A Mask Named Majora

by Dihinner

Thorns and Tendrils

The forest can be a dangerous place, even more so for the unprepared. Link and Epona walked silently in the Everfree forest, searching for the missing mirror shield. Link had seen something glinting in the forest not long before they entered. Although it was not the lost woods, there was still some comfort being in a forest that resembled home.

“So Link, where do you think your shield is?” asked Epona. Link nodded and pointed to something glimmering in the underbrush. Cautiously, Link walked over to it. He parted the bush and saw that it indeed was his mirror shield. He flipped it over and grabbed the handle with his mouth. He then asked Epona if she could find some vines.

“Sure thing,” she said as she started to bite vines away from the trees as Link drew out how he could wear the shield in the dirt. Satisfied with the design, Epona returned with the vines. After a complex procedure of tying the knots of the vines to the shield, Link managed to strap the shield to his chest.

“So… it works?” asked Epona. Link nodded, “great! Now we go find the forest palace.”

The two continued to walk through the forest until they heard the bell’s ring. Link gazed into the sky to see the sun setting. A wolf howled in the distance. ‘It’s night already? We should move faster.’ When the sun finally set, Link and Epona felt a sense of unease, like something was watching them. Twigs cracked under foot as they could slowly see some sort of building covered with greenery. After walking past some trees, they arrived at the old castle of the princesses. Link stared at the ruined building, for it was vaguely reminiscence of the Hyrule castle.

“Well,” said Epona, “here we are.” The castle loomed menacingly over them as the moon loomed menacingly over the castle. Epona sighed, “Shall we start looking?” she asked as they entered the old stone doors. The thin rays from the stars reflected off the mirror shield as they walked past some shattered windows.

“What do you think happened here?” asked Epona, “could this be the aftermath of the fight with the demon Discord?”

Link shrugged as something in the air stirred.

“DDDDDDDDiiiiiiiiisssssssscccccccccccooooooorrrrrrddddddddddddd” a chilling voice filled the air.

“Who said that?” asked Epona as she looked around the room for the source of the voice.

“Do not sssspeak of his filth in our presence… he killed us and turned us into freaksss…”

“Who are you?” asked Epona who was clearly disturbed by the voice.

“My name is shrouded in the darkest legends and the most horrific nightmaressss. Only few have known my true name. And all of them ended the ssssame way…”

Suddenly, hundreds of bones and bodies of dead ponies rose from the ground and came out of the walls. Their blank, empty eyes stared at Link and Epona. By far the most disturbing one was the pony with the white pith helmet, as it still had some rotting tan flesh on it.

“Only six have passed through this place unharmed… they were protected by the sssun. But you are not…” slowly, the shadows and greenery from across the room slowly started to mat together into a large shape. Link and Epona were pushed back by a bolt of shadow as a gigantic monster made from nothing but vines and shadows took form in the center of the room. It gave a deafening roar as it completed its formation. Thousands of thorns took the place of teeth in its mouth. It made what could only be described as a smile that would terrify even Discord as it walked up to the two ponies.

“You are fools for coming here. Now you will share their fate,” whispered the monster. It lashed out giant shadow tendrils at Link and Epona, who narrowly dodged them in time. The monster shrieked as it let lose another barrage of the tendrils. Epona grabbed a sharp stone and brought it down on one of the close by tendrils. It shadow monster roared in pain.

“Do you think that mere stones can best ME?!”

Epona gave a half-hearted shrug as she dodged more tendrils, “it was worth a shot.” This caused Link to chuckle slightly, despite the threat against their lives. The monster shrieked again.

“STOP THE VILE SOUND!”

Epona looked confused, “what sound?” she jumped out of the way of an incoming barrage of thorns, “you mean his laughter? What’s so bad about that?”

“It burnsss me!” said the monster as it fired a bolt of pure shadow at link, who managed to reflect it back at the monster. The reflected bolt shone brightly as it came in contact with Links mirror shield, causing it to become a bolt of light. The monster roared at Link as the newly formed light bolt hit it.

“You’ll pay for that boy!” it said as it fired out hundreds of thousands of thorns at Link. He managed to dodge out of the way of most of them but only after a small black one struck his leg. It pulsated slightly and sank into his flesh. Link barely noticed the hit as the monster prepared to attack him again. Suddenly, the sounds of the clock bells were heard in the distance.

‘Morning already?’ thought Link as he saw that the sun was indeed coming in the sky. Multiple beams of light cascaded into the cold room causing the vine shadow monster to retreat into a darker part of the room. ‘It’s afraid of light?’ he thought, ‘maybe I can defeat it like I did with the solders of Ikana...’ the idea gave Link new found energy as he ran into the light and bent himself in a way so the shield was reflecting the light at the monster. A bright flame erupted on its demonic body. It screeched at Link as it replaced a combination of thorns and shadow tendrils at Link. He closed his eyes knowing there was no way he could dodge them and kill the monster at the same time. He braced himself for the impact when.

“Watch out!” cried out Epona as she drove in the way of the incoming projectiles. An eruption of pure shadow enveloped Epona as she skidded across the ground, covered with thorns and impact marks from the tendrils. It took all of his self-control to not rush over to Epona. He had to kill it now or Epona would have sacrificed herself for nothing. Finally, the entire room was filled with sunlight and Link stepped forwards as the mirror shield reinforced the sunlight making it a pure beam of light energy.

The monster hissed as it became fully engulfed in flames and exploded violently into burnt plant pieces. Link ran over to Epona to make sure she was alright. Doing so, he failed to notice a bright silver form emerge from the center of the dead remains of the monster. The being noticed Link trying to help his fallen friend and smiled.

“You have shone great courage you two,” it said warmly as a thin beam of light came off of its horn and landed on Epona, curing her of her injuries. She slowly got up from the ground.

“W-who are you?” she asked shakely.

It made a small laugh, “I am the alicorn of laughter. I was slain by the demon Discord many years ago. Throughout the years I have been corrupted by him until I finally became… that,” it said gesturing to the burnt plant life. “My two friends defeated the demon and imprisoned him. Unfortunately, the seal broke little over a year ago and he nearly plunged the and into chaos. He was defeated yet again by six new ponies. Find them. I understand your task and what you must do. Here, take this,” it said producing an old silver helmet, “it will aid you on your quest to stop a new demon. Go now, and may time be in your favor.” With that, the alicorn of laughter faded into nothingness with the faint sound of happy laughter echoing in the room. The two stared at what they had just seen.

“So uh, I guess we go back huh?” asked Epona. Link nodded and they left the battle scared room, the resting place of the original element of laughter.

*********************************************************************************************************

“Stupid green boy. Stupid horse,” mused Majora. It had over powered the demon that had taken over the element of laughter. Unfortunately, it had not counted on Link finding his mirror shield. It remembered it being used against it on a moon not so different from this one. “Think your so clever green boy? Think you can save all the horses with just a funny blue music thing? Well, how do you like this?!” It said as a beam of dark purple shot across the sky and into the mountain…

Comments

[lol2424242424]

Skeleton ponies, I KNEW IT! also on a criticizer note, I saw that you forgot to finish words and sentences, so it might be a good idea to double check before uploading to help prevent that in the future, but still a great story so far.

[Dihinner]

1614380

i did?

can you tell me which ones 'cause i cant find them.

[lol2424242424]

>>Dihinner in the third chapter, you called link "lin", you can't forget the k, and I can't find the one sentence, but there was a word missing that I knew should have been there, just remember to triple check after the double check to make sure you didn't miss anything when you double checked it.

[McPoopin]

Ah yes, the dreaded Bush Dungeon, home to the Mirror Shield. Not the most difficult dungeon perhaps, but it is still not one for the weak of heart.