A Link to the Past
Chapter Forty Four: Trust
Apparently, Ganondorf's offer that whoever killed Link would be sent back to Hyrule extended to the exiled fairy Queen as well, since when the young man pulled his hand out of the second brazier, the other gift she had for him was the Misery Mire's lost crystal. Unlike all of the other desperate creatures inhabiting the Dark World, Venus knew that anything the monster promised was a lie, and now everything started to get dark around him as the trapped girl began to speak. Again, this was not Zelda, but it did mean that now the only remaining one to find had to be the captive Princess, but even if this one knew where Zelda and the others had been taken, how in the world was Link supposed to get out of the stormy swamp?
I am grateful that you found me, but there is only a little time left before the Wisemen's Seal is completely destroyed and Ganondorf will be free to enter Hyrule. He said that the largest opening will occur where Agahnim performed the rituals to trap us in the castle, and that means here that it will open inside of pyramid temple where you first arrived. If Ganondorf makes it through into our world and his wish to conquer the world is completed, then nothing will be able to stop him from making even more wishes.
"But how can I stop him?" The young man asked, his voice with a slight echo in the darkness. "I'm trapped in this swamp, with no way out."
Link, you must find a way to escape, you absolutely must. Then you must make your way to a place called Turtle Rock, this is where Ganondorf said the Princess is being held, but without the magics that he and Agahnim possess, it is impossible to reach from inside the Dark World, sort of like how you couldn't enter or leave the swamp. But Agahnim placed a spell to make it impossible for me to lead you there. You must find a way, Link… get back to Hyrule and find a way.
The darkness faded, replaced with the dim flickering light of Venus's cave, and now the crystal was silent. At least now he knew the name of the place where Princess Zelda was being held, but without the crystals to guide him, the only thing the young man could do at the moment was travel back through the crack between worlds, but… how in either world was he going to do that? There was no way to scale the cliffs around Misery Mire, and the glove didn't give him enough strength to move the rocks that the wizard put in the way… the Queen of the fairies could probably do it, but the Dark World was draining away all her strength, and he didn't have the slightest clue how to stop the Triforce's magic from affecting…
Wait a minute, maybe there was a way… reaching into his pocket and touching the moon pearl he had taken from Agahnim… if the gem had the power to stop Link from transforming into a pink bunny rabbit, was it strong enough to do the same for Venus? There was only one way to find out, and since the fairy queen had both saved him from the wizard and gave him those gifts, it was worth the risk to trust her with it… wasn't it? No, Venus wouldn't take the pearl and leave him trapped in Misery Mire… would she? For several minutes the young man wrestled with the choice, and then took the gem out of his pocket, feeling his own body transform as he tossed it over to her.
It only took a couple seconds, and now Link's hands were replaced with paws, while the rest of his skin was replaced with pink fur, leaving him as the rabbit he had become after first arriving in the Dark World, ears and all. Venus, however, was engulfed in a flash of green light as soon as she reflexively caught the moon pearl in her clawed, twisted hand, giving the young man a fast glimpse of her monstrous, deformed face when the hood she was wearing moved, before the green light became too intense for him to keep looking. A few seconds later the light reduced, and now all Link could do was stare in awe at the beautiful figure before him.
The hood and cloak had fallen to the floor, revealing a tall woman with long brown hair, her green dress shimmering while the feathered wings on her back slowly spread out as if having been restricted for a long time. Although the metal braziers were still lit, their flickering orange light was dwarfed by the intense green to the point where they almost weren't visible, and then the fires were extinguished, the metal frames falling over with a hollow clang when the fairy queen beat her wings hard enough to rise a few inches from the stone floor before gracefully landing again. Smiling, Venus looked down at the gem in her hand, but that smile faded when she saw what had become of Link.
"Why would you give this to me?" She asked, the green glow intensifying as she walked closer to him. "You've doomed yourself to the corruption of the Dark World… why?"
"I've helped others to escape from here… tried to, anyway." He replied, forgetting how much harder it was to talk with rabbit teeth. "Things like greed and fear will just keep us all trapped, but if we truly work together then maybe your power and my moon pearl can get us both out."
What he was saying was true; remembering how Kiki the monkey ran off once he got paid, and how the terrified prisoners in that ice dungeon ended up frozen… but when the young man and Maple worked together they both escaped, and now Link was hoping that the same thing would happen with Venus. The fairy queen just stood there for a while, and then with a great flap of her wings, the cave was left in darkness as she flew off toward the entrance, leaving him standing there like an idiot. Oh no, he thought, turning around toward the entrance just in time to see her green light fading, no-no-no-no-no!
Kind of stumbling as he ran toward the outside, the young man tripped on a rock and stumbled more, ending up falling face first into the murky water when he left the cave entrance, scrambling to his hands and knees and looking around for any sign of her. The rain was really coming down now, making Link have to repeatedly wipe his eyes to see, while his rabbit fur and long ears only seemed to catch more water that ran right down his face. Following the cliffs back the way he came, with no sign of the fairy queen anywhere, the young man was starting to panic, since without her there was no way for him to ever leave the swamp… she could have flown them over the cliffs or something, but no she had just left him.
"Venus!" Link called, his voice drowned out by a crash of thunder. "Venus, come back! Don't leave me here!"
Had she flown off? Had she gone deeper into the swamp? Back the way he came? There was no way to know, so the young man just kept going, walking along the cliffs until something unexpected happened. The crystal in his pocket began to vibrate, pointed in the direction that he was headed, and leading Link all the way back to the collapsed mine entrance… only it was no longer collapsed. The rocks that Agahnim put in the way had all been pushed aside, some leaving drag marks to their new positions, and some in the water as if they had been rolled, leaving the way through into the wooden beams holding it up cleared. Venus must've come this was, going on how the young man had described where he came in, and then… what was that?
Approaching the entrance to the short mine, Link noticed something lying on the ground just past the support beams, something that reflected it the next time that lightning split the sky. It was the moon pearl, the fairy queen must've left it there before stepping through the crack between worlds… she hadn't abandoned him after all, and now that the gem was in his hand again, the young man could feel his body returning to its normal state again. With absolutely no desire to spend another second in this swamp, he walked to the back of the chamber, emerging back into the dunes after falling through the light and noise. Even though the dirt was wet and muddy from the constantly falling rain of Hyrule, Link had never been so happy to see a place in his life, falling to his knees and kissing the dirt, only to spit it out after realizing how silly that was to do.
Still no sign of Venus as he looked around, meaning that the fairy queen had probably really flown off this time, but at least now they were both free. All right, the young man had returned to Hyrule just like the trapped girl in the crystal said, and now… how was he supposed to find this Turtle Rock place? It wasn't like anyone in Hyrule had ever heard of it, and Maple spent her whole time there in the dungeons underneath the Village of Outcasts, so who could he possibly ask? Sahasrahla? No, the old man had never set foot in the Dark World before, and besides, he had helped enough. If this was a normal problem about not knowing what to do or where to go, most people in Hyrule visited the local fortune teller, but was this something that they could help with?
The crystal in his pocket wasn't vibrating at all now, meaning that the trapped girl didn't have any more knowledge to share, so… he supposed that there wasn't anything left to lose. The fortune teller's home was on the shore of Lake Hylia, a pretty good walk from even the edges of the dunes where Link was, but at least the sun was out. It wasn't raining nearly as hard in Hyrule as it had been when he left Misery Mire, and the sun's positions behind the gray clouds meant that it was still morning, and… it was so hard to keep track of time in the Dark World, not that it mattered since no one aged there. No more time for thinking, had to get a move on, since there wasn't much time left before Ganondorf was able to get free.
Days? Hours? There was no way to tell since the girls in the crystals hadn't given him details, but right now the fortune teller was the only plan he had, so Link used the power of the glove and sprinted away from the dunes, heading back into the grasslands, hoping to find a way to finally rescue Princess Zelda and save Hyrule from that monster.