So, uh… This is new. And it's a bit out of my comfort zone, because as opposed to jumping from one person's perspective to another, we are being confined to Link's point of view. This is annoying because it means that I always have to be doing something, and when I run out of ideas for a part, I have to come up with something, rather than jumping to another character's perspective. So if it's not good, we can blame that.

DISCLAIMERS:

- If I owned Legend of Zelda, I would be morally obligated to rename the series to Legend of Link. However, contrary to popular belief, Darth Furiz does not own Legend of Zelda.

- No animals or people were harmed in the making of this fic.

- No money was made from the production of this fic.

- The views and beliefs stated in this fic do not necessarily align with those of the author.

- This fic is rated T for gore, excessive swearing, extreme angst, and far too much dark magic. You have been warned.

- The author is not being blackmailed into writing these disclaimers.

- On an unrelated note, PLEASE REVIEW.

Prologue: In the Wake of an End

Link awoke to the sound of birds cawing and crickets chirping. The clouds over the forest were dark, signifying that it was either late at night or early in the morning-

Wait. Forest? Since when was he in a forest? His last memory was of Zelda saying goodbye as she sent him back with the Ocarina of Time. The last time he was in the forest was when he was delivering that poultice for that one depressed fellow who eventually turned into a Stalfos, probably. The Hero of Time stared at his hands, confounded. Even in the dark, he could clearly see that he was in his child form, his palms having none of the callouses he had garnered during his adventure. Now that he looked around, he could see that he was in his childhood home in Kokiri Forest, which would explain the lesser fairies zipping around outside the little cloth he called a door.

Was any of it real? Or was it all just a dream, a make-believe adventure inside of Link's head? Was there anything outside of the forest, or was it just more forest? Or did the world just abruptly end, with a sheer cliff being the only thing separating him from the endless expanse of space?

If he were less tired and confused, he would have noticed that he was lying with his head to the left of the door, not to the right like he remembered.

"Hey, freak!" a voice rang out. "What's up with the lightshow? You're keeping everyone up!"

Regretting every instant of action, Link hauled himself out of his tiny wooden bed and peeked out the door. Sure enough, the entirety of the Kokiri populus, lead by their self-appointed 'boss', Mido, had gathered around the ladder leading to the small patio of his house.

"What lightshow?" he asked groggily. He instantly noticed how high his voice was. He hated it with a passion.

"Don't play dumb, Mister No-Fairy!" Mido yelled accusingly. "You can't tell me you didn't see the big old blue pillar that just shot out of your house? None of us could sleep through that, not even you, lazypants!"

Link cocked an eyebrow, which had little effect due to the heavy tiredness trying to force his eyes shut. "I have no recollection of this 'big old blue pillar' of which you speak," he replied curtly, adding on additional quotation marks with his fingers.

Somewhere in the distance, an owl hooted and something else groaned.

Mido scowled, an expression that was not hidden by the darkness. "But you— we all saw— whatever! Just stop it, okay, fairyless?"

Link rolled his eyes exaggeratedly, noting that little had changed in terms of Mido's temperament. "Go back to sleep, guys. Wake me up if anything happens, okay?"

The forest inhabitants shrugged at this and returned to their homes, apparently similarly eager to go to sleep once more.

The former Hero of Time, upon noticing that everyone had left, drunkenly staggered back into his tree house, threw himself back into his rock-solid bed, and slumbered.

He didn't think it was odd that he slept with his eyes open.

!0*0!

Link awoke again in a cold sweat, this time to sunlight streaming through his window directly onto his face. He rubbed his eyes to shake the rest of his lethargy out of his system, and instantly noticed a slight headache that he tacked up to fatigue from his final battle with Ganondorf. Maybe Saria would have some herbs or something to alleviate it.

He casually exited his bed before lurching forwards. Something felt off about his balance, like his center of mass has shifted without him realizing it. The best option would be to carry something on his back, in order to add more weight behind him to stabilize his body. That made sense; he must have grown used to the weight of a sword and shield secured to his back. Link eyed a rake leaning in the corner of the room before grabbing it and slinging it over his left shoulder- only for it to clatter to the ground with a bang. The former Hero of Time turned, confused, before looking down at his attire. Ah, that was it: The sash on his torso was put on wrong. Instead of going over his left shoulder, it went over his right. Link chuckled to himself over the small matter and proceeded to replace the shirt with another, only to realize that all of his tunics had the sash going over the right shoulder. Odd. It wasn't an issue, though; all he had to do was clip the rake over the right shoulder instead of the left. The gardening tool felt natural in this state, and while his mind told Link that this was wrong, it still felt oddly right.

He absentmindedly wondered who would be waiting for him at the bottom of the ladder that day. He had estimated that there would be at least a fifty-fifty chance of it being Saria, but if it wasn't her, than it was probably Mido and the rest of the Do's. They were all relentless bullies, and Link could distinctly remember crying to himself in his little tree house before he had met Navi.

Navi… Where was she now? Link glanced over at the bulletin board by his bed, noting that it was in the wrong place before glancing at the date. If his memory was correct, tomorrow was the day Navi was going to appear to him. Link couldn't wait.

His headache chose that moment to intensify. It felt like all the energy was being drained from him. Link wasn't a fan of the feeling at all.

Having affixed his Kokiri hat onto his skull, Link stepped out of the tree house to be greeted by… no one. Funny. He couldn't remember the last time nobody was waiting for him at the foot of his house. Then again, he couldn't remember the last time he walked out of his tree house as a child, either. Shrugging, Link turned around and backflipped off of the patio, landing squarely on his feet. The forest was just as pristine as he remembered, and there was still a certain magic in the air. Of course there was, because the Great Deku Tree was alive. The Hylian breathed in the fresh, crisp morning air, relishing in its purity.

"Hey, Link. What's up with the rake?"

Link glanced up and to his right, instantly noticing the picket fence that should have been on the other side, to see one of the Know-it-all brothers sitting on top of it and grinning at him like absolutely nothing was wrong.

"Hey. The rake is… well… I was… planning to do some… weeding? Uh, sorry for asking, but I swear the fence was on that side. Am I senile, or what?" Link replied, pointing towards his left.

The other Kokiri gave him a weird look. "What are you talking about? The fence has always been on this side, or my name isn't Soyyo!"

Link laughed lightly. "Good point, Soyyo. I've just had this headache since the thing last night, and-"

"Oh yeah, the lights. What was that, anyway?"

Link paused. Me going back seven years after fighting a giant bipedal pig, unless it never happened in the first place probably wasn't the best thing to say, now that he thought about it. "No clue," he settled on.

Soyyo shrugged, clearly not buying it. "Well, okay. Have fun clearing the weeds."

"Don't worry, I won't," Link replied sarcastically.

An hour passed. Link wiped his brow, seeing that his task was finally complete. Huh, I barely broke a sweat. I guess saving the world is pretty good exercise. And to think that I made ten rupees just by clearing out some grass…

A small chorus of quiet footsteps echoed throughout the forest. Link looked up to see one of his few true friends among the Kokiri, not to mention future Sage of Forest, Saria.

"Hi Link!" she said, a grin spreading across her features.

"Hey, Saria," Link replied, bearing a similar smile. "How's everything been?"

"Great! I've been working on a few whittling projects to pass the time."

"Cool."

They stood there in companionable silence for a while before Saria spoke again.

"So… what's with the rake? And the lights?"

An expression of pain crossed Link's features for a split second before he subdued the feeling. She didn't remember. How could she have remembered, and yet not comment on it? Nobody was within earshot, there would be no risk. She couldn't have remembered, and deep down, he knew it was true, but he wanted to be wrong so desperately...

"I was just doing some weeding outside my house," Link explained, fighting to keep tears out of his eyes.. "As for the fu- light show last night… well, no idea."

The forest girl shrugged. "Fair enough, I suppose," she sighed, sitting herself down on a rock next to Link. "Sorry if this is coming out of nowhere, but have you ever wondered what happens if we left the Lost Woods?"

"Well, you die, of course. You should know that, everyone does," Link said, laughing nervously. "Besides, Joe would never let us."

Joe was the Kokiri assigned to protecting the Kokiri from the outside world, which boiled down to him standing in front of the exit and not letting anyone through.

"I guess that makes sense," Saria said, letting the conversation die.

As time passed, the forest filled with more and more Kokiri denizens, as they scrambled throughout the small town, many of them singing and playing like the carefree children they were. He could see Fado sitting on top of an ancient stone pillar and looking over the village like it was all hers.

It wasn't.

Why was he being so sardonic all of a sudden? His mind absently flitted to the monstrosity at the Bottom of the Well, with its many hands erupting from the bloody ground and clawing at his head, holding him in place while the blood-soaked corpse shuffled over to his prone form, salivating at the thought of ripping him to shreds…

Right. That was why, assuming it wasn't some vain delusion. Zelda had supposedly sent him back to relive his childhood, but after all the things he'd supposedly seen and experienced… Link wondered if childish naivete was forever out of reach.

His thoughts drifted further into his adventure, reliving everything that had happened. He remembered the transformation of the Gerudo King Ganondorf into the massive bipedal hog Ganon, fueled by undying rage and the Triforce of Power. He remembered Sheik, and all that time Link thought she was a boy. He remembered Zelda, and Darunia, and Ruto, and Nabooru, and Impa, and everyone else he had met and had become friends with. Would any of them remember what he had done?

"Link?"

Link blinked, suddenly returning to reality to see Saria looking at him worriedly. "Sorry about that, I zoned out," he explained, hoping that would be enough.

It looked to have worked, as the look of worry dissipated. "I was just asking you about what you've been up to recently."

"The usual." Saving Hyrule. Fighting the King of Evil. "You know, avoiding Mido and all that."

Saria shivered as a sudden breeze filled the village. "I see." She thought for a moment. "You really ought to take that rake off. It's going to hurt your back if you keep wearing it."

"Doubt it," Link replied, but he took it off anyway.

Maybe it was better to let the past - future? - become nothing more than a memory.

!0*0!

His headache hadn't improved. If anything, it had gotten much worse. What had started as a minor inconvenience had quickly morphed into a pounding migraine, actively inhibiting the boy's attempts to slog his way through the day.

"Link, are you okay? You're clutching your head really hard and it looks painful," Saria said, obviously concerned.

"I'm fine, Saria. Just a headache," Link tried to assure, utterly failing. Trying to prove his point, he detached his hands from his head to pluck an apple from a nearby tree.

"Must be a killer headache," the Kokiri girl replied wryly. "Oh, I didn't know you were left-handed! I thought you were right-handed!"

"Huh?" Link questioned, confused, until he noticed that Saria was staring at the apple he was eating with his left hand. "No, I've always been left-handed. I'm the only left-handed person in the village."

"But… that's not true," Saria said. "I'm left-handed, Mido's left-handed, Ted's left-handed… everyone in the forest is left-handed. Everyone knows that."

"It's not important," Link assured.

"Well, it's possible that you're ambidextrous, meaning that you can use both your left and your right hand with roughly equal levels of dexterity," Tuyyo, the other Know-it-all brother, supplied.

"Ah!" Link exclaimed, dropping his half-eaten apple in surprise. "Don't do that!"

"Well, would you like me to scream ten seconds in advance before I talk to anyo-" the Know-it-all brother started before cutting himself off, his gaze glued to Link's left hand.

Saria looked at the slack-jawed Kokiri like he'd spontaneously grown a second head before following his gaze and stopping dead.

"Guys? Come on, you're making me self-conscious," Link said nervously, raising his hand to rub the back of his neck and grinning sheepishly, an old habit he hadn't quite broken.

Then he froze. Damn, his hand was cold. And oddly bony.

The boy peeled his hand off of his suddenly clammy neck and brought it in front of his face to figure out why it felt so different.

What he saw was more than just disturbing.

The skin on his left hand had almost entirely peeled away, and the muscle that was revealed looked sickly and pathetic. All the heat had been drained away from it, leaving it as cold as bone. Speaking of bones, the bones of his fingers were visible through the almost-ethereal tendons and ligaments, and if he squinted hard enough he could just barely see some sort of glove that he had last seen in Ganon's Tower on a-

A Stalfos.

I'm turning into a Stalfos.

The world converted into several streak of greens and browns as Link collapsed, and his vision swiftly faded to black.

!0*0!

"L-k? -i-k, ans-r -e! Link!"

He awoke with a shout, panting heavily. Saria, Soyyo and Tuyyo standing over him, worry etched into their features. He glanced at his left hand, and immediately wished he hadn't; more of the muscle had disappeared, leaving almost all of the bone in his hand exposed. Just looking at it made the former Hero of Time nauseous, and he was tempted to turn around and retch until there was nothing left. And after all the terrifying things he had seen in the Shadow Temple, the Bottom of the Well, and in the Kakariko Graveyard - assuming it actually existed- Link was quite confident in his ability to not void his stomach at disturbing imagery.

"I'm fine," Link panted, trying his hardest to sound fine and failing miserably.

"By my reasoning, you are the exact antithesis of fine," Soyyo rejected.

"'Fine' is defined as "of high quality", Tuyyo elaborated. "Your hand predicament most certainly does not fall under that definition."

"I don't need an explanation," Link decided, cutting of the Know-it-all brothers.

"We would recommend you consult the Great Deku Tree for guidance," they counseled in unison.

Link knew that the Great Deku Tree was dying. If previous events were still valid in this mirrored world, it would pass on tomorrow. Any misaction would mess up the flow of time, and he needed the Kokiri Emerald to give to Zelda, who would certainly have a plan to stop Ganondorf from taking over before it ever happened.

However, a greater disturbance of the flow of time would come if he was turned into a Stalfos and doomed to wander the forest forever. So, naturally, he picked the option that would end in the least amount of difference to his original timeline. If anything drastic happened, then Ganondorf would most certainly become the King of Evil again.

"Fine," he spat, shoving his hands into his pockets. He then turned towards the Deku Tree and started walking in that direction.

"Link! That headache must be messing with you worse than we thought! The Great Deku Tree is the other way!"

The Hero paused. He had once again forgotten that left was inexplicably right and right was inexplicably left. His head was swimming, and the world was swirling around him and making Link dizzy. Turning on his heel, he walked away from the entrance to Hyrule Field, barely avoiding tripping over every other exposed root in the entire forest.

"Hey, fairyless!"

Great. Exactly what he needed right now.

The small valley that was the only way to reach the Great Deku Tree was blocked by Mido and his small band of followers - Redo, Fado, Sodo, Lado, and Tido.

"Just where do you think you're going, huh? Do you think that if you go to the Great Deku Tree and grovel at his feet, he'll give you a fairy partner? Well, guess what? Even if you did manage to get a fairy moronic enough to be your partner, you'll still never be a true Kokiri!"

The group nodded solemnly at Mido's words.

"Just get out of my way, Mido," Link sighed, resisting the overwhelming urge to punch him in the face.

"And who are you to tell us what to do, oh fairyless wonder?" Tido inquired in that buttery voice of hers. "You're not even a real Kokiri."

"Frankly, it's a miracle you haven't been turned into a Skull Kid yet," Lado spat, shoving Link slightly forwards.

"What manner of beast are you, anyway?" Redo asked, giving Link a look that screamed I want to vivisect you. "You're obviously not from the forest, because you're alive, not made of wood, and don't have a fairy. Are you a Wolfos in disguise?"

He proceeded to spit on the ground just in front of Link, barely avoiding landing his spittle directly on Link's foot.

"Why do you even try?" Mido asked, sickeningly sweet. "Obviously, you're never going to be a true Kokiri, because you haven't gotten a fairy yet. Therefore, the Great Deku Tree doesn't want you to be a Kokiri, because he has the power to grant you a fairy. So the Great Deku Tree wants you to be inferior. Because of that, you must be completely inferior to every other Kokiri in every way possible. So I'll ask it again: Why don't you just turn around and leave the forest forever? You'd be doing everyone a favor."

"Let me answer your question with another question," Link replied icily, his words laced with a potent venom. "Why. Don't. You. Fuck. Off?"

There was a blessed silence for all of three seconds. It started drizzling, something that hadn't happened in recent memory in the forest. In the distance, lightning struck, causing a drawn-out thunderclap a few seconds later. The lesser sprites that usually hovered in the air all over the forest had sought shelter long before, leaving the woods unnaturally quiet.

"What did you just say?" Mido asked, almost silent.

"I asked you to fuck off," Link reiterated, pure and unadulterated bloodlust surging through his veins.

"Do you want me to kill you, Fairyless?"

"Please. You can't punch to save your life," Link spat. Then he remembered how well the self-proclaimed Kokiri boss could punch, and the countless number of bruises he'd tried to hide from Saria on a daily basis, the two molars forced from his mouth by Mido's fist, and the veritable pints of blood he had lost over the years. I think I'm screwed, he suddenly thought.

"You're a fairyless mud stain. Beating you to a pulp again won't break a sweat," Mido said, his fairy instantly flying over to Link and turning yellow. This would give Mido terrifying accuracy, ensuring a clean hit as he dove towards Link, left fist flying towards the fairyless boy's midsection.

And then Link moved. Not backwards like Mido was expecting, which would land him in the awaiting fists of the other bulles. At the last second, Link managed to sidestep Mido's thrust and pinned him to the nearby wall, hands gripping either side of Mido's face and twisting it to the left side until Mido's head was about ninety degrees from facing forwards and into the eyes of his attacker. Due to the way his hands were positioned, one would have to have their head pressed up against the cliffside to see Link's skeletal, corrupted left hand.

The woods had frozen. Even the birds had stopped chirping. The other bullies had given him a wide berth, suddenly awed by the violent attack the formerly timid, fairyless boy had committed on their ringleader.

Link paused. He had half assumed that his previous memories were nothing more than a dream because nobody else remembered, but that couldn't be right, because he very clearly knew how to snap someone's neck like a twig and was able to do it instinctually. Dreams don't give you muscle memory, as far as he knew. He didn't register the entire forest's populus staring at him like he had spontaneously turned into a Stalfos until he turned around and looked at them wearily.

"I assume," Link breathed, "that this clears that argument up."

With that, he released Mido and shoved him away before stalking into the valley, ignoring the Deku Babas that tried to nibble him as he passed. He didn't ignore the one that successfully bit him, and he proceeded to violently rip it out of the ground.

!0*0!

"Uh, Great Deku Tree?"

The face inscribed into the guardian spirit of the forest did not move, but Link could sense that its attention was focused on the Hylian boy.

"Link. Why hast thou awakened me?" The tree asked.

"I think," Link said, showing the Great Deku Tree his entirely Stalfos-ified left hand, "that the forest is trying to take me. I've had this killer headache since this morning and I'm turning into a skeleton."

The shock the Tree was emanating was palpable.

"This should not be happening," The Great Deku Tree boomed. "The spirits of the forest are… recognizing you as an adult Hylian, one of extrasilvarian origin. This is incorrect, as it should seeth you as a Kokiri. Fortunately, it is an easy enough fix, so long as you have memorized the last ten thousand years of Kokiri history, pass a Kokiri literacy exam, and pay eight rupees to the Kokiritarian Fairy Board."

Link gulped. This was harder than he remembered.

!0*0!

Needless to say, he passed the examinations, even without a fairy.

"Excellent," The Great Deku Tree rumbled. "Thou hast been reinstated as a Kokiri. Why thou wereth unrecognized in the first place is beyond me, but it is fixed now. Verily, thine current condition should stop spreading instantly."

The sun had settled right over the horizon, almost setting but not quite. He looked down at his Stalfos hand, expecting it to quickly revert back to its normal form. It hadn't. If anything, the corruption had only spread, consuming all of Link's hand, wrist, and most of his forearm.

"The headache is gone, but… my hand is still corrupted," Link said, confused. "Can you magic my old hand back?"

"Theoretically, yes, but it wouldst taketh at least a year, which is time we don't have. The Kokiritarian Fairy Board is very possessive when it comes to life energy."

Well, thank you anyway, Great Deku Tree," Link said solemnly before turning around and going back to the village.

That was almost as bad as the Hylian citizenship test Zelda made me take, Link thought, shuddering at the memory. And I might have to take it again.

The reinstatement proceedings had taken the entire rest of the day, and a weary Link was grateful that there wasn't a giant crowd clustered around either his house or the entrance to the Great Deku Tree's grove. Link clambered up the ladder to his little dwelling, curled up into a little ball under his cover, and slept.

Tomorrow, he would see if his adventures outside the forest were a delusion or not.

Probably the latter.

Well, that was a thing. For those of you who have no idea what's going on, Zelda sent Link back in time too far, and now he has to go back and do everything again.

Oh, and it's Master Quest. So everything is mirrored and the dungeons are way harder. This will be fun.

Also, Link's thoughts during the MQ dungeons will be loosely based on my thoughts as I went through those same MQ dungeons. Any struggles that Link has are not made up, although I'll cut out the more embarrassing ones - namely, me dying from a Gohma larva attack to the back and things like that. I may add a few insignificant items to the more worthless rooms in certain temples *cough cough Spirit Temple cough cough*, but none of them will be important to the plot.

Also, something I want to get out of the way: THIS IS NOT JUST MASTER QUEST OCARINA OF TIME. THERE ARE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MQ AND THIS FIC. PLEASE DON'T HATE ME.

Also also, I'm going to be starting a new thing at the end of each chapter that I'm going to call NOOTTD. It's an acronym for Non-Ocarina Of Time Things Directory. And whenever there's an OC or a reference to something else, I'll put it there and call it a day.

NOOTTD:

1. Soyyo and Tuyyo are total gibberish. I made it up.

2. The Do's were inspired by Mido and Fado, because do re mi fa so la ti do.

Anyway, please review, and if you're interested in reading more of my insane ramblings, don't hesitate to check out my other fics. I will be doing an RRRP for this fic, just like I did in SW:R.