A few months after his time-traveling adventure, Link visited Princess Zelda before departing on a secret and personal journey. Accepting Zelda's gift of the Ocarina of Time, Link crept away from the land he had saved, the land that had made him a legend. Link left on his horse, Epona, in search of a beloved and invaluable friend, one with whom he had parted ways when he fulfilled his destiny and took his place among legends.

As Link traveled slowly through a misty forest, two mischievous fairies watched his progress with interest. Tael and his older sister, Tatl, were friends with a forest imp named Skull Kid, who had recently waylaid the Happy Mask Vendor and stolen the powerful and cursed Majora's Mask. Skull Kid and his two fairy friends had had much fun making mischief in Hyrule and beyond.

Tael and Tatl nodded to each other, and while Link looked the other way they flew in Epona's face, spooking the inexperienced pony. The young horse reared up, knocking Link to the ground, and Skull Kid emerged from the shadows. He examined Link as the young lad lay unconscious, and rifled through his pockets. When Link awoke, he groggily looked up to see Skull Kid trying to play the invaluable Ocarina of Time. He quietly got up and sneaked up to Skull Kid, but the imp heard him and turned around.

Skull Kid playfully hid the Ocarina behind his back, and the two faced each other, each waiting for the other to make his move. The very instant Link lunged at him, Skull Kid jumped out of sight, landed on Epona, and rode off. Link leapt to grab a hold of his frightened horse, and held on desperately as it galloped along. Link was cut and scraped as he was dragged along the forest floor, and finally he let go and fell in a heap as Skull Kid rounded a corner. Determined to get his horse and the precious Ocarina of Time back, Link chased Skull Kid and the fairies into a large, felled tree trunk.

But this was no ordinary tree trunk. Link ran unheedingly into it and, noticing too late that the inside was only a large pit, lost his balance and fell in with a scream. As Link fell into the darkness, he thought he could see strange, colorful shapes floating before his eyes...

Link landed in front of Skull Kid and challenged the imp, but Skull Kid only laughed in his face. With a wave of his hand, Link was brought to his knees by a powerful spell. The room whirled and went black, and Link dreamt that he was being eaten by a huge Deku Scrub.

When Link awoke a few seconds later, he somehow felt different - weak, small, wooden. He looked down at the pool of water in front of him, and screamed in horror. What came out was only a shrill squeak, for Skull Kid had turned Link into a helpless little Deku Scrub! As Skull Kid escaped into an open door, Tatl rammed into Link to keep him back. Unfortunately, when the door closed behind Skull Kid, the poor fairy was left behind with Link. Offering a brief (and insincere) apology for her previous conduct, Tatl offered to join Link and help him find Skull Kid.

Using Deku Flowers to float through caves, Link found his way to a dirty building filled with moving gears and gadgets. Above he could faintly hear the ticking of a clock. Suddenly, the Happy Mask Vendor of Hyrule emerged from the shadows and revealed that he had been following Link. He told Link that if he could retrieve his Ocarina, he would tell him how to regain his original shape. He also asked Link to retrieve the mask that Skull Kid had stolen from him.

Link walked out of the Clock Tower and into the middle of a busy day in Clock Town. Clock Town lay in the center of Termina, a parallel world eerily similar to Hyrule, but also vastly different. Looming over Termina was a large moon, and rumors told that this moon would destroy Termina in three day's time. Panic-stricken, Link had no choice but to follow Tatl's advice: he should visit the Great Fairy in the north end of Clock Town to find out about Skull Kid's whereabouts.