In the wee morning hours of Termina’s southern province the diurnal creatures were beginning to stir from their slumber. Those who lurked in the darkness were beginning to bed down with bellies full of unfortunate prey that were hunted under the veil of night. It was the natural order of things, by design from the powers that be who breathed life into this husk of earth.

What was not appreciated by any of the native wildlife was the galloping horse barreling through the grasslands and sending all the prey animals into a panic. The flock of guays were startled by the disturbance and dived as a group into the horse and the human riding astride the beast. Lance did everything within his power to wave off the pesky creatures, but he was unable to avoid a few pecking him all over. Fortunately, for his horse’s sake, they understood the primary cause of the disturbance was him and paid the steed no mind.

Eventually, after many agonizing seconds of the assault, the birds let up and he had arrived at the swamp’s edge. This time (or this reality) he wasn’t sure how to think of his dream experiences. He was not in as much of a hurry and more apt to take in the scenery of the strange land. Over the water, there appeared to be an old, dilapidated building held aloft by support beams. Underneath it was a rickety looking boat that surprisingly appeared to still be floating perfectly fine in the murky gray water. It was covered in foliage, but otherwise in modest condition.

He had heard many years ago there used to be a business operated out of the swamp for people to take scenic boat tours. It was popular for both family excursions and dates with the people of Clock Town. It looked like without visitors from human civilizations the business dried up and the property was abandoned.

This was not his objective, so he quickly moved on and it was put out of mind. Lance guided his horse through a thicker portion of grass before the proper beginning of the woods. He wound up at a large pool surrounding a great tree larger than all the rest around it. He knew from hearsay that this great tree was the home of a couple of witches who lived here longer than time itself they would say. Given his experiences recently he was now more ready to believe in superstitious nonsense like that, but a younger Lance would have scoffed at the idea.

Taking notice of a ladder at the button of the tree and a sign that read “M--ic --gs’ -oti-- S-”, Lance concluded this was a shop of some kind. At least historically, given its rundown condition. Hopefully, they wouldn’t be bothered by his sudden visit. At this point he felt like he didn’t have a lot to lose when it came to testing his boundaries in the world.

After a swift trip up the ladder, along with almost falling due to a few broken rungs, Lance was atop the rickety platform. He stood in front of a thin fabric hanging over a door frame; supposing this substituted as a door he then knocked on the wood of the door frame.

Knock, knock, knock.

He waited patiently for approximately thirty seconds before trying the same knock once more. Again he was met with silence. An answer like that would not do, and he was pushed to the limits of what he would be polite about. Lance threw open the sheet covering the door and entered the dimly lit interior.

There was a faint unnatural illumination coming from random spots around the room. Red and blue were the predominant colors, but he noticed other vibrant colors of the rainbow as well. With each footstep he took the floor creaked loudly causing him to grind his teeth in fear each time.

“Wee hee hee hee!”

Lance heard a laugh similar to one he believed to have heard previously but couldn’t recall it. He assumed it must be a false memory from his dreams, among many others he kept mistaking for his current reality.

Quickly he turned around but no indication of life was to be heard. Then the laugh happened again, but this time directly behind him! He spun around in circles a handful of times before being held rigidly in place against his will. Lance could not feel anything touching his body but there was a distinct sense that something powerful was holding each part of his body in place. His jaw was not even capable of moving to form words; the only sounds he could muster were howls of fear.

Abruptly his body was spun around to face the door from which he came. A noise of wood sliding across wood sounded behind him then he was pulled into a sitting position atop a mysteriously produced chair. Forced into holding his eyes open and incapable of blinking, he saw two pairs of eyes accompanied by more bright lights of red and blue. His howls of fear increased.

“Wee hee hee hee, look Kotake, a little human boy has sneaked into our home,” crowed the eyes attached to the red light.

“Hee hee! I see it is so, Koume,” answered back the blue light.

Lance’s panicked eyes flickered back and forth between the two, uncertain between them who he should direct most of his fear towards.

“Hmm, I think we gave him a good scare, Koume. Shall we at least hear what the boy has to say?” inquired the voice he assumed belonged to Kotake.

A green gnarled hand appeared from the darkness and began to perform a complex number of gestures that Lance could hardly interpret. The one he believed to be Koume began chanting in an unfamiliar language.

Lance then took a large gulp of air so hard and aggressively his lungs began to burn from the rapid expansion. Over the course of several seconds Lance managed to normalize his breathing and blink until his eyes stopped stinging with tears.

“Speak, boy. Why did you intrude on our home?” As she asked this Koume and Kotake floated into the glow of the dim light to reveal themselves as two small green human-like creatures hovering on broomsticks. Koume’s hair was alight in a blaze of fire, and Kotake’s hair was a solid block of freezing ice.

He took a few more ragged breaths before answering. “You’re the swamp witches, aren’t you? You used to be friends of the humans, right? I only wanted to ask for your help, that’s all,” Lance explained with a hoarse voice. What he said was mostly true, though in reality he wasn’t even sure anyone was still living here. He just hoped to be able to find any abandoned resources that could aid his search.

“You’re awfully young to remember anything like that. Humans were our friends many decades ago, but as of late they grew fearful of us and stopped trusting us,” Kotake admitted calmly. She appeared to be the more level-headed of the pair, a fact Lance would lean into.

“Business dried up, humans stopped coming to visit the swamp, and they stopped buying our potions. Our only dealings now are with the deku and those who live in the woods,” Koume added bitterly.

“Wait, you make potions? Are they curatives by chance?” Lance heard the only words he needed and disregarded anything else she might have said.

“You think of us witches as friends of humans but don’t even know that much?” Koume said through gritted teeth causing Lance to shrink back in embarrassment. The red witch sighed.

“We brewed remedies to heal injuries and bolster strength. Many people appreciated our works for several years, then suddenly humans were convinced our concoctions were poisoning people. It’s completely preposterous! I-”

She was interrupted by a wide-eyed Lance. “Can your potions cure illnesses?” he asked in exasperation.

The two witches looked at each other with uncertainty before the blue one turned back to face him. “Generally an illness cannot be cured. We can alleviate symptoms to help give the body a fighting chance at overcoming it, but something fatal is out of the realm of mortal possibility,” she explained in a sympathetic manner.

Lance sunk his head back down to his chest. Had he been unparalyzed his entire body would have slumped in complete disappointment.

“There are rumors of an ingredient that could cure all illnesses just behind us in the Woods of Mystery, but it’s not something my sister nor myself have ever found,” Koume said with a snort of derision. “It doesn’t exist, and not something foolish children should be searching for.”

“You don’t understand, I-,” he hesitated to speak. “My mother she’s- she’s all I have. Without her nobody else in this world loves me just as much as I love them. She can’t die.” As Lance poured his heart out his face began to stream with fluids from his eyes and nose. His face turned puffy red as he started sobbing.

Koume rolled her eyes and waved her hands once more. The magical binds that held his body in place were gone, but the weight of his anguish held him firmly in place all the same.

“Get out. Go home, boy. If you loved your mother, you would be with her and not throwing your life away on a fool’s errand,” Koume ordered as she floated past him to somewhere behind him that he could not see. Kotake floated forward as well, but stopped next to his ear before whispering to him.

“There is a person who has lived for many years in the woods. His name is Bael, and if anybody would have any information on what you’re looking for it would be him.”

Lance looked up at her with his face drenched. Her mouth twisted in sympathy as she reached for a handkerchief in her pocket to hand over to him. He accepted it graciously and furiously wiped it over his face while silently berating himself for having a breakdown in front of these people.

“You can tell the deku that guard the woods you’re running an errand for the hag sisters, they won’t put up much of a fuss then,” she said with a smile.

“Thank you, Ms. Kotake,” when he formally addressed her she gave a small cackle.

“I haven’t heard a human speak to me so kindly in a long time. You didn’t fear us for what we are, I wish to help you in return as gratitude.”

“How do I find this 'Bael' person? What does he look like and how can I get him to help me?”

Kotake pursed her lips as she paused in thought. “Well I’ve not seen him in a while so let me think. He had very long white hair and pale skin, making it very clear he rarely made a trip to where the sun shines. Oh, and he’s almost always in the company of some fairies.” She nodded as she finished assuring him, and possibly herself, she was accurate.

“Fairies? Well, I definitely won’t mistake anyone else for him with a description like that,” Lance murmured as he thought to himself why this Bael person sounded familiar.

“Bael’s as stubborn as a jackass if he’s decided he doesn’t want to do something, or if he considers you a trespasser. Even my sister and I had had run-ins with him before we both grew to tolerate each other’s presence. However, if it’s for the good of the woods or those that live in it, he can be easily persuaded.”

He had no idea how he could spin his admittedly selfish request to be of benefit for the world, but Lance nodded accepting the advice all the same. Standing up out of the chair finally he passed the soaked handkerchief back to Kotake with a sheepish grin. Instead of lifting it with her own hand he felt it be magically tugged out of his grasp before it disappeared with a wave of her hand.

“Good luck, boy,” Kotake waved as he strode to the door and began his descent down from the tree.

By giving the pair of deku guards his message from Kotake they merely nodded with doubtful eyes but made no gestures that they would stop him. After watching them burrow back down into their flowers, Lance hopped down off of his horse and reached for its head to rest his forehead against its nose.

“I’ll be leaving you here, friend. It wouldn’t be fair if I caused your demise in these woods once again,” Lance said gloomily. The horse did not understand him of course, but when he peered deeply into its shimmering eyes he was convinced he could see a spark of comprehension.

After parting with a soft kiss to the beast’s nose, Lance turned around and marched into the Woods of Mystery. He was alone this time, but with knowledge of the last few “days” in mind his loneliness did not make him fearful. Lance was taking control of his life and no longer roping his innocent companions into the dire situations he led them to. The sight and sounds of his dead friends repeatedly played within his mind whenever he had a moment to spare the thought. It was as if he was watching a stage re-enactment of the events and was the only member of the audience; it was a show that never ended and never allowed him to leave.

Suddenly without noticing the transition, his vision became darker as if it were late afternoon and not at all the mid-morning that it really was. The densely packed trees blotted out the majority of the light that would reach the forest floor causing the area to be incredibly dark and eerily cold.

Though he believed to be walking in a straight line, between the darkness and the lack of distinct features his path ahead and behind looked entirely identical. Lance did not allow this to discourage him and continued pushing forward.

After several minutes (or maybe several hours) Lance began approaching something that wasn’t just a dense mass of trees and bushes. It appeared to be a large and lumpy shape no bigger than a horse but lacking in any recognizable features. The shape appeared to be constantly moving whether it be the entire mass itself or the darkness contained inside it. As Lance began to step closer lacking a normal level of caution the mass started to fiercely shake and rotate in place.

A pair of misaligned eyes and a poorly shaped mouth appeared on what he took for a face. These features were barely noticeable in the expanse of darkness save for the light shimmering that appeared within them. Two large appendages appeared at the side of it, lifting and over the central portion of the shadow. The twinkling mouth stood agape.

“Goooooo awaaaaay,” the shadow moaned as it propelled itself towards him.

Lance was prepared however, and immediately reached for the dagger within his satchel and unsheathed it in a flash. The glimmering silver blade was pointed directly at the dark beast who immediately recoiled back in fear.

He stared the foul creature down over the sharpened edge of the knife as it continued propelling itself backwards uttering disgusting groans. Lance’s steps forward fell in time with the beast’s movement, not permitting it to escape for even a second.

“N-n-noooooooooo,” the frightful creature howled as its entire form began to shake and lose what little semblance of identifiable shape that it had. The dark color of the being also proceeded to fade as tears began to form that produced a bright white light shining from within the shadow.

Without fully being aware of his movements, Lance lunged forward with the knife as he closed his eyes unwilling to witness the contact. His blade pressed against something firmly solid, unable to pierce it. As he lost his ability to maintain this level of courage, his arms shook causing the knife to drop from his hands. It hit the forest floor with a thump.

Lance’s eyes peeled open to a bewildering sight. To his immediate attention was the now beaming shape abruptly losing cohesion as it diffused into dozens of smaller orbs of multicolored lights. This all was a backdrop however to the figure defensively poised right before him. A human with a feral expression had parried his strike with a roughly carved wooden spear. Their white hair hung in disarray around their face and their lips were upturned in a small snarl.

As this white-haired person began to adjust their posture into a more upright position, stomping their foot on the knife, the orbs of light appeared to scatter in a multitude of directions until there was only one lilac colored orb hanging near Lance's attacker.

Lance backed up slowly with palms splayed in front of him in an admittedly poor attempt to alleviate his predicament. His heel hooked on a root behind him causing him to tumble backwards. The stranger flipped the spear around to aim it at his throat as he stood over him. From this position he found the white-haired figure to be strikingly familiar and started to recall the appearance of the person in his dream.

"You're Bael, right?" Lance was eventually able to blurt out a question nervously all the while his eyes never left the weapon.

"I don't really believe you're in the position to be asking questions," he retorted. Surprising to Lance, this person's voice was very masculine. It went against this perception in his head he had created of a mysterious forest being who was entirely inhuman. As it stood now, he just appeared to be a man living in the woods away from people.

"Kotake told me there was a man who lived in the woods with white hair and kept the company of fairies. That has to be you, right?"

"I don't know what those old hags told you, but humans aren't allowed here. Leave," Bael commanded as he roughly nudged the side of the spear on Lance's cheek.

"Listen, I just came to ask if you knew about these toadstools that are said to cu-" Lance was cut off with a sharp jab.

"Leave. Now." Bael emphasized each time with a prod from the spear at the base of Lance's throat. The sharpened stone used for the head was jagged and razor thin; the movements caused cuts to open on his skin.

"I'll leave, okay? I just want to say one more thing. Are you aware someone wants to burn these woods down?" Lance threw out the question as more of a bluff than anything. All he knew was Bael was protective of this place and that in his very real dream the woods were on fire. Events from his dream were in the future, that much he could tell, since in them his friends would die but now they were alive. At the very least, he hoped Thane was alive now.

The spear was pulled back to Bael's side as he looked at Lance with an inquisitive expression. He was expecting to be shouted at or threatened more, but instead he was matching Bael with a puzzled look of his own.

Bael turned his head to the side where the orb floated, Lance only just now noticing the delicate transparent wings fluttering to hold it aloft in the air. He whispered to the creature in a voice so low Lance couldn't detect any of the words he was saying nor the intention behind them. Then Bael turned back to look at him with a determined face.

"You remember the lost time, don't you?"