Disclaimer: I don't own Zelda or any of the concepts from Inuyasha that I have put in this ficcie!

Ocarina of Time: The Three Goddesses Reincarnated

Chapter Eleven: The Kokiri Forest

"We're almost there." Link murmured quietly. Tessa almost didn't hear him, but sighed in relief. She was starting to get sore from being on Tompton all day. "I should warn you, the kokiri aren't exactly what you'd expect."

"What do you mean by that?" Tessa asked curiously. So far, the only abnormal things she seen was Navi, the ghost, and really long, pointed ears. She waited expectantly for Link to continue. It couldn't get much weirder then what she had already seen.

"Well…the kokiri don't age. They stay children forever, and they don't die of age." This is where I grew up, but I'm starting to wonder if I'm one of them." Link sighed.

"Children forever…" Tessa murmured, then smiled. "Sounds like Peter Pan." Link gave her an odd look.

"What?"

"Eh…nothing!" Tessa laughed nervously. She didn't want to have to try and explain the wonderful world of movies to him. It would have taken more than a few hours. After about ten more minutes of pure silence, they arrived at the forest edge. "They live in trees or something, don't they?" Tessa asked, and Link nodded.

"How did you know?"

"Lucky guess." Tessa shrugged. At this point in their technology, she had an inkling that little people who lived in forests and didn't die would live in trees. She read too many books not too think so.

Peter Pan lived in a tree.

Navi flew out of Link's hat and fluttered over by Tessa's head. "I really would stay close to Link if I were you. Normal people don't last long in the forest without a fairy, and I can hardly cast my protection on both of you, much less when both of you are as far apart as you are." Tessa nodded and steered Tompton close to Epona, careful not to bump the two horses.

"Tessa, I think you should get on Epona with me. It would cause Navi less strain." Link suggested, and Tessa's eyes bugged out. Ride on EPONA? That ornery horse would kill her in a moment. Link seemed to see the dilemma and laughed. "Don't worry, Epona won't hurt you." Epona snorted in response, and Tessa gave a little 'Eep!'

Link rolled his eyes and grabbed Tessa's wrist. She glared at Link. "If that horse decides to kill me…"

"She won't. Now get on." Link sighed, and Tessa slipped out of her stirrups. She then shifted sidesaddle on Tompton, and quickly clambered onto Epona's back in back of Link. She quickly wrapped her arms around his torso from fright, and buried her head in his back; sure that Epona would try and maim her.

"Don't be scared." Navi gave words of encouragement, although it did no good.

"I can be scared if I want to be scared…now let's get this over with." Tessa grumbled, and Link shook his head in exasperation.

For the next half hour, the two rode on, and Tessa actually fell asleep on the way. Link was slightly glad…it stopped her from muttering about evil horses that were trying to murder her.

"We're here…" Link said, just loud enough for Tessa to stir and wake up.

"Here where…?" Tessa asked groggily as she rubbed her eyes.

"My home…the Kokiri forest."

Tessa blinked and looked around…there was nobody there. It was almost like the forest was caked in the feeling of malice and fear. Overgrown plants lurked all over the place, and the trees seemed to be guarding themselves against them. Tessa felt an odd chill run up her spine.

"This wasn't how you left the Kokiri forest, was it?" Tessa asked, and Link shook his head.

"I'm guessing that Ganondorf came here for the forest temple's sage, but I don't believe he has it." Link muttered. Tessa half-turned to look at him.

"How come?"

"Well…if he had gotten control of the sage of the forest…the forest wouldn't be here right now…" Link said quietly. Tessa's eyes widened. Destroyed? Other than the overgrown, and rather vicious-looking, plants, the forest was beautiful beyond compare.

"That means we still have time…" Tessa murmured. "What do we do next?" She hopped off of Epona, and Link followed suit. He removed her saddle, and her bridle, gave her a pat, and she took off towards the edge of the forest, and Tessa did the same with Tompton, and she followed Epona.

"They'll come back when we need them." Link said, and started to carry the tack into the Kokiri forest, towards a tree. Tessa noticed that it had a porch coming from about halfway up it, and a ladder led up to the porch. Link hung his tack on his body and started to climb up the ladder. Tessa followed, and entered the tree home.

"Was this…your home?" Tessa asked, and looked at the insides. The roof was low, and Link was almost too tall to stand straight, but he was still able to. The majority of everything in the one-roomed tree house was made of wood. Navi swirled around it happily, excited to be someplace familiar to her. Link set his tack next to his dresser and motioned for Tessa to do the same.

"I still consider it to be my home." Link said quietly. He took a look outside of the open door, and a sad look passed over his features. Tessa kept quiet and waited for him to continue. "Well…" Link sighed. "Let's get going." Link said, almost curtly, and Tessa simply nodded. This must have been a touchy subject for him, so she chose to let him deal with his feelings on his own. After all, she was still a stranger to this world, and she wouldn't know how to deal with whatever emotion might be running through him.

'Although, I can almost relate.' Tessa thought slowly, and followed Link out of the house and across the little village. They were careful to avoid any creatures that might have been out to hurt them, or anybody else who just happened to cross their path.

"From here, we'll have to be very careful." Link said as he reached what looked like an opening at the top of the cliff that they had walked up. "This is where we enter a very dangerous part of the Lost Woods. There are many dangerous creatures out there. So…stay close to me." Tessa nodded in understanding, and they both turned to the entrance. Link took a deep breath and entered, Tessa followed suit.

The entrance changed their settings drastically. They were completely surrounded by trees, and although Tessa was unfamiliar with it, it felt like deep magic ran through the very ground they stood on. Hairs went up on the back of her neck, and she tensed up a bit.

"Stay alert, and don't panic. That will set off any monsters with a unique sense of smell." Link warned Tessa and she just paled immensely. 'You have got to be shitting me.' Tessa said in disbelief at his words. 'I wasn't that tense until he mentioned monsters.' Tessa grumbled inside of her mind.

They walked through the lost woods, and Tessa soon began to relax, as the monsters didn't seem to pop up at all. She then noticed that there was soft, cheery music seeming to play in the woods, as if the whole woods vibrated in song. "What is that instrument?" Tessa murmured more to herself, than Navi or Link. Navi flew over to her, and Tessa noticed that Navi seemed brighter than usual.

"That's an ocarina. Most of the time, Link's friend Saria plays it, but…" Navi's light seemed to dim a little. "I don't think it's her. The music will play without her if she isn't visiting the forest with her ocarina. I believe the forest has the song ingrained into itself."

Tessa looked over towards Link, and noticed he had a slightly distressed look on his face. Navi seemed to notice too, and fluttered over to Link, her light turned to have a slightly blue hue. Of course, Tessa felt it wasn't her place to comment, so she kept quiet.

They continued to walk, until Tessa noticed a sort of high wall ahead of her, with an opening that reached up through the wall, as if it was the entrance to some kind of maze. She was curious, and stopped, her mind taking over as her thoughts raced. There were very odd things in Hyrule indeed…

Link continued on without her, seeming not to notice that Tessa had stopped, until he heard a sharp cry of pain. He whirled around, to see Tessa and a wolfos staring at each other, the former seeming frightened out of her wits, and the latter looking rather menacing. The wolf charged for Tessa again, and jumped. Tessa didn't know what to do, so she tried to back up, but tripped over her own feet and fell to the ground. As the wolfos would have landed right on top of her, Tessa's body went into automatic, and she shoved her foot towards the wolfos' chest, successfully ramming it in the ribs, and sent the wolfos flying back a few feet. She scrambled back up to her feet, as she saw Link descend upon the wolfos carefully, his sword drawn and his body tense, as if waiting for the wolfos to make the next move.

'Oh crap! Oh crap! Oh crap!' Tessa's eyes widened as she saw Navi dart towards the wolf, and start circling around the thing frantically, as if trying to find something. Soon, she narrowed her circling to around the wolfos' back, and Tessa heard her shout as if to draw attention to herself. Link nodded slightly, as if he understood what Navi was doing, and readied his sword. The wolfos leaned down a bit, getting ready to jump, and Link did the same thing. Then, the wolfos jumped and Link did a millisecond later, drawing his sword up high, and jumping even higher than the wolfos had. He then, brought the sword down as forcefully as he could when the wolfos was underneath him, and sent the sword through the wolfos' spine. Link landed, retracting his sword from the wolfos, who had started to twitch and shake violently, until it collapsed onto the ground, dead.

Tessa's eyes had widened even further, and Link looked at her quizzically. "Are you going to be okay?" Tessa then snapped out of her wide-eyed state, and grinned.

"That was bloody brilliant!" Tessa grinned even further. "Wow, I haven't been in a real fight in a while, but seeing one was…invigorating!" Tessa's eyes danced. "You were awesome!" She jumped up to her feet, and went over to the wolfos. "But I have to admit, I was scared out of my wits." Tessa laughed, somewhat nervously, and bent down to examine the wolfos. "This isn't what I call a normal wolf though, it's pretty freaking huge…"

"Wolf? It's a wolfos…probably similar to something in your own world." Navi fluttered over to Tessa.

"Yes, very similar, but some of the proportions are off, and it's about twice the size of a normal wolf." Tessa murmured. "To think, these things are my favorite animal…or rather, my own version of them…" Tessa cocked her head to the side. "At least mine don't look as…demonic."

Link was the one who was wide-eyed now. This was Tessa, who looked as if she had actually enjoyed what had happened, and almost seemed to want more of it. Tessa, who was scared of ghosts! Granted, he wasn't that fond of them either…

"I'm never using a sword though." Tessa sighed, and looked at Link. "My friends would kill me…" She stood up, and walked towards Link. She waved her hand in front of Link's face, and he snapped out of it.

"You…are…" Link seemed at a loss for words, and Tessa grinned.

"I know, I love violence, but I haven't actually been in a real fight for over four years, and never against something that wasn't…human…" Tessa laughed, almost maniacally, and pointed towards the giant wall that stood near them. "Are we going through that, or am I just jumping to conclusions?"

Link nodded, and Tessa began to walk ahead of Link, seeming to have an extra spring in her step. Navi flew by Link's ear. "Suddenly, she seems more open…" Navi murmured. "It's as if the whole sensation of being in actual danger…the actual sensation of having the chance to be killed in a fight…" Navi's voice was low, so only Link could hear her.

"It's as if she's finally starting to come out of her shell." Link murmured back, and Navi glowed softly in agreement.

Tessa stopped in the middle of the entrance to what she had assumed was a maze. She waited for Link and Navi to catch up to her. "Which way?" She asked, and Link pointed towards his right, but when Tessa started forward, he laid a hand on her shoulder. "I'll peer around the corner first." Link instructed, and Tessa nodded, her eyes seemed to glow with excitement, and it unnerved Link a little bit.

He peered around the corner, and motioned for Tessa to follow him, but silently. Tessa nodded, and did as she was told. He crept along the maze floor silently, checking corners constantly. He had just turned the corner, and Tessa was about to follow him, when a loud, infuriated roar had sounded itself behind her. She froze, and turned around as the ground started to shake, and large pounding on the ground could be heard.

"Holy…" Tessa stared at the…umm…she thought it looked like some kind of giant, brown bulldog running on it's hind legs, carrying a spear and wearing armor. "Well…you don't see that everyday."

Link grabbed the back of Tessa's shirt, and pulled her behind him around the corner. He took out the hook shot, and jumped in front of the charging monster, and shot it at the exposed area of its leg. The beast roared in pain as its leg crumpled underneath it, and he crashed down to the ground, his head scant centimeters in front of Link. Tessa stared and went up to poke the monster.

"Well…" Tessa blinked. "There are a lot of sketchy creatures around here…" She poked it again, and the beast growled, and grabbed her leg, pulling her down to the ground. He seemed ready to shove his spear through her, when she growled herself and punched the monster's eye. It howled in pain, and let Tessa's leg go. She jumped up, and kicked its squashed-in nose, before jumping behind Link. "Kill it…now…" Tessa said, her voice slightly higher than usual, and Link complied quickly, by shoving his sword through its neck. It died after a few moments of howling, and Link turned to Tessa.

"That was an idiotic maneuver." He said, point-blank. Tessa shrugged at him.

"Which part? The punching, or the kicking?"

"The poking." Link said, sounding exasperated. "Couldn't you tell it was still alive?" Link wasn't sure what to think of the girl in front of him. It was almost as if she had changed from that over-emotional, shell-like girl to somebody who was overly curious, and violent.

"…Well…" Tessa scuffed her foot on the ground once. "Sorta…"

"What do you mean, sorta?" Link's eyes were wide. He couldn't believe this!

"Well…I didn't really pay attention to that…" Tessa coughed, as if seemingly embarrassed with herself. "It's not like it actually hurt me, though. I'm fine. Leave it alone." Tessa waved off Link's expression, which was a mixture of rage and fright, and pointed at the direction in the maze they were last heading in. "Shouldn't we get going, instead of worrying about whether or not I'm mentally stable?" She cocked an eyebrow at Link, who just sighed and shook his head before heading off in the direction of the maze he knew as the way towards where he had used to play with Saria.

Not a word was said, Tessa knew better than to egg Link on in the weird state he was in, and Link was trying to blow off steam, so he didn't say a single thing. Navi flew in between them. 'Oh dear…this journey could be very interesting…'

End of Chappie

It's been a while since I updated this, so I decided that I should. XD How do you like it? I'm starting to get my inspiration for this, and I'm going to eventually have a submit-OC forum for it, but the O.C.'s won't pop in until later. XD I've figured out where I want to go in the direction of this series, but I'm still working out the kinks. I'm on a fanfiction writing spree, so uhhhhhh…yeah. I'm going to work on the prom fanfiction, "The Gateway", or "Creation of Homunculi after I post this. Probably two at the same time . (Freedom of Speech info, not for Fanfiction net...)

Review Please!