Shadow of the Fallen Lands

~Twilight~

I was sat by myself in the comfortable warm silence of my old tree house, carefully whittling a little stick into a short flute for Colin, when an annoyingly loud and very urgent sounding shout slammed my sensitive hylian ears. Groaning softly and covering them with my hands as they began to ring at the noise, I growled under my breath.

"Liiiiiiiiiink!!"

"Damn kids... gah," Placing my tools and half finished flute aside, I strode to the window, pushing open the shutters and looking out. "What is it now?"

Talo's pokey face immediately jumped out at me as he raised his hands to his mouth to holler my name again. Just to get him to stop shouting, I reluctantly pulled my cracking, scratchy boots on and shoved open the door hard enough to slam it against the tree trunk supporting my home. I strode out onto my little porch, grumbling under my breath as another yell assaulted my delicate hearing. 

"Liiiiiiiiiiiiink!!!!" 

It was Talo, jumping on the spot and yelling out my name like the world was ending. His more sensible brother Malo was just standing there beside him, watching with bored eyes as his older brother kept up with screaming my name. Well, at least Talo was yelling loud enough to scare away any monsters in a ten mile radius. Malo looked depressed, as usual. I could relate to him in that regard, really.

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"Hey Link! There's these two guys in our forest who keep talkin' kinda suspicious!" Talo shouted up to me.

 I screamed internally, yet another problem dumped at my tired feet, but for these kids, well, I had to admit I'd end the world for them. "Really? Ya sure they weren' jus' takin' a walk? Ya can't jus' target every odd person ya see. Hyrule'd be empty as my wallet." 

But against my better judgement I jumped down to them anyway. It made me feel a little lighter to see how Talo's eyes lit up when I joined them on the ground. I like children, okay. I'm good with them, at least.

 "So" Talo began, puffing up his chest importantly. I almost snickered. He looked like one of Queen Zelda's officials, all inflated and buoyant with pride.

"There's these two weird men walking through our forest, and-" 

Malo interrupted with a bored grunt, eyes downcast. "Get to the point, Talo, you've already said that bit. Stop talking in circles." 

Talo stuck his tongue out at his brother, jeering at him.  "Yeah yeah! So, anyway, I just happened to overhear them talking. Totally wasn't eavesdropping. " He looked at me with those shrewd eyes, locking me into intense eye contact that almost made my wolf side want to bow in submission. Then, he took a deep breath through his nose and began to tell me of his findings.

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"So these two people, two guys were walking through the woods. One was all big and scary, he had cool marks like yours, Link! Oh, and his nose was super pointy. The other one was short and soft looking, like he'd cry if you pranked him. Y'know, that kind of guy?"

I nodded, listening. This was interesting to me and, shifting on my heels, I knelt down to listen better.

"Let's see...." Talo tapped his chin as he picked up where he left off. "Oh, yeah! They were talking about, uh, I don't really get this part, that this isn't either of their Hyrules, like Hyrules, plural. I dunno much about the land, but I thought there's only one Hyrule, right? Oh, oh, and the soft one was apparently called 'Sky' and the big one was called 'Time'." 

I nodded slowly. Sky and Time. Those weren't names I'd ever heard before, in Hyrule or in the Twilight. Talo stared meaningfully at me as I thought it through, refusing to look away from my eyes, or even blink. I found it a bit unnerving how insistent on eye contact he was, but as long as he gave me the information I wasn't really bothered. 

"So this 'Time' was saying about the Goddess Hylia, he said some bad words about her, and he also mentioned that they... they were both really named Link, Link!" 

I felt my weather-beaten face pale slightly against my will; my Wolfmarks began to itch uncomfortably, feeling like they were crawling across my skin. Talo grinned triumphantly at my discomfort and turned to run off. 

"Told ya it was suspicious!!"He yelled back at me over his shoulder. I felt my invisible hackles rise and I bared my teeth in a Hylian mockery of a wolf snarl. 

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I scaled the latter back into my treehouse with one hand, hastily rushing to strap my battered old sword to my back in its fraying scabbard, along with my round shield, straightening my tunic. I took a growling breath, throwing myself to the ground below and setting off into the forest at a comfortable jog, occasionally skipping wolfishly through the scrub in search of these strangers' scents. I'd deal with these impersonators, whoever they truly were behind their false names. Once I was out of earshot and eyeshot of anyone who could possibly see me from within the village, especially young Colin, I pulled out my Shard of Twilight out from underneath my tunic collar. Holding its sharp weight in my hand, memories of her impish laughter washed my mind like balm. Nothing mattered as much, and in this calmer state I breathed in, thinking of becoming the familiar form of a huge black wolf. I felt the markings on my forehead burn painfully as I once again occupied the body of Midna's blue eyed mutt.

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I bounded through the restrictive undergrowth, my fur scratching against the coarse grasses, crashing into bushes, leaping over clumps of leaves. Anything to catch up to these potentially dangerous strangers. I'd fight them if I had to, just to get them away from my home of Ordon. I had always been the only Hylian who lived there, and I still was. If they had pointy ears, they didn't belong here. They weren't friends. The people of the Ordona Province had smooth rounded ears, friendly ears that I could trust. So, because they weren't friends, weren't trustable, they needed to leave my village alone. I ate up the mud beneath my thumping paws, until I saw a flash of golden blonde hair from behind a tree, and I stalled, eyes narrowing as I stalked towards it. My wolf fighting skills were rusty, to say the least, so I took a minute to transform back. I drew my ragged-edged sword with a small grinding noise and waited. Watched. Waited. Watched. 

I would bide my time like a true hunter and attack with fire when they least expected it.

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