HUGE THANKS to HaloBramblestar for reviewing!

10-9-14 Edit: Minor grammar changes, some touching up. Nothing major.

Disclaimer: Don't own, 'cause if I did Shadow would be Dark's little brother and Vaati would come back as a good guy. Since that hasn't happened yet, well, you get the picture.


We appeared ankle-deep in clear springwater, surrounded by lush greenery and in front of a small waterfall. The sand was soft beneath our paws, the air wonderfully clear and the birds chirping happily. The sky was blue, a clear, crystal color that reflected the same soft color of a robin's egg. All in all, the area was, admittedly, quite beautiful. It looked almost like one of those magical spirit springs you'd find in a storybook.

I would have liked it... if I hadn't felt like it somehow hated me.

The moment I was fully intact, I scrambled to get out of the area as fast as possible, trying to escape the horrible prickling feeling running over my fur and the innate sense of just plain wrongness I felt. Instincts told me that I didn't belong in that spring, just as they told me that the twilight was warped and unnatural. It was somebody else's territory, and I was an unwanted intruder.

Although, looking back, that probably wasn't the best move. For one, it was rather embarrassing. Secondly, even though Dark and Vaati did the exact same thing for apparently the exact same reasons, it still made Link very confused. Poor guy. Better get used to confusion if you're going to be hanging around us, kid.

"Uh, you guys okay?" Link called, confused and slightly worried. I grimaced and shook the water from my paws, splashing Vaati in the process, who hissed and flattened his ears.

"Yeah, we're alright. We're just, eh, gonna stay away from the spring, though. Not really big fans of water," Dark called.

"Ha. Good thing, too. You wouldn't be able to get me near that thing for a million rupees," Vaati muttered, fur slightly puffed out so that he looked all prickly. Link just looked puzzled at our discomfort, since he clearly wasn't having any problems. Weird...

I pricked my ears and scented the air, smelling an odd combination of something I couldn't identify and a strange musty smell, a bit like dust. Yet, somehow... more alien. Like a slightly foggy day, where everything seemed dull and shapeless... strange. And off, somehow- twisted, bad, similar to a piece of bread that now had the eggs of maggots. Later, as I grew more adept at honing my wolf senses, this smell would be remembered as the scent of the cursed twilight. But I pushed it to the back of my mind, ignoring it in favor of getting the water off my paws.

Link huffed in laughter and shook his fur, walking out of the spring. However, just he was exiting, Midna popped up in what looked like a shadowy version of her normal self from his shadow, not unlike what I would do. Huh. That was interesting. I wondered if she had the same abilities as I did.

"Eee hee hee! Did you think I'd disappeared? Listen, there's another thing I forgot to tell you… Don't think you can just run off and save your friends… because you can't. Just beyond that bridge is the land covered in twilight. Last time, a shadow beast pulled you through the curtain of twilight… But if you want to go that way this time, you'll need the cooperation of someone FROM the twilight… like me! So you really have no choice but to do what I say!

"Saving your friends and all that… well, that'll depend on your actions… Because you never can trust words, you know. Right now, I want a sword and shield that'll suit me. You do understand me, don't you? Eee hee hee! So, what do you plan to do? While you're here dawdling, the twilight continues to expand. Come on! Hurry it up!" Midna said, disappearing back into Link's shadow after her little speech.

I snorted, slightly annoyed by the imp's haughty way of talking. She acted as if she was the center of the world, and that everybody had to obey her. So annoying! I didn't like people like that. Reminded me too much of those arrogant nobles who looked down on us common folk like we were trash.

Link sighed and rolled his eyes, but walked down the path to what I presumed to be his village anyway. After all, the imp was right- she was the only way he had to get out of his wolf form. And since she was also ouronly hope as well, I figured tagging along couldn't hurt. Dark had the same idea, and together we followed Link down the narrow trail.


Several bokoblins and one freaked out villager complete with dive-bombing hawk later, the group had split up. Dark and Vaati had gone to retrieve a shield from the house of one of the villagers, while Link and I were going after the sword. Unfortunately, as the location of the sword was guarded by none other than Link's mentor, we were having some trouble. I just hoped that Dark and Vaati weren't running into as many problems as we were.

The main problem was that even though the guy threatened to pretty much cut our heads off if we got too close, Link was... emotionally compromised, let's say. Unwilling to aggravate his mentor and father-figure, this left us with very few options. So eventually, I just told him to stay out of sight and went to go get the stupid thing myself.

After shadow-traveling under the door, it was easy to grab the sword off the couch. From there, I just shadow-traveled back. Unfortunately, it seemed that Dark and Vaati had caused some sort of commotion over on their end, so I exited to the sounds of angry yelling.

A second later Vaati popped out of an open window on top of the watermill house with Dark following close behind. The young sorcerer had a wooden shield on his back, which was embossed with a goat horn design- probably to represent the village. The two of them leapt across the rooftops towards us, then dashed for the village exit. Link and I followed on their heels.


After Link had an interesting conversation with the light spirit of Ordon Spring, which Dark, Vaati, and I stayed well away from, Midna informed us that we would have to go back into the twilight that covered Faron Woods. Oh, joy. So, once we were pulled again into the twilight, we began heading north towards the heart of the forest.

However, upon reaching the Faron Woods spirit spring, Link saw what looked like a shimmering golden mist that seemed to "call" to him. Of course, like the naive idiot he is, he went over, without a single thought that it could have been a trap.

Then the mist started talking to him. Go figure. I guess weird things just seem to happen around Link for some reason. So according to our all-knowing golden mist guy, we now had to go track down a bunch of bugs that were running around the woods that had stolen the spirit's light. Yippee.

By the way, did I mention that I hate bugs?


One restored light spirit later, Link had a new outfit that gave me a strange sense of deja vu when I saw it. Unfortunately, since we'd forgotten that it was only Link that had been transformed in Faron Woods and not us, we had to wait until we got back to Castle Town and the Lanaryu Region to get our hylian forms back. Therefore, we were still furry. Wonderful.

Although, now that I think about it, being a wolf really wasn't that bad. I mean, I still had all my shadow powers, and it wasn't as if we were particularly handicapped. In fact, I think I was actually stronger physically in my wolf form than in my hylian one. Huh. Though I did miss having opposable thumbs, which were fairly essential in my line of work. Bit difficult to steal things with paws, y'see.

Anyway, Link was listening to the giant golden glowing monkey-thing while examining his new clothes. In the meantime, Dark, Vaati, and I were tracking down food. Seeing as the last time we'd eaten was at least a day before, we were all pretty darn hungry. Luckily, this forest seemed to have an abundance of fat brown rabbits.

Unfortunately, because of our distinct lack of fingers in our animal forms, Link had to be the one to make a fire to cook them. This meant that he spent a good five minutes simply hunting for a sparkstone in his new clothes, which was eventually found in one of several magically enlarged pouches that came with the outfit.

After that he spent another five minutes searching for sticks to roast to rabbits with, while taking yet another two minutes to sharpen them. By that time, the three of us were practically salivating.

Finally, after the food was eaten and we were all happy and full, Link informed us that we would have to go to some old temple in the woods for some obscure reason that I don't remember. I think it did have something to do with Midna and some evil power, but I wasn't really paying attention.

However, before we were going to do that, Link wanted to go back to the village and check on Rusl. Which was understandable, I suppose. After all, the last time he'd seen the man was as a wolf, during which time we'd been trying to steal a sword from his house. Add the fact that the villagers were talking about kidnapped children the last time we were there and this all made Link pretty worried. So that meant that we'd be paying a visit to Ordon.

Midna, for her part, wasn't too thrilled about this, but understood that it would be beneficial to go back as we could stock up on supplies while we were there. Unfortunately, Link had overlooked one very important fact.

We were still animals, the same animals that had stolen a sword and shield from them not a day before. Which meant that we would be attacked on sight if we stepped foot into the village, which meant that we had to stay in the woods.

Now, we were actually fine with this. Since we didn't really know anybody and they didn't really know us, the four of us all walking in together would have looked a bit strange. Especially as Dark and I were wolves, and Vaati was a panther. A purple panther. Not exactly the common color scheme of your average big cat.

So after Link had gone off in a southerly direction, Midna had decided to stick around as Dark's shadow. Now, since I was the only other person who could do that, I decided to do a bit of an experiment. Could two of us share the same shadow at the same time?

One short scuffle and forced expulsion later, the answer was no. Midna, who was a bit trigger-happy, wasn't a sharing person and had blasted me out with some weird orangish-greenish-blueish magic that reminded me a bit of the cursed twilight, but of a purer form.

"Goddesses, you could have just said leave. Now my tail hurts." I grumbled, shaking the dust from my fur. Midna popped her head up and stuck her tongue out at me, then vanished in a flash of black shadows. I snorted, then stuck my paw through and rapped her on the head. A muffled "Ow!" echoed up from the shadow dimension she was in, giving me a slight sense of satisfaction.

"Really, Shadow? Was that seriously necessary?" Dark asked, rolling his eyes. Vaati snickered, tail tip flicking from side to side.

"Yes. Yes it was," I answered back, grinning smugly. My brother just tipped his head back and gazed heavenward, as if to ask, Great Goddesses, why me?


About an hour later, we had just gotten a free lantern from Coro plus a 100 rupee bottle of lantern oil. Personally, I thought that was a total ripoff. I mean, who pays 100 rupees for a lantern and a bottle of oil? But since it was Link's money, I wasn't about to start complaining.

Hiking through the woods, we eventually made our way back to the poisonous swamp where we'd found several of those nasty twilight bug things. But, since Link was no longer a wolf, we couldn't jump across. That problem, however, was quickly solved by a thieving monkey.

At first, the three of us were about to pounce on her until she said that she knew how to cross the fog and would help us get across. Since we had no other option and she seemed trustworthy, we agreed.

Link, having followed our lead, looked at her strangely before shrugging and following the monkey into the fog. D***, he's trusting. I was still marveling at that- and wondering at how long he would have survived in Castle Town's alleyways.

It took about ten minutes or so to safely cross to the other side, where the empty lantern was deposited on the ground. The monkey then ran off into the woods, disappearing before we could get some answers.

After all, in our experience, people don't just help out of the goodness of their hearts. Usually they'll want something in return. Somehow, I had a feeling that this one, however, was going to tie in to the highly dangerous and probably risking-death endeavor we were about to undertake.

Once we'd unlocked the gate and crossed over to where the path leading up to the temple was, we were met with an unusual sight.

A golden wolf was sitting in the middle of the path, blocking us. And I don't mean a wolf with yellowish-tan fur, I mean an actual Goddesses-frikin' 24-karat golden wolf that glowed. It stood and started growled once we approached, and seemed to focus especially on Dark and Link. The three of us raised our hackles and growled right back. Link unsheathed his sword and lowered into a battle stance, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet.

I saw the wolf tense its haunches a second before it leapt for Link's head, too fast to call out a warning. But before Link got his head bitten off, the wolf just... faded into nothing. I blinked in confusion, wondering if we'd just imagined the entire thing. Maybe the stress was getting to me...

A second later Link crumpled to the ground, out cold. Midna popped out of his shadow and frowned, hovering over the downed hylian.

"Hmmm... looks like he couldn't handle a little doggie..." she muttered before diving back into his shadow. Dark trotted over and nosed him, then came back when it was established that the guy was fine.

"What the heck made him pass out like that, though?" I muttered. Vaati frowned and flattened his ears, tail lashing from side to side.

"I can sense powerful magic in the air, hovering around him. My guess is that the wolf put some sort of magically-induced sleep spell on him for whatever reason," he said. Since Vaati was the only sorcerer we had (Midna didn't really count, since she used a completely different brand of magic) we went with his theory.

"So when will he wake up?" Dark asked. Vaati sighed and sat down, shrugging his shoulders.

"Whenever the spell wears off or the wolf releases him. So it could be anywhere from a week from now to sometime in the next two seconds."

I exhaled slowly. "Well, that's wonderful. So, guess that means there's nothing to do but wait then, huh?"

"Yup."

With that, we settled down in front of the prone form of Link and waited. Luckily, it only took about twenty minutes before he woke up.

With Sleeping Beauty finally awake, we made our way up the path to the temple. There were a couple bokoblins guarding the place, but they were dispatched easily. Link did this fancy front flip thing before landing with his sword point first in the downed monster that had me raise an eyebrow. That move was pretty advanced, which meant that Link was a better swordsman that I thought. He even did a backflip off and stuck the landing, better than many of the Castle Town guards.

The giant spiderweb covering the entrance was burned away by Link's lantern, which he'd refilled with the bottle of lantern oil. However, upon entering, the first thing Vaati saw was two small spiders crawling around on the vines directly in front of us.

"Ugh," he muttered. "I hate spiders..."


The baboon looked around like it didn't know how it had gotten there, which led me to believe that the strange bug/parasite thing was possessing it somehow. Then it hopped out a gap in the wall, screaming confused gibberish the entire time. Link scooped up the boomerang and gave it an experimental throw, watching as it curved around the room on a mini tornado that reminded me of how Vaati would fly before returning to his hand.

"That boomerang is a powerful magical artifact, infused not only with wind magic but with the power of the Fairy of Winds that resides in it. This'll be useful," Vaati commented, inspecting the boomerang. Of course he would like it; he's a wind sorcerer.


After saving yet another monkey (seriously, how many were there?) we had finally gotten them all. However, once Link realized how they intended for him to get to the room with the "great evil" inside of it, he immediately began backing away.

"Ohhh no. No, no, no, no, no. You can't seriously be expecting me to do this," he said nervously.

The monkeys chattered at him impatiently, saying things along the lines of, "Hurry up! We can't just hang here all day, y'know!"

I grinned evilly, knowing that Link really didn't have a choice. "Come on, it'll be fun. Besides, if you fall, we'll catch you. Dark and I can fly and Vaati's a wind sorcerer. You'll be perfectly safe."

Vaati purred and began circling Link, slowly herding him towards the edge. Dark followed close behind, a wolfish smirk tugging at the edges of his lips.

"Don't worry, it'll be fine. It's the same as all the swinging you did before. Now go before we have to push you off!"

Link just looked at us strangely, unable to understand us as a hylian. But it seemed that he'd gotten the message, and sighed in defeat. Link took a running leap and was easily caught, swinging back and forth a few times to gain momentum before letting go and landing safely on the platform.

I snickered. "See, that wasn't so hard at all." Of course, this came out as a few yips and a bark, but I think he got the message. Vaati floated over on a whirling purple tornado while Dark and I flew. Meanwhile, Link had procured a fairy and was sealing it into the jar which had previously held lantern oil.

The door before us that housed the evil we were looking for was very large and intimidating, especially with the giant padlock criss-crossing across the doorway. The lock itself was larger than my head, and fell to the floor with a loud clang that echoed across the chamber when Link inserted a large ornate key.

"Well, this is it. Ready, guys?" he asked nervously. The poor guy had probably never seen anything scarier than the twilit monsters we'd faced before, and if the light spirit's warning was anything to go by, this would be ten times worse.

Dark barked an affirmative and turned ghostly, passing through the doorway first. Then he poked his head through and barked, saying "Come on! Hurry up or you'll wimp out!"

Link, grinning slightly at the sight of Dark's furry head sticking through the door, gripped the large wooden slab and rolled it out of the way. Then we entered the lair of the Forest Temple's great evil.

The cavernous room was fairly large, with a short platform of land where we were standing and thick roots covering the walls. A strange purple swamp was dominating the northern half of the room, with purple waterfalls thundering down into it. I gingerly sniffed the air and recoiled, scenting the putrid stink of decay and poison.

Link cautiously walked forward to the edge of the water (?) and crouched down, examining it. Then it began to bubble, and the hylian quickly scrambled away. A second later, two giant deku baba heads erupted from the water, spraying acid droplets all over the place. None of us escaped the spray, and it hissed and steamed wherever it struck clothes or fur. The giant heads roared at us, swaying from side to side like deadly snakes.

Thus, the battle against the Twilit Parasite Diababa began.