The town was in an uproar. Before the day was out, everyone knew that the visitors from over the mountain were magic users. The mayor had called a town meeting in the square, and everyone had an opinion.

"Burn them!"

"We should get a priest to send them back where they came from."

"Burn them!"

"The children need to go into hiding, witches and warlocks eat children."

"BURN THEM!"

The mayor sighed and rubbed his forehead. He was beginning to develop a major headache "Will everyone please quiet down?!"

No one would stop talking. The mayor sighed and rubbed his forehead again, first the hotel had exploded, then someone had stolen the dinner from his table, and now no one would listen to him. He shouted for silence again, and again, and again. When everyone finally shut up, they found that the mayor had lost his voice. Before the talking could start up again, Cover spoke up from the back of the audience.

"Has anyone thought that maybe they're a just little stronger than we can handle? Just one of them incinerated the hotel in less than a minute, and I noticed he wasn't even limping when they left."

For a moment, there was dead silence, and then the clamor arose again.

"It's an invasion, they'll take over!"

"Call for renforcements!"

"Alert the other villages."

"Tell the King!"

"SIC THE ARMY ON THEM!"

The mayor was making several frantic attempts at speaking, but all that came out was a few raspy squeaks, and no one paid any attention. Cover groaned; this had not been the reaction he was looking for. He headed towards the edge of town, muttering to himself.

"Help the royal family they say! That's what we do they say! All you need to do is give them a few hints and they'll take care of Muerte! Well no one put the syco villagers into the equation now did they?! I wonder if I can resign from being sheikah."

Ganondorf shoved the plate of food into Zelda's hands, piled skyscraper-high with strange food. Zelda eyed it warily.

"And you say I have to eat everything."

"Everything. You used a lot of energy healing yourself, even if the triforce did do most of it."

"Do you even know what any of this food is?"

"No."

"How do you know it isn't poisonous?"

"I stole it from the mayor's house. I doubt he was planning to poison himself."

Zelda glared at Ganondorf "You stole it?"

"I stole the tent too. No one saw me."

"That's not the point."

"He doesn't need the tent, and he won't starve. The man has enough food in his pantry to lat twenty years, besides, he could lose some weight."

Zelda couldn't help but smile, though she tried to hide it behind a mouthful of food.

Ganondorf grinned back. It might have just been Zelda's imagination, but it seemed as if his smiled was a little less demonic now

"So the town is hates us now. Some, the few that didn't bother with planning, are even after us with torches and pitchforks." He paused "why do they always use torches and pitchforks anyway? Kitchen knives and axes would be much more effective." He shrugged "We're in a forest near the lake Cover told us about, but we don't know how to get to the gossip stone."

Zelda bit into a red fruit as she began to plan, her triforce of wisdom helping her along "Well… I know that Midna has hidden as Link's shadow on many occasions. If she left at nightfall then a shadow with no owner would be hardly noticeable. She could take the mask of truth to the gossip stone… but she'd need to materialize to speak to the gossip stone, and that would leave her vulnerable. There's a good chance that no one would notice her though..."

Ganondorf shook his head "Gossip stones are amazingly loud. The minute it started talking, people would come running."

Zelda nodded "We'll need a distraction. Perhaps one of us could go along. No, they'd notice us before we even got close to the village."

"What if Link transformed ahead of time? Or Midna could use one of those illusions to makes her look like someone else?"

"The patterns on Link's head give him away as unnatural, and a talking stone will be seen as strange no matter who it's talking too."

There was suddenly a clamor from outside and both of them rushed out, Zelda making sure to put the plate carefully in the corner before running out.

Link had apparently caught an intruder; he and Midna wer currently trying to keep Cover pinned to the ground. Cover was trying to speak through the grass.

"Let me up! I'm here to help for Nayru's sake!"

Midna grinned up at Zelda and Ganondorf "I'm pretty sure he's telling the truth, but I'm having so much fun making him eat grass that I decided to wait and see if you thought he was telling the truth."

Zelda smiled "I think you should let him up."

Link and Midna both moved back and Cover got up, spitting out a mouthful of said grass as he did "I knew I shouldn't have let you two catch me!"

Midna snorted "Let us catch you?!"

"Yes let you catch me! I could have stayed out of you're reach quite easily."

Midna rolled her eyes but remained quiet.

Cover gave her a dirty look and turned to Zelda and Ganondorf "I don't really know what I can do to help, but I know how dangerous Muerte is, and I wanted to see if there was anything I could do."

Zelda thought for a moment and then smiled "What would you think of helping with a little distraction?"