[b][i]Navi[/i][/b]

Navi smiled a little as Link thanked her for taking the reins and leading him out of the city. She'd become accustomed to spending time as Link's companion once more and every now and again she forgot that he was not [i]her[/i] Link and the two men indeed had many differences.

Navi was not altogether comfortable with Midna accompanying them on this journey. She was powerful, she was rash, and she was arrogant and those three things never mixed into something good. But the fairy supposed such a wild card was best kept close where it could be watched. If Midna was not with them Nayru knows were she might end up and what she might start doing.

Navi's blood (or at least the white iridescent liquid Hyruleans would have called blood) froze in her veins when she heard mention of returning to the forest. Of course in the scope of there quest it made sense, the Great Deku Tree always had some helpful insights and if any man wanted to contact the Great Fairy the forest was now the only place to do it. Navi was not in the wider loop of the fairy world but she knew they'd cut themselves off from the human world, fairy fountains dry, the fair folk themselves gone, the Great Fairies none responsive to prayer. All evidence suggested that they had withdrawn deep within the Fairy Realm but of course that invite home did not extend to Navi or any of the renegade fairies.

Still Navi herself could not return to the forest, at one time she had called it home but now? Navi could still hear the voice of the Great Deku Tree rumbling in her ears. [i]Thine crime has cost everything Navi, go from this place, the forest no longer welcomes thee. GO! For I vow to thee that if thou wouldst ever set foot on Farore's domain again the very earth shall swallow you up in vengeance.[/i]

It had not been so much the threat that scared Navi as the sound of the Deku Trees voice. He had always been a great and benevolent protector of all the world's creatures, never had she heard him raise his voice except in that one moment of pure anger. It had been as though her own father had thrown her from his house, as if her family had deserted her, Navi had cried that night for all she had lost and even more so for all she had cost others.

Perhaps the presence of the hero would protect her. Either way it did not matter, Link would go to the forest one way or another, with Navi or without her. If he was to have any hope of navigating it's depths he needed her, she couldn't let him end up like her hero had. So Navi numb to sensation allowed herself to be helped onto the back of Epona's saddle. Her fairy form was far more efficient means of travel but if this truly was it for her then she wanted to enjoy it. To smell the air and feel the wind in her face one last time. As they rode Link began to hum the ancient Song of the Forest, in Navi's time Saria the Forest Sage had claimed it as her own melody but it was much older than that. The melody when sung through the right receptacle forged a bond between the heart of the forest and the one singing.

Navi began to sing the song alone with Link and as her voice gave shade to each note, it brought forth images of lush forests and relaxing waters, of the dew on the grass and the smell of bark on the trees, of Life in it's purest form. Navi sung those notes until Epona arrived at the entrance to the Lost Woods that protected the Kikiri Forests.

---

[i][b]Zelda[/b][/i]

Zelda listened with interest to Shadow Link speak. He claimed to be the Hero's shadow which as far as the legends were aware he was, though the next thing he said was most intriguing. He told her while the Hero was reincarnated over and over again in different forms there had only ever been a single Shadow Link. Did this mean that he existed throughout space and time. But they said he was only ever active at the same time as the Hero, so perhaps some sort of hibernation period was enacted upon him whenever the Hero was not there for him to challenge? If that was true however then why attempt to kill him? It seemed to Zelda that Link and Shadow Link existed as two sides of the same coin the shadow could not exist without the caster, so why would he try to destroy the thing that brought him into being in the first place.

Zelda was so engrossed in inventing theories on Shadow Link that she almost missed his next question. She considered whether to answer or not, one one hand she could deny she knew what he was talking about but then again why bother Ganondorf was aware that the holders of the Triforce of Wisdom possessed the ability to communicate with the other two thirds of the golden power and it wasn't like there was anything he could do to stop her from doing it. Then an idea hit her. 

"I will make you a deal, let us turn this into a game, a question for a question. You can ask me anything and as long as it does not compromise my people or my land I will endeavor to answer honestly, if it does then I will inform you thus and you are free to choose a new question. The same applies to you. As for you first question, I've been able to use the Triforce as a means of communication nearly my whole life, but without someone holding the Triforce of Courage it was more or less useless. It can't exactly be used as a means of eavesdropping and I don't believe your master and I have ever had anything worth discussing." 

Zelda was quite for a moment thinking about exactly what she wanted to know about the Shadow. She decided on the thing that she most questioned about his existence. "You claim to be unlike the Hero only one in number. If this is true then the Hero's Shadow mentioned in all the legends is you. This makes you as old as the Cycle of the Goddesses itself and yet there is no mention of you appearing at a time when the Hero did not. So you must have to coexist with him correct, if there is not Hero, there in no Shadow. Why then do you try to destroy him if he is the very thing that allows you to exist in this realm?"