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 Twenty-Four:Zoras Domain

Tessa jumped down from the bottom of a ladder and slid on the ice. Laughter sprung from her throat as she twirled on the ice, right before she fell on her butt. "Ow!" She grumbled, and tried to stand up again, only to slide around and end up on her face. Link didn't notice her trouble, as he observed his surroundings with a slight panic in his eyes. The color had drained completely from his face, and his hands began to shake.

"It's all right, maybe the Zoras have simply relocated…" Navi murmured to him. By now, Tessa had slid all of the way over to a solid land formation not covered by ice. She gripped it, and stood up. She watched Link walk over without even stumbling a little bit on the ice. Tessa pouted slightly, but then saw the expression on his face.

"Is there anyplace that you might think the Zoras might be?" She asked, quickly catching on to why Link looked troubled. He shook his head.

"Maybe King Zora is still here…" Navi stated, and flew ahead. Tessa ran after her, and Link followed Tessa silently. He wondered what had happened to Princess Ruto, the King Zora, and the rest of their kind. Navi was the first to reach the King's throne room, and she stopped cold in midair with a screech. Link heard this, and passed Tessa with more effort than he had been giving. He stopped where Navi had stopped, and looked at what Navi had screamed at in disbelief.

Tessa came up about a minute later; her breath came out in short bursts. "What's wrong?" She asked, and looked ahead. In front of the three of them was a giant block of ice, and inside was a huge fish-man, staring at them unblinkingly.

"That's…King Zora…" Navi stated in horror. Tessa's eyes widened.

"What happened to him?"

"Ganondorf." Link growled, and bolted past both Tessa and Navi, around the actual land formation, and behind King Zora into a pathway that led to even more important creatures. Navi zoomed after him, and Tessa stood there for a moment as she stared at King Zora. Without really noticing what she was doing, she walked up the staircase to the platform that she guessed was used to address such a huge King.

"The ice…is red…like blood." She murmured, and jumped from the platform onto the waterfall. Tessa reached out a hand to touch the ice surrounding the King, and pulled it back quickly when she actually made contact. The ice had frozen her fingers with a thin layer of ice. Her breath caught in her throat as her hand began to shake.

"That…can't be good…" Tessa murmured, as she watched the ice slowly thicken around her fingers. She looked at the King one last time, and ran after Link, her eyes wide with fright.

She saw him when the pathway opened into a great lake, only partly frozen over. Large chunks of ice floated around, and the ice on her shoes froze her feet to the point it felt like her toes were going to fall off, however it wasn't nearly as bad as what touching the blood red ice had done to her hand. Tessa looked down at her hand and noticed that the ice was slowly climbing up her arm, centimeter by centimeter.

Link was touching a very large chunk of normal ice, a slightly sad look on his face. "Lord Jabu-Jabu isn't here…" He murmured. "This doesn't bode well…"

"There has to be some way to unfreeze King Zora!" Navi stated urgently, and flew around in circles wildly. Tessa put her unfrozen hand on Link's shoulder, and looked around carefully. Ice chunks were surrounded by those weird octopus things that just creeped her out, and the whole lake area was surrounded by a tall wall, with a thin layer of ice on top. Tessa squinted her eyes, and looked at the wall, not entirely sure what she was looking for.

Then, she saw an opening in the wall, that was more frozen over than the rest of the wall, and more octopuses were surrounding it. Tessa suddenly had this feeling that she had to go there, and felt her frozen hand tingle with anticipation. Without a word, she started to jump from ice platform to ice platform, and barely heard the shout of surprise from Navi and Link. Her heart raced, and she didn't even realize that she was having a hard time staying on her own two feet as she jumped. From the fifth platform to the sixth platform, she felt a hard force hit her in her back, and she fell into the ice-cold water instead of landing on the platform. Tessa gasped, then choked as she realized that she didn't have any air in her, or surrounding her.

She swam towards the surface of the water, and came face-to-face with an octopus. "Holy crap!" Tessa shouted, then ducked under the water as she dodged a boulder that came from its spout. It dove after her, and Tessa swam as fast as she could to the wall near the cave opening. Her frozen hand grew heavier, and heavier, but Tessa didn't dare look at it. She felt another boulder shoot past her, and she dove up for air quickly, before she dove back down to keep on swimming.

Behind her, Link and Navi were following via platform. Navi flew ahead of Link in order to keep up with Tessa's form underneath the water. She noticed that Tessa drew closer and closer to the wall, and suddenly Tessa dove up for air again, and dove down deeper into the water. She dove so deep that Navi couldn't see her.

"Link! I lost her!" Navi screamed, and Link felt the fear come off of Navi in waves.

Suddenly, a few meters ahead, Tessa's body dove high out of the water to grasp onto the ledge of the cave. She could only hold onto the cave ledge with one hand, and tried to pull herself up. "God damnitall!" Tessa shouted, and Link jumped a few more platforms before landing in the mouth of the cave. He grabbed her good arm, and pulled her up into the cave.

"Are you all right?" Navi asked worriedly. Tessa didn't answer as she shook from being in the frozen water. Link observed Tessa carefully and then saw her frozen arm. Up to her elbow was ice in the same blood red color as the ice that surrounded King Zora.

"Tessa…what's wrong with your arm?" Link asked, and looked at it. Tessa shook her head to clear her mind, and looked at the ice surrounding her arm.

"Oh…it grew…" Tessa murmured. "I guess the cold water made it grow faster…"

"Or the blood coursing through your veins…" Navi murmured as she encircled the arm. "My best guess is that it's channeled to the blood in your body, and the faster your heart pumps blood through your body, the faster the ice grows on your arm."

"Or a combination…" Tessa sighed.

"What did you do to get the ice on your arm?" Link asked, a slight tone of panic entered his voice. Tessa looked up into his eyes.

"Uh…well…I might have touched the ice surrounding King Zora out of curiosity…" Tessa murmured.

"Out of idiocy, maybe!" Link shouted. Tessa flinched, and looked at her arm. She had made sure to keep it from touching the rest of her body.

"Okay, so it wasn't exactly the smartest thing for me to do…" Tessa sighed.

"You think?" Link growled. Tessa glared at him.

"All right, I get the point! Will you please let this drop?" Tessa growled right back at him.

"No! Now we have to find a cure before you completely freeze over! And you just had to drag yourself to this stupid cave for no reason that I can see what-so-ever!"

"Oh, like you had a better idea of a cure for King Zora?"

"No, but I doubt we're going to find something here!"

"You're being a pig-headed male! Maybe there was a reason I felt like coming to this cave!"

"Will the both of you please SHUT UP?!?!" Navi shouted at them. Tessa and Link both glared at each other. "In case neither of you haven't noticed, that ice isn't going to stop growing anytime soon, and the cave does seem to go deeper!! Maybe the cure is located within this cavern, but we won't find it if you two keep on arguing!"

"Right…" Tessa and Link glared at each other, and then Tessa stood up. She shuddered from the feeling of her cold, wet clothes clinging to her body. "Let's get going then. I hate the cold." Tessa frowned as she just realized that her breath was visible due to the cold as well. She guessed it had been that way for a while now, but she didn't notice it until then. She growled at the cold, and stomped forward. Link glared but followed after Tessa anyway.

"Oh dear…"

End of Chappie

Once again, another short one, but I figured here would be a good cutoff point…and I guess I should say Happy Holidays to my readers!