When Link landed, he found himself in a large room, with several spirits around him. On either side of the door was a set of stairs, each leading up to a raised platform that followed the curve of the back of the room, with regularly spaced out gaps in the platform. In the center of the room was a large statue of some kind of creature, though what it was Link couldn't tell.

Just one sniff of the air was enough to give him a vivid image of the spirits around the room. The selfish man with the metal face shield still cowered by the window, and off to the side were Talo, Beth, and Colin, alongside two people that Link didn't recognize - a man with long black hair and wearing a robe, and a small child wearing a loose vest. Away from the other children stood Malo, watching as the others clung to the man.

"Cripes! I don't see those black brutes anywhere… They've gotta be hidin' somewhere, waitin' for their helpless little prey to come out! Then they'll FEAST!" Link snarled. 'You're scaring the children, jerk.' The other man didn't address the selfish one, instead looking at Talo and speaking softly in a reassuring tone.

"We are safe as long as we remain in here, child. Be at ease." Talo didn't seem especially convinced, and neither was the other man, who lifted up his metal face mask.

"Oh yeah? I wonder if the monsters out there agree with you…" The quieter man seemed to echo Link's anger, but still didn't respond. "They sure didn't seem impressed with my bombs! How long do you think we can hold this sanctuary against beasts that strong, huh?" Talo went back to clinging to the quiet man as the selfish man continued. "Once they attack, it's OVER! Remember the lady from the general store? Just one of those things attacked her, and a whole gang from town went to save her! And what happened? She was already gone, and there were TWO monsters waitin'!" Link blinked. 'He can't mean…' Beth began sobbing quietly.

"... You connectin' the dots? That means that if we get attacked by them, then we'll be-"

"BARNES!" Finally the quiet man raised his voice to snap at the selfish man - Barnes. Barnes simply hmphed, and Beth's sobbing became audible. 'If only they could see me.. I'd tell them that it's going to be okay..' Barnes put his metal face mask back over his face and slowly slid down against the wall, either cackling to himself or crying, Link couldn't tell. The quiet man made a noise of disapproval, likely sharing Link's distaste for Barnes callously scaring the children. Barnes began crawling across the floor towards the others.

"Look, Renado… All I mean to say is that it's risky here too! Ain't you got some place we can hide?" Renado's expression seemed a combination of exasperation and contemplation.

"There is… a cellar." Barnes hurriedly crawled over to Renado and the children.

"WHAAT?! You've got a CELLAR?! Where's the entrance, man?" Renado glanced around the room.

"The entrance to the cellar is designed to open when all of the candles have been lit…" Without even giving Renado the chance to continue, Barnes grabbed a stick, lit it on fire, and lit a small brazier near the central pillar, falling onto his face before he could light the rest.

"... I… would not do that." A female voice calmly chided Barnes, which Link realized belonged to the other child sitting with Renado. "When Father instructed me to secure the cellar, I saw insects like the beasts outside…" Barnes, in a panic, scurried back to the window once more, shivering. Colin walked over to Beth and tried to reach a hand out to comfort her.

"Don't cry, Beth! It'll be OK!" Beth didn't listen, pushing Colin's hand aside and turning closer to Renado and Talo. "Link is coming to save us all!" Beth slowly stopped sobbing, looking at Colin. Even Talo's panic subsided as he looked at Colin. Renado's daughter also looked curiously at Colin. After a few moments, Colin looked down.

"... I can feel it!" Talo hmphed and looked away. Link would be lying if he said he wasn't touched by the faith that Colin placed in him.

"These kids knew you'd come save them! What a hero!" Link let out a low growl. 'Not the time, Midna.'

"How sad, to be right in front of someone and not be noticed at all…" Midna laughed, and again Link let out a low growl. 'Not. The time. Midna.' She didn't seem to notice.

"You are chosen by the gods, and only that keeps you from turning into a spirit, or worse, into a dark monster, when you enter twilight." Her voice lowered. "And no one knows what you have done… You may be doomed to toil in obscurity forever…" Link began growling. 'I'm going to save them regardless.'

"You're the type to worry about everything, I can tell… but don't fret over Princess Zelda! She chose this state of affairs, after all…" That was the last straw. Link raised up on his hind legs, sending Midna flying from his back. He turned and continued growling at her, his ears laid completely back and his tail standing up - a very clear sign of anger. While he couldn't speak, he could make his emotions clear to her. Midna looked up at Link, for a moment surprised by his outburst. Then she smirked.

"My my, did I strike a nerve, wolfy?" Link's expression didn't change, his teeth bared and his eyes narrowed. Midna seemed almost amused.

"Now whatever did I say that's got my poor little servant all worked up?" She laughed, but Link still continued growling at her, staring directly into her eyes. 'You know what you said.' To his surprise, her smirk faltered, just for a moment.

"Well, if you're so angry, why don't you hunt down those insects for the light spirit and cool off? I'll be here when you realize you need my help!" She laughed, almost as if she expected him to be afraid of the idea of not having her help. He glared at her for a few more moments, before abruptly stopping growling and walking over to the now-extinguished torch. 'I'll show you for thinking that I need your help.'

Picking up the extinguished torch in his mouth, he carefully walked past the lit brazier until one end of the torch was on fire. Then, climbing up one of the staircases, he positioned himself so that when he jumped, the torch in his mouth would light the candle. Once all the candles were lit, he turned to see that the statue in the center of the room had moved, revealing a hole in the floor. Link threw the stick to one side, careful to not leave it on one of the carpets, and walked down the other set of stairs. Then he leapt down the hole.

At the bottom of the hole was a narrow corridor, which led to a more open room with various wooden beams holding up the ceiling. Three of the shadow bugs were scuttling around the walls and floors, and three shadow bugs were quickly slain. Link winced as he again tasted the flesh of the shadow insect. 'Still tastes disgusting.' He walked toward one of the bubbles of light that came from the insect, only to be surprised when it wasn't absorbed into himself. 'That's.. strange.' He walked past it a couple more times, but still the bubble floated in place as if he weren't there. He stared at it, pondering for a moment. Then, all at once, realization hit. '... Midna has the vessel. Right.' He scowled, debating between barking up the hole for her or waiting until he had defeated all of the insects.

Truth be told, neither idea was without flaw. He was still mad at her, and right then he didn't want to hear her smarmy comments. If he waited until he'd gotten all the insects, then she'd be forced to be without her "servant" for longer, and she'd have to go along with him while he went and collected the orbs of light. He grimaced. However.. It also meant that he would have to walk around to where all of the orbs were, and that he would have to remember where they all were. For just a moment, he wondered if it might be a good idea to just bark up for her so the light spirit could be healed sooner and so she would just go back to staying in his shadow. But then the anger at her mocking tone bubbled back up. 'She says she needs my help.. only to mock both the children and me, and to blame Princess Zelda for being put into an unwinnable dilemma. Maybe if I take longer, she'll be forced to realize just how much she needs me.'

His mind made up, Link exited the room, finding a series of wooden beams and platforms clinging to the walls. He looked up at the suddenly tall ceiling, seeing what looked to be a hole at the top. 'There, that looks like an exit.' After a moment, he growled and swore to himself.

While he could use the platforms to get up to the hole, he would no doubt need Midna's help. He let out a low growl, scratching at the dirt beneath his feet. 'No. There has to be a way for me to get out of here without her help.'

He examined the beams more closely. Most of the ones immediately within his reach were at an angle, meaning that climbing up them was out of the question. The closest non-angled section of wood was a platform to his left, which he turned to face. He braced himself for a particularly large jump. 'It's just a jumping attack, Link. Pretend the beam is that scarecrow back home…' He closed his eyes, imagining himself easily jumping up to the platform and landing on it without issue. He played the image over and over in his mind. Finally, he opened his eyes, lowered himself to the ground, and leapt into the air.

To his credit, he did stick the landing.. almost. He hadn't noticed that one of the beams in the platform was somewhat broken, and so when he landed on it the beam suddenly snapped apart, sending Link stumbling back down. One of the angled beams roughly struck Link in the side, and when he landed on the ground one of his paws was twisted at a bad angle. As soon as the full force of his weight landed on top of his paw, he let out a loud yelp of pain. He began panting. 'I'll just.. do it again. I can… I can do this.' He went to stand up, only for a jolt of pain to shoot up from his leg, sending him falling back to the floor with another yelp. Despite himself, he let out a whine. 'Did.. did I break my ankle..?' He was no medic, but the searing pain was unlike any pain he'd ever had in his life, dwarfing even the spider sinking its fangs into his arm.

Even with the pain, he again tried to stand up, and again he fell to the floor with a pained yelp. He let out another whine. Defeated, he instead curled himself up as best he could to be comfortable, and closed his eyes. 'What I wouldn't give... for one of those red potions... right now…' In his mind, he could hear the children crying out for him, and he let out a third whine in between panting. The children continued calling out for him, and all he could see was Beth sobbing and Talo clinging to Renado in a panic.

Suddenly, he could feel a burning sensation on his paw. Opening his eyes, he saw the same marking that had been on his hand since birth, now glowing bright yellow on his paw. His eyes widened. 'What..' Before he could finish his thought, he winced as he suddenly felt a tightening and somewhat painful sensation from his injured ankle. In addition to the pain of the injury and the new tension from whatever was happening in his ankle, however, he realized he could feel something in his ankle reconnecting. After many moments of deeply uncomfortable shifting and some mercifully brief moments of searing pain that brought more whines from his throat, it all subsided.

'Is.. is it over?' He lay still for some more moments at first. Then he tentatively stretched the ankle. The pain had mostly subsided, though the area was still sore. Slowly, gingerly, he rose to his feet, only placing the slightest amount of his weight on the formerly injured ankle, despite the difficulty in keeping his balance that way. He drew in a breath, and slowly put more weight on the ankle, until he was standing normally again. The soreness was unpleasant, but unpleasant would not keep him from going forward. He looked up at the now broken platform beam, and would have frowned were he back in his normal body. The other beams may well have been sturdy enough, but with the broken beam there wasn't enough room on the platform. He sat back on his haunches, studying his surroundings. The walls around him were mostly made up of rocks and dirt, as well as being blocked by the diagonal support beams. The rocks likely continued deep into the ground, far below the soft dirt he now sat on.

He blinked, and then studied the dirt near the walls more closely. Sure enough, at the back wall there was a patch of marginally softer dirt. As his paws dug through, he noticed that there was a distinct gap between the rocky wall and the floor. There had been a hole here, maybe a long time ago, but someone had filled it with dirt. Whoever it had been, they had compacted it for good measure. He paused, suddenly apprehensive. 'If there's something back here that someone tried to hide away..' He shook his head and didn't finish the thought, continuing his digging.

Before too long, he found himself in what seemed to be a small, very dark room. He couldn't see anything, could only feel the dirt under the pads of his paws. Despite himself, he let out a low whine, only to snap at himself a moment later. 'Hylia's sake, Link, you're an adult now, you can't still be afraid of the dark!' He shook his head, blinking a couple times. Slowly, his vision adjusted, and he eventually was able to see more of the room he'd found himself in.

The first thing he noticed was a stone pillar standing next to where he found himself, only a little taller than he was as a wolf. There were strange patterns carved into some of the sides, but it was too dark to make out what the designs were. Looking towards the other side of the room, he noticed an identical-looking pillar. He tilted his head to one side. 'What are these for?' After a moment of pondering, he turned to examine the rest of the room.

Large stony brick walls rose up from the ground, not quite tall enough to reach the ceiling, which was higher than that of the cellar hallway. The wall to his right had a large gap in the side he could see, exposing the center bricks. In the gap between the two walls, he noticed several long objects haphazardly strewn across the floor, though it was too dark to tell whether they were wood or stone. At the far end of the room, he could just barely see what looked like a door. He sat on his back legs, curiously looking around the room. 'What is this place?'

Staring up at the ceiling, Link found himself wondering just how far underground he was. There was no hole in the ceiling like there was in the room behind him. He huffed. 'How am I supposed to get out of the cellar?' Again he found his eyes drawn to the wall that was missing a large section of bricks. Noticing that the wall led directly into the dirt wall, he rose to stand and cautiously walked over.

While most of the dirt wall looked tightly packed together with rocks, he noticed a patch of what looked to be softer dirt. He would've raised an eyebrow had he still been human. 'Well isn't that convenient. Maybe there's a way out over there?' With a careful leap, he landed in the section that had broken, narrowly avoiding hitting his back paw against a stray brick that jutted out from the rest. Shaking himself off, he went to the wall and began digging.

Occasionally, the dirt would give way to hard rock, and he would have to change his direction until he was once more digging through softer dirt. He dug for a long time, his paws soon becoming tired, and yet he still continued, spurred on by the hope for an exit. Just as the tiredness and soreness in his paws began to weigh heavier on him, he felt the dirt in front of him loosen. 'There must be an opening here!' With that, he pushed through the exhaustion and dug through the last of the dirt-

Only to choke back a yelp as he almost fell to the ground. He panted and gasped as he steadied himself in the tunnel he'd made. 'Hylia's sakes, that was too close.' As his breathing eased, he looked around to examine where he'd found himself. For a moment, he was excited to have found his exit, until he all at once realized where he was. He had dug back to the room in the cellar with the wooden beams and platforms. Below him was one of the diagonal beams, and across from him was the platform he'd tried to jump onto and fallen from, the broken beam still dangling from where it was still attached to the other beams. He huffed. 'Now how am I supposed to get out of here?' He began shuffling backwards through his tunnel, cursing his rotten luck, before an ear twitched as he faintly heard a sound in the distance. His hackles raised, waiting to see one of the shadowy monsters come writhing down the hallway.

Suddenly, an irritatingly familiar impish form frantically hovered into the room, gasping for air as she paused and looked around the room. Her eyes were wide with panic.

"Where is he, where is he.. that idiot better not have gotten himself hurt, I need him to help me find those Fused Shadows, I don't have a chance against Zant without them.." Link let out a quietly indignant huff. Midna, somehow oblivious to Link's hiding spot, continued looking around the room, then up at the ceiling.

"There's no way he got up there.." She paused, a worried frown visible on her face. "He can't have, it's too high, he'd have to have-" Her voice trailed off as she turned around and no doubt saw the dangling beam, still ever so slightly swaying. She was still for a moment, before looking back up towards the hole in the ceiling. "He better not have..."

Not nice. Link fought back a snort. 'As if what she said could even be called nice. Maybe worrying about me will teach her to not be so insensitive.'

Way out? He huffed, indignant that the not-voice had a point. He hadn't been able to find any way out of the cellar that wouldn't require Midna's help. He let out a quiet sigh, his ears laying back, then let out a loud bark.

Midna, startled, turned around to look towards Link, her eyes still wide. Then her expression shifted, revealing for just a moment the tiniest sliver of relief, before shifting again to one of annoyance.

"You IDIOT! Why did you try to get up without my help?!" Link fought the impulse to flinch at her sharp tone, instead keeping steady eye contact with her with his ears still laying back. 'You know why.' Her annoyance and anger faltered for a second, as if she expected him to seem apologetic. Then she shook her head, and the anger was back.

"Did you forget that you're supposed to help me get those Fused Shadows? I can't do that if you're.." Again she hesitated, the worried frown fading back onto her face. Link would have raised an eyebrow if he could. Midna looked down, quiet for several moments, before looking back up at Link with an expression he couldn't quite read.

"Look, I.. I apologize for what I said, okay?" Her annoyed expression came back, but Link noticed that it wasn't the same as the initial annoyance. He stared at her for some more moments, then sighed internally. 'Fine, that'll do for now. But you owe me a real apology.' His ears went back to their normal position, and he slowly shuffled out of the tunnel. Careful to stay as close to the wall as he could, he slid down to the floor. Then he stepped over the bottom diagonal beam. Midna roughly landed onto his back like normal, and like normal he winced at the suddenness.

"All right, can we get back to chasing those shadow insects?" Link sighed. 'There isn't much choice I have in the matter, is there?'

"Oh, by the way, I collected those three orbs of light back there. You're welcome." She patted Link's shoulder. "Now, let's go!" With that, she floated away from his back and towards the broken platform.

"This scaffold is a bit broken, but there's still enough room for you to land here." He blinked in surprise as Midna used the magic hair-hand to beckon him up onto the platform. "Come on! Hurry up!" He sighed, closing his eyes to focus on the jump. His annoyance and anger towards Midna, the still-present dull soreness in his ankle, his curiosity about the room beyond the cellar.. It all fell away as he forced himself to think only about himself and his target, the platform. He pictured himself easily landing on the still-intact part of the platform and bracing for the next jump. He let out a breath, and opened his eyes to make a high leap.

He exhaled in relief when he landed and the wooden beams held steady. Midna floated over to the platform in front of and above him, and with a leap he landed on that platform as well. A final leap brought him up and out of the hole in the ceiling.