Hey everyone!

Here's the next chapter. It's shorter than the last one, but the ending just fit so well. Sorry.

Onwards!

Where am I?

Link floated in a void, seemingly unable to control his movement. Something about this seemed familiar, but he couldn't put his finger on it. It reminded him somehow of his childhood, strangely enough. He was pretty sure that he didn't go around floating around in pitch black voids whenever he had a chance as a child. That would be weird.

Navi?

Link spun himself around, or tried to; he couldn't tell with it being so black. He couldn't see her anywhere. His little blue fairy wasn't here. He must be dreaming; Navi hated leaving his side, it made her feel safer.

Okay, this is a dream.

So what's the topic?

Link thought he heard something moving around behind him. Or was it above him? Sound really meant nothing here either. He strained his eyes, trying to get a glimpse of the entity moving around his dream. He wanted to get rid of it; it was far too early to get up yet. Link had a strange feeling that he was being watched.

It's hot here. Really hot. Weird.

Spinning himself again, Link found what he was looking for. To be honest, he was surprised that he'd managed to miss it. It was just kind of a beast the size of a mountain.

For some reason, he felt no fear. He did feel a twinge of recognition, though.

"Why do I feel like I know you from somewhere?" Link managed to ask. "And why are you disturbing my sleep? I was fine without you here."

"Well you're surprisingly coherent, compared to my last subject." the beast rumbled in a low voice. Link almost felt it's voice.

"That didn't answer my question." Link would have tapped his foot, had there been any ground to tap it on.

"I've come to tell you that you really should wake up. I find that if you continue laying where you are that you'll end up being slightly… dead. And I honestly don't really need you dead yet."

"What?" Link muttered, slightly exasperated as to why a giant mountain-beast in his imagination would need him in any way.

"You'll figure it out eventually." the beast rumbled slowly, appearing to fade slightly, as if Link was waking up. "And you do know me. Just… not in your current state of mind." Link could have sworn he chuckled.

"Hey, wait!" he yelled, the beast fading away and the blackness becoming a flickering gray. It was too late, though, he was already waking up.

Link opened his eyes slowly, closing one again quickly as a drop of sweat attempted to greet his eyeball. He lay on his front, on the hard ground, gazing at a flickering flame of fire.

Well, that explained the heat…

Suddenly the situation hit him. He realized that he most definitely did not sleep here of his own accord; he must have been knocked out when he hit the wall. He looked around for something he could use as a weapon, and listened to Navi's tinkling voice argue with the jerk who punched them. Why were they even in the castle? It should have been evacuated.

"Look at what you've done!" he heard Navi yell, which wasn't much louder than her normal speaking voice. "You've knocked him out, and he won't wake up before he dies in the fire!"

"Good." said an unknown voice, which Link assumed to be Miss Punch; it was a woman's voice. "It'll save us the time of executing him."

Link spotted a long silver object laying on the ground not far in front of him. He recognized it as a sword that he'd forged about a month ago. He was sure it could be a weapon, even though it was ornamental. He slowly reached out towards it, trying not to draw attention to himself.

"Execute him?" he heard Navi say. He almost had the sword now. "What in Hyrule for?"

Link agreed with Navi. Other than a rescue break-and-enter, which rarely got people executed here, je couldn't think of anything he'd done. He grabbed the sword and lifted it a couple centimeters off the ground, then began to pull it back towards him. After this, though, he may need to be executed. But he'd cross that bridge when he came to it.

"For starting the fire, obviously." Miss Punch explained as if it was the simplest thing in the world. "What in Hyrule else would we execute him for?"

Link had the sword now, he was coiling himself up for a spring at whoever was talking to Navi. He really wished he could actually see Miss Punch; it would be easier to get her down if he knew where she was.

"What?" Navi shrieked, clearly distressed. "He didn't start the fire! Goddesses, why would he do that?"

Din give me strength.

"To steal th-"

"KYAAAAA!" Link flung himself towards the source of Miss Punch's voice, swinging his sword downwards as he went.

He would have hit her.

He actually would have killed her. His leap had brought him around so that his blade would cut her clean in half. He was surprised. He'd never even wielded a sword before.

But she was trained.

As soon as Link jumped, she had started into her own jump, hers a backflip. It was so fluid that Link thought that she knew that he was going to jump at her before he even decided to. Now she was standing half a meter from where he had cut through thin air, standing in a combat pose, compact bomb in hand.

He recognized her. She was the former captain of the Royal Guard. She trained them to be deadly warriors. Then when the princess came along, she had been removed as captain and been put into service as the princess's bodyguard.

She was Impa.

Oh, goddesses this just got a LOT worse.

DingivemestrengthNayrugivemewisdomFaroregivemecouragehelphelphelpHELP!

Link watched as Impa raised the arm that was holding the compact bomb. He raised his sword, well aware that he couldn't get over to her in time to get the bomb away from her. Thus, there was only one chance of survival left. It was going to be tight.

Impa threw the bomb towards him.

And Link hit it back.

Surprised, Impa barely moved her head in time to dodge the returned bomb. They both watched as it took out a balcony across the hallway. It had already been weakened by the fire, meaning that the bomb hardly had anything to do to reduce it to splinters.

"Look," Link started as Impa turned to face him again. "I didn't start this fire. I was on the outskirts of Hyrule when it started. I came to save the princess from the fire." At Impa's questioning stare, Link gave her a quick run through how he came to float into the princess's room. He left out the less important details in favor of speed, given the circumstances. "The only problem with this plan," Link continued after finishing his account of things, "Is that the princess doesn't appear do be in the castle at the moment. Which is good for her. However, if you haven't noticed, the three of us are still in a quickly burning castle."

Impa nodded, accepting his explanation for the moment. There were more important things immediately at hand. "Come, we need to get moving." she began. "There is a staircase that will get us to the roof not far from here." After that, she ran off.

Link watched her go, then turned back to Navi, who appeared to be attempting to save one of the curtains from the first flickering flames in the room. "I thought you might need another curtain; if you're going to the roof, you're still going to be stuck in the castle." Link smiled.

"Good thinking, Navi." He assisted the fairy in taking the curtain off, then turned to go. He left the sword behind; he was pretty sure he could trust Impa.

After climbing several flights of stairs, Link finally found a trapdoor to the roof. Pushing it open, he climbed through. "You certainly took your time getting up here." Impa muttered from behind him. He turned around, showing her the new curtain.

"I stopped to get this." he explained. "Even though we're on the roof doesn't mean that we're in the clear. We need to get off this castle before it collapses."

Impa nodded, stepping to the edge of the roof and looking down, while Link began to figure out how to get both of them off. He started to hear beams splitting down below him. Looking the curtain over again, Link noticed that it was almost twice the size. Perhaps if both of them held on to an end…

Link felt the roof under him start to crack, and just barely dived off the area that collapsed, wood splinters falling down into the bowels of the castle, never to be seen again. His mind hardly even registered the fact that the rest of the roof was similarly giving way and falling. He leapt over one of the smaller holes and ran towards Impa. "Okay, I need you to hold this end," Link managed to spit out hurriedly. "Then, on my mark, we're both going to jump." Impa's eyebrows raised slightly at this, but she nodded silently in agreement.

"One,"

Navi bounced around nervously, watching the roof quickly collapsing.

"Two,"

Impa tensed her legs, ready to jump.

"Three,"

Link did the same.

"Mark!"

The two of them, followed quickly by Navi, jumped sideways off the edge, narrowly avoiding the hole that had almost opened beneath them. With the weight of both Impa and Link – and Navi, who was sitting on top the makeshift glider – the trio began to slowly sink against the updraft that the fire below created. Impa's eyes widened when she saw that the plan was actually working. Link internally grinned as well; he was sure that they were roasted Cucco.

The tower above them began to fall towards them.

"Hylia above," Link muttered angrily. Apparently, they were out of the literal fire, but into the figurative frying pan. They were back to being roast Cucco.

Impa looked up and saw it as well. However, she also saw something else. "Try to move us to your right about three feet!" she yelled over to her companion. Link didn't question anything, and began swinging himself to the right. Together, they quickly moved themselves far enough to the right. Whatever far enough was supposed to do. The tower kept falling, and Link prepared himself for death. Navi flew down to Link's head and gripped his hair, set on dying with Link; without him, there was no other reason to live, at least to her.

Death didn't come.

Link watched in astonishment as they flew right through a giant hole in the wall, through the overturned main room of the tower, into the princess's room, and out the window that he had kicked in earlier.

After a couple moments of stunned and relieved silence, Navi spoke up. "I guess it pays off to break some things after all." Link smiled as they floated to the ground.

I apologize about the first chapter of this; it was supposed to be formatted and everything, but saying that a file is a Docx makes it dissapear on the website, and then the app just decided to delete the formatting. Screw you, app. Hopefully this one works.

I've got a big convention to go to next week, and then I'm going on vacation, so I'll try to keep getting these out on a semi-regular basis, but it'll be harder, so no guarantees.

See ya'll next time!