinking, in the dust. Slowly a grin spread across her face, like whipped margerine.

"..Really clichè, but hey..."

She scooped up the discarded satchel, slinging it over her arm.

"He ever so kindly left me some wonderfully convenient supplies! .. why do I have the urge to wink at the camera ..?"

TWNNNG.

Something began bopping her repeatedly in the ear, which was a sad mistake for the ... whatever it was. She clapped a hand quickly to her head, wincing but cupping her hand around the thing and very carefully lifting a faintly buzzing fist to face level.

"..CNWTBUGTH'HLLOTTAMEHZZZ!"

She cocked an eyebrow, slowly opening the hand. A dully glowing humanoid figure sat there, panting for breath. It was clothed in some sort of rough mud-coloured cloth, and gave off a kind of mossy green aura. A pair of disproportionate batwings sprouted from the person's shoulders, flexing slightly.

"..get out of-" Growled a rather feminine, but definately male voice, from her palm. There was a pause, and then the voice came again, exaggeratedly deep. "GET T'BLOODY 'ELL OUT OF ME CAVE!" Alex blinked.

"Oh come on, couldn't we at least have some originality?" She groaned, shaking her head.

The fairy grimaced, pawing at its grubby blonde hair disconcertedly. He didn't seem very old, and in physical terms he looked about her age. He was probably something like 500, she thought, rolling her eyes. They'd do that, just to be obnoxious.

"'M s'posed to guard t' cave." He grumbled, staring at her hand with the look usually reserved for things with talons that have just caught something small and furry. Alex blinked calmly.

"..I suppose you're supposed to come with me. Somehow." She sighed.

"Well, 't is kinda dull.." He mumbled, still staring hungrily at her palm.

"Right. I'm.. adventuring." She said the last word carefully, as though handling nuclear waste with her tongue.

The fairy perked up, as though she had said "naked except for some body paint" instead of "adventuring."

"'M c'ming with yeh." He said firmly, as though this was a fact, like "the earth is round," "cereal gets soggy if left in milk," and "pain is hurty."

She sighed.

"I was afraid you'd say that."

And then she trotted off toward the sort of curving slope that led out of the cave.