A.N.: The third one rewritten! I'm sorry for not saving the answers of your reviews, but I hope that that doesn't matter that much. Also I'm so sorry for letting you wait such a long time.

Nothing more to say.
I do not own the legend of zelda or its characters or anything else that belongs to Nintendo, but I do own my ideas and OC's.

The fourth chapter may be really confusing until I get to rewrite it too.

Chapter 3

If it would have been any other situation, Colin would have been smiling, hiccuping from joy. But he was as quiet as Link behind her as Epona galloped through the woods. The girl hardly held onto the reins as she stretched her arms forwards and bent down to prevent hitting her head into a low branch.
Link spotted Beth at the second they exited the clearing, the girl was standing near the spring, nervously glancing around. She seemed to be glued to place by hesitation, and as the trio drew near, Link also noticed her panting heavily. Why was she left behind?
For God's sake, it was just a bloody monkey. Link frowned as she urged Epona to gallop in even faster pace.

Beth heard them far before they came in sight, and oh goddesses they were coming fast! The little girl had never seen Epona galloping in such a speed. Quickly moving out of the way she glanced towards the bridge, and that was all Link needed.
"We'll find them!" Colin's yell got drowned by the thundering hooves as the mare flew forwards.

Link noticed that as soon as they reached the bridge, the mare tensed. A slight pat on the neck as an attempt to calm her down had no effect. Suddenly, Epona's ears flew back to point forward as she noticed a short figure on the opposite side of the bridge. Link was almost thrown off of the saddle as the mare slid to a halt and almost sat down on the bridge. Colin gasped as Epona did so, but fortunately Link had held on tight of the boy so he wouldn't fall off. The figure stepped out of shadows of the cliffs and turned out to be Malo. The little boy, at the age of 6, was more mature than his big brother Talo, and there were always some sarcasm in his talking. Now the said boy looked scared, eyes wide open as he pointed to the road forwards, out of words. He was clearly shocked, but what were there? Monsters? Link frowned. Could there be monsters, in our beloved forest?
The frown on Link's face deepened as Epona paced towards Malo.
Turning to the short boy, she commanded him to return to the village as soon as possible, and take Beth with him. The boy nodded, already jogging across the bridge.

Without a word, the trio speeded off again.

There was a silence for next ten minutes, and in that time Epona had made her way past the spring and through the cave. In fact, Link didn't need to guide her horse at all by reins, it was like the mare read her thoughts and the other way round.
As they were in front of a gate that leads to a cave that leads to the Ordon Swamp -which had dried ages ago- Epona suddenly stopped the second time today, and reared neighing, getting Colin scream and Link grabbing her left hand around the saddle's knob, with the other hand she held on Colin. Epona turned around on her hind legs, and plunged towards Coro, the guy who sold lantern-oil. The man fell backwards from his chair as Epona leapt over the oil-pot, yelling curses at them. The mare didn't stop until a gate to Huryle Field got in her way. Epona halted so suddenly, that Link and Colin were thrown backwards over her rear and onto the hard ground. Link growled as she hit the ground, and growled again when Colin landed on her stomach. A cloud of dirt surrounded them for a good moment, Link trying to wave off the dirt and coughing soil out of her mouth, Colin already standing up, harmless thanks to Link who had softened the landing a bit. Epona whined and trotted away from the dirt cloud to Coro. The man let the horse sniff his palm before patting her gently. Epona was still a bit tensed up, but seemed to be calming already.

"Hey girl, why you are in a hurry like that? Ya know you can't go to the Hyrule Field yet, the gate is still locked and I can't find the key." Coro spoke to the mare, who was throwing her head up and down in little nods. After the cloud has settled, the man lifted his gaze to the two.

"You two alright?" The boy and the girl answered with a nod. "Good. Now can you guys tell me, why in Faron's name are you rampaging around like that?" Not getting any words out, the two walked closer. Just then, Coro seemed to recognise them.
"Oh, but you are Link aren't you? Haven't seen you here in a while." Link just nodded and smiled, still coughing a bit. "And you, little boy, you are Rusl's son right?" After receiving another nod as an answer, the man turned to Epona.

"My beloved friend looked really scared. There is a creepy plant ahead, right behind the gate to the cavern. When I was going to lock it for today, a little boy and a monkey ran past me, they almost got killed by the plant. Well, I couldn't lock it because of it... and that boy. Some of the people here says there's monsters or something behind that gate. The cave ahead is very dark, so if ya'll go there, you should have a lantern or something. For safety. I'll give you one if you don't have already, and because I know you don't, I'll give it to you for free!" Coro told them, leaving Link standing with a shocked face.

"Please give me that lantern, hurry! That boy you told about, it is from my village. He ran after the monkey and didn't listen to me as I told him not to go there." Link blurted out and Coro reached under the oil pot for the lantern. "Thank you, a lot. Colin, stay here with Epona. If I'm not coming back before the sun sets, get Rusl from the village." The boy nodded and Link ran off the wooden sword in hand.

As she arrived to the gate, a giant carnivorous plant raised from ground. It had green, thin stem covered with spikes the length of a hand. Its head was big, purplish-blue and in its mouth were dozens of dagger-like teeth. Saliva dripped from its mouth, it was clearly poisonous. Link frowned as the plant attacked, and quickly put her sword in front of her for protection, and plant's teeth dug deep into the wood. From the books she had read, she knew this plant was called a deku baba.

As it backed away from its attack, Link did a jump attack and stunned the plant, then slicing its stem with her sword. The stem broke easily, and the deku baba fell onto the ground, turning black and exploding, covering Link with ash. The girl blinked twice.
Did it just... explode? She shook her head and brushed some ash off of her clothes. It's better get goi- Woah, what was that!? Looking down she noticed it was just a crack of a branch what had startled her... No but, it wasn't a branch. Oh goddesses, it's Talo's play sword... I really hope he won't get into any trouble with those... she glanced the pile of ash, ...monsters. With a deep, nervous breath she lit the lantern and took off into the cave.

It took her almost fifteen minutes to reach the crossroad, thanks to various keese, deku baba, rats and huge spider webs she had to burn away. There she hesitated a while, but decided to took the smaller path which branched off from the one leading to the swamp. The path wasn't really long; she reached the circular room in the end in a minute.

There was a little, brown chest between two torch, and behind them was an empty platform, about four feet from the ground. Link opened the chest, and found a yellow rupee. She raised her eyebrows in surprise, but maybe there would be use for it. She put it in her pouch and lit the torches to create some light so she would see better. Along with the light, came a weird sound, which to her sounded like someone sucking in air between their teeth.

As the sound grew louder, small white particles calmly floating in the air were pulled to the middle of the platform. There was a flash of light so bright Link had to cover her eyes with her hand, and after she could see again, a big, blue chest had appeared on the platform. Raising her brow she climbed to it, and lifted the heavy lid. Inside, she found a strange, heart-shaped fruit with various colours. She wasn't sure whether to eat it now or save for later, but because she had to hurry and also didn't know was it safe to eat, she stuffed it in her pouch.

Three more minutes of running, and she was outside by the old swamp. She glanced the sky; it already had some reddish shades on it. She had around two hours to find the boy and return to Coro's shop, otherwise Colin would get Rusl.

As she hurried across the swamp, she was startled by a shriek and shambling steps. By the steps she knew the cause of the sound was about the size of a human, or maybe even bigger.
She spun around and shivered at the sight. Towards her was striding a purplis monster she knew too well, a bokoblin. Most of them were purple like the one she saw, but there were also red-coloured existing. They had grey dread-like hair tied in a kind of ponytail, green eyes, long arms and short legs, and they carried a wooden sword which head was in a form of a sickle.

She drew her wooden sword as the bokoblin got close. Instead of trying to kill her right away, it stopped in a some kind of fighting stance, raising its sword high above its head. Link saw her chance, and slashed its non-protected tummy, causing a long cut on it. Black blood spilled out of it, the wooden sword totally was sharp. Though the cut wasn't very long, it was enough to throw the monster down. Quickly, Link ran to the monster's other side, raised her sword above her head, closed her eyes tight and slashed down. There was a grunt which got cut by a loud crack as her sword broke the monster's skull. She turned away before opening her eyes, just to avoid unwanted vomiting.

Though it didn't take away the urgent feeling of vomiting caused by the crack.

The fight had gotten the attention of two more bokoblins, that were now running towards Link and their slain friend. She had no problem with fighting, but killing was something she hated, was it a deer meant for dinner or a bokoblin invading the forest. Despite of that, she successfully got rid off of the monsters. One of them left behind a small, red fruit, which was the shape of a heart. Like the bigger one.

She was sure this small fruit wouldn't do her any bad, so she ate it, almost regretting as something tickled in her wounds, but as she glanced them, it was more shock than regret her face showed. The smaller scratches on her arms were fading, until they were completely gone, while bigger wounds left fresh scars. Wah... What is this?

After she couldn't find a good reason for the happened, she sped off again, now heading to the east, fighting against deku babas, bokoblins and keese.

Soon she had got the attention of two bokoblins, guarding a wooden gate. It was locked, Link noticed, but still destroyed the bokoblins out of her way. She saw a lone bokobling on the other side of the gate, but it was too dumb to recognise Link at all.
Because there wasn't any keys in sight, she decided to search for one from the northwest she knew an other cave was located.

By the time she had reached the other side of the swamp and the cave, her time was already running low. Just as she had thought she found the key in the cave inside a chest, along with two keese and a bokoblin, which she easily killed.
Without a second of break, she ran again, completely out of breath and her legs feeling like two heavy logs, but she had to save Talo before the sunset... She had to.

In front of the gate she suddenly slid to a halt as she felt something cold and wet against her skin. Opening her pouch, she realized the heart-shaped fruit that was there once, had now melted.
But the pouch was still dry, the fruit had just... disappeared? She still felt something wet against her skin, and lifted her farm-shirt up a bit, to see what it could be. In surprise, she looked forwards with empty gaze, then again at her skin. There was heart-shaped pattern, with colours of the fruit. Slowly it faded away, until only the outlines were barely visible, and soon they were gone too.

What... Was that? Did the fruit just melt in... me?

For a mere second she felt her strength coming back, but before she could think about it, the feeling was gone.
Shaking her head a bit, she pushed the key into the lock and clicked it open. The lock fell to the ground, and the gate opened itself, knocking the bokoblin on the other side down. Link ran to it, and swung her wooden sword in the air, slashing down and breaking the monster's skull. The monster stayed on the ground a while, with a deformed skull, bleeding, bright-green eyes staring empty to the sky. Shivers ran along Link's spine as she saw bokoblins eyes, and mouth widened for a silent scream. Finally, it exploded to a cloud of ash that covered the ground and grass nearby. Since there was no rupees or berries Link could pick up, she entered the cave behind her, still shivers in her spine.

As soon as she came out of the cave's end, two bokoblins attacked her. The other of them, the purple one, was easy to defeat, but the reddish one was harder, and lasted longer. It attacked faster than the purple ones, but didn't know how to dodge Link's sword. Still, it did know how to block some of her attacks, as simple sword-slashes for example.

It used a real sword, instead of the wooden one, and was strong enough to cut Link in two pieces if wanted so. After three successfully strikes from Link, the monster raised its sword and slashed it down at the same attempt, surprising Link with the speed it had. Link barely had time to jump sideways, but still got a deep cut in her left arm. She grimaced in pain, but forced herself not to scream in front of an enemy.

She backed away from the bokoblin, holding her left arm tight by her right, and had dropped the sword to the ground. The bokoblin ran towards her, the sword high in the air, ready to kill an innocent girl who had killed its friend. Link had stumbled against the rock-wall surrounding the clearing. Blood dripped to the ground like a red river, Link was almost blinded by the pain. She had never felt something as painful as that was, she had never had a real wound, not as deep, not as long, or painful as this one was. For a real fighter, a real soldier, that kind of wound would be nothing.
But she wasn't fighter. She wasn't soldier.
She now realised how stupid she had been. Did I really think... –

Then, like a lighting from the bright sky, something hit her in her right thigh. She wasn't sure was it the bokoblin's sword or what, but it did hurt.
A lot.
Sharp pain ran through her body as she collapsed to her side, curling up from pain. Both of her hands went to hold her injured thigh, trying to stop it from bleeding.
All she could do was lie helpless on the ground, without even seeing properly around her though her vision was perfectly clear.
Tears ran down her cheeks, the pain was indescribable. Her eyes showed everything around her perfectly, but she didn't recognize it. She couldn't move, as the bokoblin raised its sword one more time, before slashing it down.

She waited. She didn't know how long was it, seconds, minutes, maybe hours.

Clang

Link frowned, but was unable to tell did she so.
She wasn't sure why everything went black.

Link was able to open her eyes again. It felt like seconds, but she was sure it was longer. Her head ached terribly, as did her arm and thigh. She tried to remember what happened, but all stopped at the spot when all she could recognise was pain.
She carefully looked around, after a while noticing she was in her house.
It has to be Rusl... who brought me here.
Slowly, she turned her head, and saw Colin sitting on a chair next to her bed. The boy looked away, deep in his thoughts. Link sighed, and immediately Colin turned his head. A smile grew on his face.

"You're awake! Hey, Link is awake!" he shouted, and Rusl climbed up the ladders. He smiled a worried smile.

"Colin, go and get me the red potion. We'll need it." he said, and the boy rushed down the ladders. Link was just asking why they needed that potion, but a sharp pain cut her body. She grimaced and whined quietly.
For that they needed it...

Colin came back up and handed the potion to Rusl, who gave it to Link. She looked at it, hesitating.

"Drink it, it helps. That talking bird near the place where I found you told me it is made from heart-berries. Whenever you drink it, it will act like eight of those berries at once." he explained, but Link was still very confused. She had many question in storage, and they needed answers. She drank some of the potion, and under the bandages she felt the wounds getting better. The pain slowly faded away, and she felt like nothing had happened. She opened the bandages, and there were only two big scars left. Link frowned. Maybe the deepest wounds will never heal completely, but scars were still better than two bleeding wounds.

Then he remember Talo.

"W-where is Talo..? I..." Link stammered, holding her head. It felt like a sack of rocks.

"He is in their house and completely fine, if ignoring a few scratches. Colin told me he had run after that monkey."

Link wearily gazed Colin.

"I left for the village with Epona right after the sunset, because you hadn't returned. Just as you said." Colin nodded, seemingly proud of what he had done. He received a small but grateful smile from Link.

"I found you and that monster just in time, and got between you and it before it could strike. Unfortunately, its sword flew out of its hands and collided with your head, and you went unconscious. I lifted you on Epona after killing the monster and told Colin wait with her by the little shop there. –"

"Do you mean Trill's shop?" Link cut Rusl off.

"Yes, if the bird keeping it up is Trill.
However, I went to find Talo, and, can you believe! He was by the entrance of the old temple, put in a cage with that monkey by those purplish monsters!"

Link's eyes widened. In a cage? By bokoblins?

"So I killed the two guarding the cage and freed Talo and the monkey. Poor boy was so scared I had to carry him to the shop. During the time Trill had given Colin a bottle of that red potion you drank. He also found some bandages I tied around your wounds, and then we were ready to go. I brought you here and we have stayed here over the night."

"Wait, what?" Link frowned. "Over the night? H-how long have I been unconscious?"

"Just this night. But I should leave now. I need to go to Castle Town, you can't deliver the gift when you're in that condition" He turned and climbed down the ladders. Link sat there, unable to do something. Rusl won't be in time, he needed Link and Epona.

"Rusl, wait! I c-can go. I'm fine. My head just hurts a bit."

"No, you're not going. And you are not fine. You got two deep wounds, and many small scrapes. It's dangerous. I saw what your sword skills were like. You're not ready." he answered. Link widened her eyes, she couldn't believe Rusl's words.

"But Rusl, you won't be in time! You do know that the king won't like it if the gift is late, don't you? This is our only chance to finally get Ordon become a part of Hyrule! We can't miss it, you yourself said so." She carefully went down the ladders, hiding the grimace as her head throbbed even more. She could handle the pain, but the gift had to be delivered.

"And you said my sword skills were great. I even killed monsters out there, Rusl! More than two at time! Besides, I'm going with Epona. She is fast enough to leave all of them behind, and even if I got hurt, she will protect me! Please Rusl. I promise you I'm okay." she pleaded. Rusl gazed her for a while, thinking harder than ever.

"I've never been to Hyrule, Rusl. If I'm not going now, who knows when the next opportunity will come."

"But Link, it is still dangerous out there. And it is a long journey to bear, do you even have enough money for food or a place to stay the night?"

"I do! I found some in the forest. Just please let me go. I promise you I won't die out there."

In the end it was Link's desperate eyes that got Rusl to give up. He finally nodded, but told Link to be really careful. The biggest smile grew on her face.

"I will! And I won't disappoint you!"

With that, she left the house.

She jumped down from the platform she was standing, and landed with a thud.
Ow, that hurts! Should find out a better choice than landing right on my feet, she thought, holding her sword tight as she headed into the woods.

Rusl was still standing in the house, deep in his thoughts.

"Father, she will be okay." Colin comforted, but the man didn't feel very sure about this. In fact, he regretted it badly, that he let her go alone. At least he could now do his own business.

"I'm not sure about this, Colin. Not at all." He rubbed his temple with his thumb.

"Neither was I when I let her go alone after Talo."

Rusl lifted his gaze from the floor and looked at his son a bit surprised.

"Why didn't you stop her, then? She almost died!"

Colin smiled sadly. "I... I felt that all of this was meant to happen, I... Something told me to not prevent her from leaving alone. Maybe it did good to her. I'm sure she can be more careful now."

Rusl frowned. Did the boy even know what he was talking about?

"I'm sure it sounds crazy, father, but... you told me that a good life is full of experiences. Let her have hers. I'm sure she will come home safely."

Rusl nodded, yawning wearily. "Let's go home now, I need some sleep since I couldn't sleep last night."

"Okay!" the boy smiled widely and nodded, before running out of the door.

Rusl still stayed for a while. Colin had always been quiet and shy, and Rusl had always felt that the boy knew a lot of things. More than himself, actually. But those words he had said... He had never spoken up like that. At that moment, Rusl had felt like he was talking with an adult, someone who has become wise by their experiences, anyone else than a ten-year-old kid. To Rusl, it hasn't been Colin who had spoken just minutes earlier. There was no way it could be the boy he had raised, the son he thought he knew so well.

And Rusl didn't know how right he was.