Hi guys, still here. Barely. Sorry for the LONG delay. Just back from a month in Mongolia. Got some amazing inspiration. You'll see a lot of it in the next few chapters. So, I'll let you read on, and I apologise if I'm a bit rusty.

The first thing Silver noticed about Link's mind was that it was quiet. Before, back when they'd fought to rock wyvern, it had been filled with voices from his memories and the constant thrum of his spirit song reverberating through the air. Now…it was silence.

"This is wrong." Midna said, rising up from her seat on Silver's back.

"I know, it was so loud last time." Zelda added, a wistful look on her face as she remembered her days as a child.

"No." Midna said. "I remember Ciara's mind, and every time she was there to meet me. But here, there's no defence."

"Last time, this lion led me to where Link was. But…he's not here."

"Could the Dark imprison the hero's spirit?"

No-one answered.

Around Silver's paws, her mist rose up probing forward. It pooled around the trees, as if searching for something.

"Anything?" Zelda asked.

"They're empty."

"Look." Midna came closer to the tree, her fingers brushing the bark.

"Is that…frost?" Silver sniffed it, it smelt like frost.

"It is a little cold here." Zelda "But I thought that was just your palace Midna."

"I thought it was Silver's mist." Midna said passing the question along.

"No…it is cold here. I can feel it…I'm a wolfos, but I can still feel it." Silver's voice was quiet as fear began to grow inside, coiling around her chest like a lead snake.

There was no wind, and it had begun to snow. Soft flakes falling through the forest, covering the world in a blank canvas.

"Is this the dark?" Midna turned round to look at Zelda.

"No…this…" Her triforce was flashing on her hand. "This is the oni's doing."

Midna shivered and sat on Silver's back, her fingers twining through the wolfos' thick fur.

"Link!" Zelda called.

Her voice was muffled by the snow, which was falling ever thicker.

"Link!" Silver howled.

"He has to be in here somewhere." Zelda said. "Where did you say you saw him Midna?"

Midna shook her head as she thought over what she had seen.

"A burnt out pyre, with Farore's sigil on the trees. But I didn't see any snow…there's no way its here."

The snow was falling in sheets now, as if blanket after blanket was being thrown over the forest. But what was so eerie…there was not a breath of wind, not even a sound.

With a groaning creak, a branch cracked off of a tree and fell to the ground.

Something dark flitted in the corner of Silver's eye. Turning she scanned the forest, ears pricked forward. There, behind those trees.

"Silver!" Zelda called as the wolfos ran off.

"I saw something." Was all the wolfos called in reply as she disappeared into the white out.

The branch was quickly being buried in the snow, but not before Silver saw it.

"Over there." Midna pointed.

A black shadow had darted from the snow and was now fleeing through the forest.

"After it!"

Silver's legs stretched out as she sprinted through the snow, her paws flying. Ahead of her ran her mist, and while Link's mist now formed the basis of the world around them, a small piece of it flew through the air in the form of a little white robin made of snow. Maybe it wanted the old Link back too.

Silver willed her mist to close over the shadow, and it obeyed, fuelled by her desperate desire to find her friend. It stretched over the black shadow, so white it blended into the silent storm. Blue magic flashed through the mist, turning it into ice as thick as a man's forearm.

Silver felt the mental jolt as the shadow slammed into the wall of ice.

By the time they reached it, the shadow had stopped trying to break free and was pacing back and forth in the centre of the dome.

Silver couldn't help the frightened little squeak that escaped her throat.

The shadow was none other than Dal, with glowing red eyes and black fur that seeped shadows and smoke.

"But Dal is a creature of the light…he can't be turned into a shadow." Silver whimpered, trying to rationalise.

"It's just a memory." Midna assured her, stroking the fur on her neck in an attempt to comfort her. "That's not the real Dal."

The black wolf snarled and leapt at the wall again, but a huge spire of ice grew up from the ground around its feet, whiter than naturally possible, and wrapped around the wolf's midriff.

"Silver? What are you doing?"

"Its, its not me."

The memory howled in agony as frost crept over its being, slowly sealing it in ice. The pair could only watch in horror as it was dragged under the snow and disappeared.

As soon as the shadow was gone, the snow stopped as abruptly as it had begun. Silver's mist returned to her, and she took a few tentative steps forward, sniffing the tiny mound of snow. It was if the creature had never been there.

"If the memories are corrupted…is that why Link can't turn back?" Silver asked, remembering their time inside Fi's mind.

"There's a chance. Zelda?" The princess had finally caught up and leant on a tree for support as she panted. "Did Epona ever tell you what exactly happened when she was cursed?"

"No. She was badly injured, she said she doesn't remember anything after fighting her shadow."

"But you don't believe her."

"The triforce lets me see things sometimes. She remembers, even she if she thinks it's just a nightmare. Nubia cursed Link, its why he doesn't talk, and I think Lady Farore locked that curse away."

"So the sigil I saw…"

"Was the seal Farore put on the curse."

"And that's why the oni came out. Because otherwise the curse would've killed Link." Suddenly hope was rushing through Silver, it was a small chance, but a chance nonetheless.

"We have to find that sigil. The dark is probably manifesting itself there."

"That's great and all, but how do we find it? Link's mind could be huge. We'd get lost long before we came close to finding him."

Silver thought back to the lioness, and the lion that had led her the last time she had come. Could Selene find her brother?

As if sensing her thoughts, her mist rose up, picking snow from the ground to form a hazy shape of what could've been a big cat. It looked away, and Silver followed its gaze through the forest. She couldn't see anything, but she had a feeling she was meant to.

"Silver?"

Wait a moment, there in the distance. A small golden glow, like the pre-dawn sky. The same one she had seen when she and not-Zelda had been searching for Link in Fi's mind. She had put it down to the glow of the flames, but…maybe it was the hero spirit instead that she saw.

The mist disintegrated again, but Silver understood now.

"That way."

"Are you sure?" Midna asked.

"Yeh, I'm sure."

"Alright, lead the way." Zelda said.

As Silver led them towards the faint golden glow in the distance, the silence weighed down on her, and worse still, all she could think of was the last time she and Link had been separated like this and she had finally found him, impaled on another Link's sword.

Wait a moment…hadn't Fi mentioned that…

"Zelda, did Link ever tell you what happened in Fi's mind?"

Zelda looked down, sorrow washing over her face.

"Not in any detail, but I…saw it." One hand went to cover the triforce which blinked faintly on her hand.

"I thought…what happened…happened because he needed to be rid of the darkness in him right? So why is it still here?"

Zelda looked down at her feet for a bit, and the silence became even heavier.

"Its because the memories in Fi's mind were just that. They were designed to trap darkness, not destroy it. I suppose all they did was retrap the darkness that had escaped. But I can only guess…"

Silver nodded.

"Fi's mind? Did I miss something?" MIdna asked, looking from princess to wolfos in confusion.

"A lot's been happening since you left." Zelda explained.

"But what happened?"

Silver and Zelda exchanged a glance.

"It doesn't matter now."

"Hey!"

Silver ignored the imp, instead looking at the light which was becoming ever brighter through the trees.

The snow was beginning to fall again, swirling around in wide circles, as if trying to fly. But yet, Silver noted, they were all headed for the ground. It would've been beautiful, if not for the situation which beheld its arrival. Silver scattering on the tall pines that glittered with frost. Curling intricate patterns, like ferns and vines wrapping the trunks in a diamond embrace. The golden glow of the pre-dawn set the snow shimmering which refracted the light into rays of rainbow light. Red and blue and yellow. Those were the colours which now fell upon her fur. The colours of the oni, she realised.

Yet despite the beauty of this place that reminded so much of her own home in SnowPeak. The heavy silence, which spoke so much of death to her weighed down upon her shoulders. It hurt er ears almost, with not even the crunch of her paws on the frozen surface of the snow. No robin song or the long lonely cries of owls. No roars from the ice bears or the distant lowing of reindeer.

Silence

It made her question the goddesses' judgement, to condemn her friend to such a heartless fate.

Crack.

Silver stopped dead.

"Silver?"

"I heard something. Up ahead."

Zelda nodded, drawing her bow.

Midna squinted her eyes, trying to look through the snow.

"That's not all there is up ahead. Look."

Zelda took a few steps forward, peering through the brightness. Silver too, followed.

Oh Din.

Opening up before them, was a charred glade. The black skeletons of trees lay strewn on the floor, glowing faintly with the remnants of Farore's magic.

A dark twisted melody, dissonant and wrong floated from the ground like miasma. The burnt stumps of trees and charred roots which scraped at the sky stretched forward like a battlefield. There in the centre, a burnt out pyre. It was from there, a soft golden glow, as weak as a guttering candle, emanated.

"That the pyre you meant?" Silver asked.

Midna nodded.

Crack.

Everyone heard it that time, and Zelda whirled round, bow already drawn.

"Show yourself!"

At first nothing.

Then a deep low laughter resounded across the grim scene.

A blizzard blew up immediately, sheet upon sheet of snow thrown down to the ground.

Yet the laughter only increased in volume, as if mocking the oni's power.

A deep roar ripped through air, loud enough to make Silver drop to the floor with her tail between her legs.

The laughter stopped, but instead chuckled in mild amusment.

The ground shook, and the blizzard died down to a heavy snowfall.

"Oh Nayru!" Zelda exclaimed, her grip on the bow slackening.

"What-"

The words die in her throat.

For behind her, a giant lion, larger even than the oni wolf, stood shackled behind her. Its white mane was streaked through with purple, and the markings on its face were the same as those on the oni wolf. Yet it wasn't its ferocious appearance that made her legs shake, it was the black shackles that had chained it in place, wrapping around its muzzle, and hobbling its legs.

There was that laughter again, and as the trio spun around to face it, Zelda let out a gasp, drawing her bow back to her ear and firing at the shadow that now emerged from the snow.

"YOU?!" She cried.

As Silver began to discern features, she felt her heart drop into the ground. That wasn't possible. THAT couldn't be here. No, if IT was here then…then…

"Din help us all…" Midna whispered.

Two coal red eyes that burnt with hellfire pierced the whiteness, and skin as grey as the ash that covered the ground. Hair white as bone, and clothes as black as the moonless night, this was a creature Silver had prayed she would never meet. A creature that laughed Link's laugh, and had a maniacal sharp-toothed grin that her Link would never wear.

If Dark Link was here…they may well be too late.

Ok…probably dragged that out just a bit. But anyways, I'll slowly be working towards finishing this thing. I'll try (note the word try) to update at least once a week, and hopefully when I'm on holiday I'll write a lot more chapters (cos I'm sure as hell not doing anymore godforsaken walking). But as results day is coming up (…help…me…) I may disappear, in which case I will be in a hole, crying and questioning the meaning of life. So yeh, and thanks for sticking with me on my EXTRA LONG hiatus.