Were you surprised by the last chapter?
Move or die... an ethereal voice whispered to him across a void.
In answer, his eyes snapped open. He became aware of a weight on his chest; slight, but noticeable.
'Saria...' his thoughts screamed around his mind. He touched his head, feeling a thin scab over his wound. 'What hit me?' He gave a weak scoff. It had probably been when everything went to hell in the gymnasium.
"Now I'm... where? All because of that thing." He sighed, extricating himself from Saria.
At least he had Saria with him.
They lay in an austere room tiled with a material bearing the resemblance and texture of ice. Link peered out of the only window at the frozen deluge. Aside, he could see little else.
He heard a gasp from behind him. Saria was upright, rubbing her eyes.
"Are you okay?" Link extended a hand and touched her shoulder. "I think we're safe."
"Where are we?" She shook, from cold or fear he could not tell.
He wrapped her in his arms. "I... I don't know." he paused. "Stay here, I'm going to look outside and see if any cars pass."
"No I'm coming too you idiot!" Saria shouted.
Link flinched, and it seemed pointless to argue, so he rose, hand in hand with Saria, and palmed the door open.
They were immediately greeted by a wave of ice and snow, and they gasped at the weather's tenacity. Link could discern a path in the distance, perhaps wide enough for two cars to drive on.
As he looked at it, he realize they were on a mountain; the rarely-used trail was open on one side. 'What, are they too cheap to put a guardrail?'
"H-hold onto me," Link said, silently cursing at the assault. He brought her close enough that their chests touched. Ignoring the blush in their cheeks, they kept moving.
Link could see nothing around them except snow, and felt nothing except his limbs turning to ice. The wind nearly spoke to them, and Link imagined that it taunted him for disregarding its power. They both felt the penalty for their defiance.
Eventually, Saria collapsed. Link, grunting from the effort, carried her with frozen arms. Before covering much more ground, he staggered to a stop and sank to his knees.
'Fuck... I can't do this.' Hot, thick tears fell from his eyes, freezing once they touched his cheeks. 'I've always been a fucking failure... I can't even help Saria.' He gave a harsh chuckle.
"Link?! You're back..."
Link's head locked on to the source of the voice.
Two shadowy figures stood next to him; a human and an animal, perhaps a horse.
"Wha... What're you doin' with a horse here? Couldn't it get hit by a car?"
The person uttered a feminine, wistful chuckle. "Ah, Link, you changed there, didn't ya?"
"How... do you..." He collapsed, slipping into unconsciousness.
-Unknown Female's POV-
She laughed again, bending down to lift them onto Epona, bundling them both. She tapped the mare's thigh. She was glad to see his face again, even pale and sickly like this. Tightening her cloak, she began to lead Epona back along Death Mountain's trail.
As for the girl with him... she didn't recognize her, but it would do to bring her along to the Goron's sanctuary. Link's reappearance meant that whatever the Tyrant King was planning would bear fruit soon.
"What're ya haulin', Ashei?" The Patriarch inquired when she returned with her shabby litany.
Ashei swept her hood back. "I found him, Darbus."
"Who?"
She rolled her head and eyes in unison. "I'll make it very simple: When you were Twilit, _ saved you."
The massive Goron's tombstone teeth showed. "It's about damn time."
They laid him and his female companion out on opposing beds in the infirmary. Darbus excused himself shortly, citing his need to prepare for a council meeting.
Ashei sat back, resting her feet on the corner of Link's bed. 'Their clothes...'
Link wore a jacket of green with a hood attached, slacks of a foreign material, and shoes with stained laces.
"Ni-ke?" Ashei traced the script on Link's shoe, tasting the word. She smiled. The color of his jacket was right, but a hood? Link never wore a hood.
His dirty blonde hair was also Link's, but his features had always appeared more chiseled to her.
'Maybe that was only my heat,' she thought with a blush.
She didn't notice her vision was dimming until she was asleep.
The room shook.
"It seems like those bastards are tryin' to bring the whole fucking mountain down on top of us." Ashei said to Link.
He wiped his sword of the midnight blood. "Yeah, well they're not gonna succeed. Death Mountain's a block."
She grunted. Link executed the last Sin with a backhand slash before they continued through the tunnels.
"Do ya reckon we can even do this?" She wondered at him. (By "do this," Ashei meant reclaim the rest of Death Mountain.)
He looked back at her with a bloody grin. "With you, Ashe, I can anything."
She had only smiled then, but later she had wished she'd done so much more.
They emerged in a cave colored a dusky brown. Stalactites had fallen from above, harshly penetrating the ground in spots. It unfortunately provided the enemy with cover, but with the amount of dust and smoke in the air, it didn't matter.
Several Gorons were fighting a double amount of mixed Vin and Sin. The Gorons were bloodied, but the ground below them was muddied with bodies.
"And that's what I like to see. 'EY, Darbus!" Link called.
The huge Goron smashed the skull of an oncoming Sin and searched for the source of the voice. When he had found it, he raised a hand and gave a patented Goron grin. "You're late you bastard!"
Link returned the gesture, leaped off of the ledge they had been standing on and sliced a Vin nearly in half. The purple blood splashed him, nearly obscuring his green garb. Ashei rolled her eyes. 'Always makin' an entrance,' she thought.
Link danced with his steel, weaving a tapestry of macabre joy. His fierce expression nearly prevented her from joining in the dark revelry.
Ashei leaned against a fallen stone, attempting to ignore the pain in her chest.
Link appeared beside her. "How many did you get this time?"
"Six." she panted.
"HA! I got fourteen!"
She responded with a weak punch on his right arm, eliciting a pained expression.
"That's where I got sliced earlier, Ashe! Damn!" he cradled his arm.
She immediately felt sorry until his grimace turned to a smile and he revealed his unmarked bicep. "Other arm, actually."
She punched him harder this time.
They didn't bother to clean up the ebony corpses, preferring to light a fire and have a dinner of dried jerky and whiskey. The Gorons rested their clubs across their knees as they ate, as did Ashei and Link with their swords.
Amid the joking, drinking, and eating, Link shrugged off his equipment and wandered over to the mass of bodies, searching them. They had recently discovered that sometimes one of them would have a strange-looking card-like device; it wasn't paper, rock, metal, or anything they could contrive of, but it seemed important, so Link always insisted on searching the bodies himself.
"Hey, Link." Ashei called without looking back.
"Yeah." Came his reply.
"Found anything?"
"Actually, y-" His voice cut off.
Ashei glanced back. Link stood, arms out to his sides, a blank expression on his face. A thin, black figure stood behind him, and at Link's temples were two teardrop-like fingers.
"NOOO!" Ashei screamed, throwing her sword as hard as she could. It twirled and flipped end over end in the air. The slender creature closed its midnight eyes and, just before her blade reached its head, they both disappeared, the air seeming to bend.
She sank to her knees, her body wracked with silent sobs, her organs feeling as if they were melting. Touching his temples like that... she'd seen it happen to Gorons. Stolen thoughts... forgotten lives. They'd completely forgotten who they had been, all because of two simple touches. She doubled over, clutching her chest. A halting, mournful keen ripped through her lips.