It's me again. I have one more chapter finished that I'll be posting soon enough.

MasterKohga: If I may ask, what the problem is? You didn't really give any specific reasons why it was "trashed". I like getting critique but I can't exactly do anything with it if all people say is "this was promising but it's bad", ya gotta tell me why so I can try and do better!

Anyway, read on, if ya want.

Chapter Three

It's Called Death Mountain for a Reason

Linkle was quickly and quietly escorted out of the castle by Impa, who seemed only slightly perturbed to see a large armored spider curled just outside the main gate. Gohma rustled and clicked, slowly shuffling to her feet and stretching.

"Well, you're not in chains or beat to hell, so I'm guessing you did just fine. Whatcha learn?" She hummed, casually walking alongside Linkle. Impa shook off her initial shock, quickly escorting them through town. This time, almost nobody screamed in alarm.

"Uh, met the princess, saw the bad guy, learned his plan and how to stop it?" Linkle offered, counting on her fingers. "Princess probably could totally do all this adventuring stuff on her own if she wasn't, y'know, expected to do princess things."

"I taught her well." Impa smirked proudly, as they left town. She turned and pointed. "That is your destination."

The mountain was visible nearly anywhere in Hyrule. Even in parts of the forest, Linkle had sometimes caught glimpses of it, looming high above the world below. Most of Hyrule was flatland or forest, so it was no surprise that a mountain of that size was so obviously visible.

"Death Mountain."

Gohma shuffled nervously. "That's uh, just a name, right?" She coughed, eyeball twisting to glance about.

Impa pointedly ignored her. "You're a weird girl." She spoke to Linkle, voice flat and blunt, but there was a hint of a grin in her voice. "You just showed up with a friendly monster in tow… But you're brave too. It's just a gut feeling but I think you'll do alright. Head for Kakariko, at the base of the mountain. You may find something or other there."

And then, without another word, Impa pulled something from her pocket and tossed it at the ground. There was a brilliant, blinding flash.

"MY EYE! WHY?! WHY THE HELL WOULD SHE DO THAT!? " Gohma wailed, quivering on the ground in a heap. Linkle groaned, clutching her own face.

"I'm blind…" Navi whimpered, dangling off of Linkle's hood weakly.

Once their vision finally returned, the trio made their way to Kakariko. Much like before, it took a few hours for the screaming and running away to stop, but once it was clear that Gohma wasn't feeling particularly aggressive, things calmed a bit, although everyone was still on edge.

Linkle decided to look around the town a bit.

"I doubt you'll find anything to help you through Death Mountain but you might as well." Navi sighed. The small green-clad girl found herself wandering towards a decrepit looking abandoned building.

"Linkle, this place looks like a goddamn murder house. Please don't go inside the murder house."

Linkle was going into the murder house.

"Self-preservation much?!" Navi tugged on Linkle's hood, trying to pull her back, but she hadn't even batted an eye.

And then the Skulltula man descended from the ceiling and Linkle's entire body went totally rigid. She was so shocked that she couldn't even move.

"Wait!" Howled the creature, even though Linkle had given no sign of either fleeing or attacking because she was paralyzed in terror. "I'm no monster! My family looks like this because of a curse!"

Linkle turned around and quickly began pacing for the exit.

"In order to- hey! Hey come back! "

Linkle slammed the door behind her.

"Nope!" She announced, face still frozen, all color having drained from it.

Apparently, having learned nothing, Linkle made her way to the graveyard. At least this place seemed a little less horrific than the nightmare house from before.

"Hm? Hey, Linkle. Isn't this the crest of the Royal family over here?"

Linkle trotted to the back, looking at the mark on the ground. "Oh, yeah. The Triforce thingy… What did Impa and Zelda say, to play that song they taught me?"

"Yeah. I doubt it'll do anything here, but why not, right?"

Linkle drew her Ocarina to her lips and slowly played the notes she had been taught. It was a soothing, gentle tune. It felt strangely… nostalgic for some reason.

I've never heard this song before. Why's it familiar? Even before Impa taught me, it felt like… I knew it... Linkle pondered.

Her thoughts were jarred violently when a bolt of lightning suddenly crashed into the ground in front of her, causing the large gravestone to crumble to dust and blowing Linkle off her feet.

Gohma stared in shock. "...Oh wow."

Linkle pumped her fists in the air, still flat on her back. "I have lightning powers! Fear me!"

Linkle came back from her adventure in the graveyard, slightly traumatized, with a new song under her belt, and hoping that was the most nightmarish thing she'd encounter in this town.

Somewhere deep below Kakariko, something snickered wickedly.

Linkle instead made her way to the gate. The guard stepped forward as she approached.

"Hold it! Death mountain's no place for a kid! Besides, without permission from the royal family or the Gorons-"

Linkle threw Zelda's note in his face.

"...Oh." He hummed. "...I'm not sure how I feel about being responsible for the horrible mangling that you'll almost certainly experience up there, even if you do have a giant pet spider." He sighed, clacking his spear down. The gate began to rattle open.

"How the hell did you do that?" Navi buzzed. The guard glared.

"That," He growled. "Is none of your damn business."

The walk up the Death Mountain Trail wasn't as bad as everyone had made it seem so far. Granted, they weren't very high up yet. It was just a brisk height.

"I don't see what all the fuss is about." Gohma scoffed. "The tree was more dangerous."

"Mhm. No giant skull-faced spiders, no carnivorous plants, no murderous parasite- no offense intended..." Navi hummed.

"None taken-OHGODWHAT-" Gohma yelped as a boulder shot down the mountain and crashed headlong into her. For a moment, Linkle and Navi were frozen in place, staring in slight terror as Gohma was sent rolling back, barely managing to scramble upright before she was sent straight to the base of the trail again.

"Heads up!" Navi yelped. Linkle was forced to bob and weave, dodging boulders as fast as she could. Gohma, wisely, was climbing horizontally along the wall instead of up the trail like earlier.

"Pain." Linkle groaned, taking a seat in a relatively safe spot once they reached a bend in the trail. She leaned back against a rock, rubbing her brow, only to suddenly be flung sideways when the rock moved.

"Ah?! Oh um. Hello." She blinked, startled as she looked up at the strange baby-faced rock creature.

"Oh! You're a stranger." He rumbled, voice an easy baritone. "Not many strangers come up here, at least not once they see the giant falling rocks or the flesh-eating monsters!"

"Flesh eating monster…?"

"Yep! Tektites have a real nasty bite! Luckily we gorons are way too tough for them to eat!" He chuckled, sighing a little. "Normally, we'd be smashing them up to keep the roads safer, but we've been so hungry…"

"Hungry?" Gohma chirped from her spot on the wall. "Don't you guys eat rocks?"

The Goron didn't seem all that alarmed at the sight of the giant spider.

"It's a specific kind of rock." He gestured behind them. What Linkle had first taken for a wall was actually a huge cracked boulder. "Before that boulder was there, we Gorons used to mine stone and ore for eating from the Dodongo's Cavern. The rocks out here are barely edible, and they don't give us much energy." He grimaced, yawning. "Ugh… tired already, just from talking this long. This is awful."

Linkle felt a pang of sympathy. She'd never been hungry for long in the forest, but she imagined it was pretty terrible.

"What happened anyway? Rockslide?" Navi bobbed, fluttering up to peek in through the crack near the top of the boulder.

"Some Gerudo blocked the entrance. As if reviving the Dodongos wasn't bad enough." The Goron thudded his head against the boulder. "Must've been some real big magic to do that. We could probably blast our way in, but that'd just leave the cave open with a horde of angry dinosaurs that hate us charging out." He shook his head. "Ugh… Sorry strangers, but I gotta conserve energy. The Gorons up at the city are a little better fed, maybe they can tell you more… Big Brother Darunia would know the most…" And with a thud, he curled into a tight stony ball.

"Well that was informative." Gohma tapped the boulder. "Hm, a Gerudo. This Ganondorf guy?"

"No." Navi rolled her eyes. "A different Gerudo with "big magic"."

"Piss off." Gohma growled.

Linkle sighed, hopping to her feet. Goron City was still a ways up.

Linkle collapsed in the entryway to the city with a groan. Nearly crushed by boulders, bitten by Tektites, sent flying by a goron accidentally rolling into her… It had been one hell of a hike.

"This place blows! " she announced, pushing herself to her feet with a groan.

Navi lightly patted her head by bouncing gently on it. "You made it though."

"It still sucks. I hope Goron City is nicer."

The first thing Linkle noticed was the pleasant temperature. Death Mountain was hot . She supposed that made sense, it was an active volcano that was constantly venting steam and magma.

"Is it lava or magma?" Linkle wondered. "I can't remember the difference."

"I don't particularly care." Gohma shrugged. "It's hot and it burns real bad so that's really all I care about."

"Magma's underground. Lava's aboveground." A helpful Goron announced. Linkle politely nodded at him, before peering over the ledge into the City.

"Huh, this place is surprisingly inviting." She flinched as she watched a Goron rapidly rolling along the floor below. "Most of this place is inviting."

"That Goron is huge ." Navi murmured, awestruck.

"Ah, he's only the second or third biggest." The Goron near the entry said dismissively. "Medigoron is pretty close in size, and Biggoron is way way bigger, but we never really see that guy these days… He's probably off learning new blacksmithing things, or up on the peak."

"Even bigger…" Gohma twitched. "I feel like I'd be very outmatched if Ganon had cursed me here."

"Proof of the royal family connection, huh?" Linkle drew the Fairy Ocarina to her lips. Once she had got it down, the Lullaby was an easy song to play. She had to admit, she liked the tune. It was gentle, lilting and soothing.

It didn't make up for the absolute hell that climbing this mountain had been, but it was something.

Linkle watched the door slide open, and rubbed her brow, slowly making her way in the room.

The Goron there was a bit bigger than average (though not as huge as the one rolling around or the one in the forge were), with a wild mane of actual hair, instead of the simple stone-tipped heads that most Gorons had.

He also looked a lot less pleased to have a guest than the others had been.

"You. Are. Kidding. Me." He rumbled, irritably grinding his knuckles against a wall. "I call the King my Sworn Brother, offer him support whenever he asks… And this is the messenger of the royal family? Some little kid?!"

"Uh-"

"Bah." He didn't let Linkle get a word in, swinging a fist and thudding it into the wall. "Look, I'm not here to talk to some kid about our problems! It's an adult problem! For adults!"

"Well then you'll wanna talk to Queen Gohma." Linkle rolled her eyes.

"She can come in here!"

"Actually she can't fit through the door."

"It's true!" Gohma called from outside the room. "The curse of having an exoskeleton. I'd just smash through but I don't think that'd be very polite."

The Goron leader rocked back, sitting down. "Then we're not talking! If you're actually connected to the royal family then go back and tell them Darunia said he'd like to be taken seriously!"

"Grump." Navi grumbled, sitting herself on Linkle's head. "We're not getting anywhere until his mood improves."

"Wait, how'd you get that door to open from in here anyway?"

"None of your damn business!" Darunia snapped.

"Jerk!" Linkle shouted, pouting angrily. She grabbed a Deku stick, lighting it on one of his torches, storming out. "I'm gonna burn his fancy rug." She announced.

"I thought you were a hero. " Navi sighed. "But I do admire the vindictiveness."

Linkle's rage-induced pyromania was brought to a halt when the torches came into contact with strange, black, spherical flowers and they began hissing and spitting noisily.

"That seems bad." Linkle managed to squeak out, as they turned a deep red color and began to grow.

"Oh geez-"

Boom.

Amazingly, Linkle survived, flat on her back, whimpering a little, as the dust cleared the air.

"Oh hey, you cleared the tunnel!" A Goron cheerily admired her handiwork. "I wonder where it goes. Feels nice and cool. Guess those bomb flowers were ripe already. I thought it'd be another week…"

"Bomb. Flowers." Gohma blinked as she lightly scooped Linkle onto her back. "I think I hate this place."

She skittered along the tunnel, Linkle barely awake on her back.

"This smells… familiar." Gohma paused, slowly creeping out the tunnel.

"Are we in the lost woods?" Navi flashed a confused color, sort of dull pinkish. "How'd we get here so fast?"

"Non-Euclidean geometry, kids!" Announced the owl in the tree.

"Oh god, it's the kid stalker." Navi groaned.

"I'm not." The owl sighed. "I'm really not. I'm just guiding the hero on her path. Although she looks a bit out of sorts."

"I hurt in places I didn't know I had." Linkle whined.

"I'll keep it short. Follow the music." He chuckled. "You'll never find the sacred grove if you don't."

There was music. It was cheery and bouncy, floating through the trees.

"It's a good thing that we're from this forest." Gohma hummed, following the tune. Nothing much gave them trouble as very few creatures in nature feel the urge to fight a half-ton spider monster. "Otherwise, who knows what it'd do to us?"

"Oh, I do!" Linkle cheerily managed to speak from Gohma's back. "I'd turn into a Skull Kid! I'd lose my face and memory and most of my own identity as I slowly turned into a husk of my former self, and not be able to ever go back to the way I was!"

"That's… really dark." Gohma paused.

"And true." Navi sighed. "But mostly we say that to outsiders because it keeps them from going too deep into the woods. Kokiri don't have anything to worry about, and anyone with enough magic to be protected."

"More of that non-Euclidean geometry stuff the owl was talking about I'd wager."

They came upon a large clearing. A wolfos howled, but then paused when it saw Gohma, hesitating.

Too late. Gohma pounced. "Mrggh!" there was a nasty sound of biting and chewing. "Shorry." She said through a.. Mouthful? Of wolfos. "I'm hungry."

"...How do you eat?" Navi fluttered about, trying to identify exactly where Gohma's mouthparts were. Gohma didn't answer, merely finishing her meal quickly, leaving only a little scraps of her meal. Linkle was a bit better, so she could walk now, and they headed through a short maze to find another, safer-feeling clearing through the woods.

The feeling of safety didn't last, once Linkle saw who was there.

"Oh. Oh geez." Linkle nervously faltered. The source of the music was Saria, perched on a stump. She lowered her own ocarina from her lips, an easy smile on her face.

Her eyes weren't blank and dull so Linkle relaxed a little. Saria patted a spot next to her, and Linkle sat down.

"This is a special place." She hummed, looking up at the tangled branches. Linkle followed her gaze, seeing a stone building, wrapped in trees, held high in the air by the growth. "There's magic here, from the spirits of the forest inside the Temple." She pointed. "That place was supposedly built by Kokiri, ages and ages ago, using old forest magic we forgot a long long time ago. Crazy, huh?"

Her eyes suddenly went a little dull. "Speaking of forgetting, you still have my ocarina, right? "

Linkle quickly fished it from its safe bag, nodding quickly. "Y-yep! Right here!"

"Good, because you know, if you lost it I'd just have to make sure you never left my sight again so you wouldn't forget about me, your bestest friend ever!" Saria's grin was way too wide.

"R-right, I'd never forget about you though, eheh, not my best friend Saria."

"Mmmhm~!" Saria's smile became more normal, and she relaxed. "And to make it easier, I'm gonna teach you my song! It's special too. I made the song, and the spirits here liked it so much they imbued it with magic. It can cheer a bad mood, lighten any atmosphere, and let you talk with me! Ready?"

Now that Saria's more unsettling side had mostly gone down to her more pleasant state, learning a song with her was fun. It reminded Linkle of just listening to Saria's improvised tunes from ages ago.

"Hey, you come by and visit and never forget me or else okay?" Saria giggled. Even Gohma felt chilled being in her presence.

"That Kokiri…" She hummed, once the group was out of earshot. "Something is dreadfully wrong with her."

Gimme a bit and I'll get the last chapter I have prepped posted here! Hope you liked this weird screwball comedy I'm writing.

Goodnight Everybody!