The Wolves (Discontinued)

Chapter 8: The Forest Temple

They awoke face down on the floor in front of the temple. Midna was hovering over them, looking at them worriedly, paying special attention towards Link.

"Are you ok guys? That golden wolf was just sitting there and leapt at you guys then you passed out and wouldn't respond to me." Midna said rushing through her words, her eyes widened with worry.

"Don't worry Midna. We were fine. In fact, there was a phantom there who taught us a new move." Zelda responded.

"WELL I JUST CAN'T NOT WORRY!!! YOU GUYS COULD HAVE BEEN DEAD AND--" Midna cut herself off.

"Never mind." Shaking her head, Midna disappeared into Zelda's shadow. "Midna..." Zelda trailed off.

"Alright. Let's just get to the temple already." Trotting up to the door, she saw that the path was blocked by a huge, thick spider web. Drawing her sword out, she slashed at the web, just to have her sword get stuck in the sticky string. Grunting Zelda freed her sword, and tried again, to no avail.

"You try." Zelda grunted frustratedly.

Chuckling amusedly, Link said, "Very well. I doubt that your way of trying to get through it will work so..." Walking up to the spiderweb, he lit his lantern and set the web on fire. Watching it smugly, the web burned up almost instantly.

"Hmph. I knew that would work. I was just seeing if you would come up with that." Zelda said crossly. Angrily stalking forward, Zelda saw a monkey stuck in a cage by a wall covered in vines. Whipping out her sword, Zelda smashed it into the top of the cage as hard as possible. The monkey pressed its body into one side of the cage right before Zelda slashed at it. With that one strike, the sword bit through the wood easily and thumped on the floor of the cage with a thud. Panting heavily Zelda sheathed her sword. Brushing her hair out of her face she strided up to the vines. Looking up, she saw two small spiders walking around on the wall. Shrugging she pulled out a slingshot from her back pocket, pulled out a pumpkin seed, and shot it at the spiders. The spiders died instantly, curling up into a little ball and exploding into black clouds. Tucking the slingshot back into her pocket, she ignored Link's call for her. Gripping the vines securely, she grunted and pulled herself onto the vines. Looking up, she climbed up the vines easily. She reached the door and gripped it firmly and right before she wrenched it open, Link put his hand on her shoulder. Stopping, Zelda looked down and took a deep breath in.

"Look at me." Link said coaxingly. Looking up, Zelda looked into Link's crystal clear blue eyes.

Just say it! Zelda thought. Before she could react to their moment of silence, Link backed away and cleared his throat awkwardly.

"Umm.. just.. calm down. It's no big deal that you couldn't do it. You did everything else on your own, that was just one small thing that I figured out." Link said avoiding eye contact with Zelda.

"It- wasn't- that." Zelda said, looking down.

"So then what was it?" Link said, finally looking at Zelda.

Oh, just that I was jealous about how you seem to be friendlier towards Midna than me. And the fact that you would never like me, and that you think of me as your sister. But no biggie. Not like I like you or anything so it doesn't matter.

"Oh, umm..... I don't want to talk about it.." Zelda said, dancing around the question.

"Well just so you know.. I'm always here. You can tell me anything." Link said. Forcing herself to turn away, Zelda opened the door to a dark, damp tunnel. Spotting a shaking pot, Zelda turned her head curiously and walked over. Looking at the pot, Zelda picked it up and slammed it into the floor. Bouncing out, came a strange creature. It was a skin-colored bird animal with small wings and a human face with pink eyes, and no ears, just two small holes on each side of it's face.

"Hello! Thank you for freeing me from that jar! I'm Ooccoo! I got stuck in that jar because I was looking for something! Oh-- you're an adventurer! Can you take me with you? Maybe you'll find what I've been looking for! I'm not a useless lump of feathers, I can teleport you out of this temple and return you to the same exact room that you were just in!" Ooccoo said excitedly.

"Of course! We could do with some company." Link said warmly. "Thank you! I'll just fit in your bag!" Ooccoo said, hopping into Zelda's small pouch on her hip.

"But you don't fit--" Zelda stopped suddenly when she saw Ooccoo's entire body fit into the pouch.

"Wha..." Zelda said wonderingly.

"Wow! This place is HUGE!" Ooccoo said. Opening her pouch, Zelda saw what looked like a store. There were huge cabinet-like things in it, and it was very small. Reaching in, she saw that her hand seemed to shrink and fit in the cabinets. Gasping, Zelda realized the cabinets were almost as big as a garage.

"Wow." Zelda said. Taking her hand out, she raised her eyebrows and simply continued on her path over to the next room. Opening the door, Zelda saw that they were standing on a raised surface and there were ladders leading down to a pool of water with lily pads scattered around the water. Cautiously stepping on a bridge leading to the next platform, Zelda was relieved when the bridge didn't collapse. Jogging across, she opened the next door which had stairs leading up to a raised platform with a chest hanging from the ceiling by a spider web which looked just as sturdy as the one they encountered outside of the temple.

Woah... Zelda walked up the steps and almost screamed when a spider bigger than a horse fell just five feet from her. Rearing up to its four back legs, she saw huge fangs the size of her head, dripping with green, poisonous saliva. Drawing her sword from its sheath, she held it at the ready, Link right at her side, sword and shield up. The spider let out an inhuman shriek and lunged toward them.