Extremely random rarepair, I know. I just really wanted adorable NPC Celessa to complete her pilgrimage (and get a girlfriend).

Chapter 1

Contrary to their advertising, Yaido's relationship classes had not in fact prepared her for the world outside of Gerudo Town. One would have thought that when a merchant lugging a giant beetle on their back walked into a stable, eyes would fall on them and not the Gerudo trailing in from behind. But the eyes that confronted her from across the tent as she entered proved otherwise. A young Hylian woman resting on a rug by the beds took in Yaido with an unnoticed smile. Yaido, eager for the attention on her to die, sidled up to a refreshment table and poured herself some water. The young woman scraped her hair into a neater ponytail, then she brushed the dust off her jacket, exhaled slowly, and approached the refreshment table. Yaido didn't look up.

'Welcome to Dueling Peaks Stable,' said the young woman. 'Do you mind if I join you?'

'No,' said Yaido, before she'd even turned her head; the company of women held a priority in her hierarchy of needs. She looked down to meet the young woman's face and abruptly straightened at its unexpected sweetness. 'Call me Yaido.'

'Celessa.'

They smiled at each other. Yaido's eyes drifted down to the black band around Celessa's neck, and then noticed Celessa's gloves and layers of travelling gear before she caught herself staring. She coughed to hide her embarrassment. 'You're an adventurer, too?'

'I like to think so,' said Celessa. 'Although clearly I've been doing it wrong if you can to look this glamourous out of the wild.'

Yaido's cheeks warmed. A pair of male adventurers murmured to themselves across the tent, and she glanced their way. Celessa followed her eye. 'There's better scenery outside, if you'd prefer,' she said.

Yaido smiled, surprised. She followed Celessa back out into the sunlight, past the horse stalls and cuccos scratching the dirt to some seats by a campfire. A waterfall rumbled down the mountain across from the stable and fell behind a blue shrine. Yaido turned her back resolutely on the shrine and dumped her pack onto the ground. The clank of Yaido's shield and spear strapped to the pack caught Celessa's attention. She leaned close until her face was reflected in the golden shield's dents and embellishments. 'Looks like you've had a rough journey,' she said. 'I did hear the bokoblins are getting stronger. People are seeing black and even silver ones where there used to be red and blue.'

'Lizalfos have gotten worse, too. I left Gerudo Town with a new scimitar and it was worn to pieces before I'd even left the desert.'

Celessa's eyes widened. She sat her chin in her hands. 'You came all this way from the desert? That's incredible. Alone?'

'Against my better judgement. You?'

Celessa nodded and laughed. 'Why do we do it to ourselves?'

Yaido rubbed her tired feet as she contemplated this. 'Because we're fools?'

'Oh, every possibility. But then I suppose adventuring makes about as much sense to me as anything else these days.'

Yaido's face lit up. 'Exactly.'

Celessa smiled. 'I definitely wasn't the adventuring type before I started, either. I'm probably still not, if I'm honest. But it feels better than sitting at home and just … waiting.'

Yaido froze. There it was - a thought she so rarely heard echoed back at her. Her heart filled with excitement, but before either could continue, another traveller approached from the direction of the shrine. She gave a small wave to Celessa and then introduced herself to Yaido as Sagessa. 'We don't often see Gerudo in these parts,' she said. 'You must be looking for a husband, right?'

Celessa's brows flew up at this, but she managed to keep her expression neutral. Yaido looked to the fire to escape both of their stares. A surge of anxiety ate away her excitement. 'I was hoping to follow a friend to Lover's Pond,' she said. 'But it seems I took a wrong turn.'

A bemused smile crossed Sagessa's face. 'Lover's Pond?'

'You haven't heard of it? Gerudo Town's full of rumours about it. The story goes that when you find the pond you'll meet your true love. My friend believes it's in the Faron region.'

Sagessa made a sympathetic hum. 'If you're heading for Faron you certainly have taken a wrong turn.' She tapped her chin. 'Celessa, isn't there a way to that region from Hateno Village?'

'I think so. There's a villager in Hateno who came up from Lurelin Village, so it must be possible.'

Sagessa brightened. She nudged Yaido with her elbow. 'Forget the pond - you should try your luck with Lurelin Village. Wouldn't you just love to wake up each day on the beach? Or maybe you'll find a man in Hateno Village and never want to leave.' Her head tipped back with a good-natured laugh.

Celessa saw the discomfort on Yaido's face and wasn't sure what to think. Yaido sighed as Sagessa's laugh faded. 'Is Hateno Village far?'

'It's a couple of days by foot,' said Celessa. 'And you'll want to be careful - bokoblins like to hide along the road to ambush travellers. Although I'm sure it's nothing a Gerudo warrior can't handle.'

Yaido smiled despite herself. 'You travel that way often?'

'Oh, well, yes,' said Celessa. She tucked her hair behind her ear. 'I suppose I do.'

Sagessa slapped her hands together in revelation. 'You should be her guide, Celessa. You can save her from another wrong turn.'

A jolt of apprehension hit Yaido at this - Hateno Village had still been theoretical. Celessa, just as uneasy with the sudden suggestion, all but twisted away from them on her seat. Before either she or Yaido could think of an excuse to decline, Sagessa looked between them and frowned at Celessa. 'You told me you were planning to head back that way,' she said. 'Or have you suddenly changed your mind?'

'N-no,' said Celessa. Her head dropped. 'I'd be honoured to guide you, Yaido. It's just ... I don't want to hold you back either.'

'Likewise,' said Yaido.

At this, Celessa rose from her seat. She could breathe easier now that the proposition was behind them, but that didn't stop her skin from tingling with embarrassment. She started back towards the tent. 'It was a pleasure meeting you, though' she blurted over her shoulder. 'Good luck on your adventure.'

Yaido was left feeling a confusing mixture of relief and regret. Before she could wrestle with it, Sagessa took the freed seat and gave Yaido directions instead: follow the road up to the fork by a bridge and take the right-hand road to the Fort Hateno gate. From there it was a relatively straightforward path to Hateno Village, so long as she kept her wits about her. Yaido set off soon after.

Away from the clamour of the stable, the eerie quietness of Hyrule's roads took over again. Yaido tried, and failed, not dwell on what had happened with Celessa. Six days had passed since Yaido left Gerudo Town, but it had been longer than that since she'd felt such sense a kinship. Not since Perda.

After a long morning of trekking however, Yaido's brief rest at the stable caught up with her as her feet started to ache, pushing thoughts of Celessa out of mind. She moved onto the soft grass beside the road, easing the pressure on her feet. Stone ruins of buildings sat nearby along the grass. A mountain goat foraged in between them, and beyond the goat, Yaido spotted a herd of wild horses. She froze mid-step. There were four horses; she only needed to catch one to make her journey an awful lot easier.

Yaido carefully removed her pack and fell to a crouch. She crawled along the bumpy ground, taking care not to spook the goat, and came around to the back of the herd. They stood on higher ground to Yaido, and she could already see herself launching onto the back of the pretty pink horse closest to her and then charging together into the unknown. She saw rainy nights spent together huddled under a tree and feeding the horse apples to let it know how proud she was. But the moment she rose to her feet, the herd reared back and scattered beyond the ruins. Yaido groaned, but before she could mourn the loss of the companion that never was, her eye was drawn to an upturned Guardian in the grass and her spirits lifted.

She retrieved her pack and ran to the Guardian. A brief rummage through its innards proved that someone had done only a cursory scavenge of the body, and she dropped four screws and a spring into the collection of parts in her pack. To her delight, another Guardian sat ahead of her on a gentle slope. Yaido made a beeline for it, and her collection of parts grew larger. Beyond the Guardian, the ground sank downwards into marshland. Yaido saw another Guardian, and then another. Her breath left her as she counted at least ten of them in the near distance, and the thrill of discovery hissed out like a campfire under rain. But her adventure wasn't paying for itself.

Yaido trudged down into the green marsh and moved from Guardian to Guardian. She passed through more ruins and came to a pond, where she found a Guardian with legs still intact embedded in the mud. Unnerving as the sight was, Yaido's heart rose shamefully at the thought of the rare parts she might net from such an uncommon specimen. She stepped towards the Guardian and its body trembled. Yaido screamed. The Guardian's head lifted slightly, and an angry red light pulsed alive across its body. Yaido, transfixed, couldn't move despite her horror. The Guardian's head swivelled until a bright blue bead of an eye appeared. The eye fixed onto Yaido and aimed a beam of red light at her chest. Something finally snapped in Yaido, and she turned and ran.

A synthetic trill pierced the air. A bolt of blue light shot past Yaido's head and exploded against the slope ahead of her. Yaido screamed again and hurtled sideways into the ruins. She fell behind a stone wall and curled against it. Flames crackled along the slope where the light hit, sending smoke billowing into the sky. Yaido took a shuddering breath, and her ears started to buzz with the sound of heavy whirs and whines behind her. She squeezed her eyes shut. If the Guardians patrolling the mesas east of the desert had taught the Gerudo anything, it was that any Guardian that could pursue, would. But the Guardian's hefty red bulk didn't round the corner of the wall.

Yaido cast her eye around for an escape route. To go back the way she came would only put her in open grassland. The ruins around her meanwhile only extended so far, and not enough to bring her out of the marsh. There was a rock shelf nearby that she could skirt around, but to get behind it would mean exposing herself to the Guardian's laser. Yaido started to cry.

'Hey!'

Yaido looked up. Celessa, inexplicably, was crouched atop the rock shelf. Yaido's mouth fell open.

'I'll distract it,' shouted Celessa. 'Can you run?'

'Yes,' Yaido yelled back.

Celessa wobbled to her feet. Then she threw her arms into the air and waved them above her head, jumping in place. The blue eye turned to her and its beam of red light found her face. Yaido's heart leaped. She bolted from her hiding place and ran full pelt towards the rock shelf. Another synthetic trill rang out and bolt of light hit the rock shelf from her left. The explosion pushed Yaido sideways and she fell, then clambered on hand and foot until she could stagger to the other side of the shelf.

Yaido dropped face-down onto the grass. Celessa skidded down the side of the rock shelf and landed with a thud beside her. She sank onto the grass as well, breathless. Yaido clutched a stitch in her side. 'Sarsqo,' she breathed.

'Are you hurt?'

Yaido shook her head. Celessa let out a long exhale. They were quiet for a moment as they caught their breath.

'I was walking along the road when I heard a scream,' said Celessa. 'I ran to the knoll and couldn't believe it - that awful red light. Then I saw you were trapped and …'

Yaido bowed her head. 'You are one courageous vai.'

'That's a nice way to put it,' said Celessa. 'Doing things without thinking might be more accurate.'

Yaido chuckled weakly. 'Then we're the same. I should've known better than to push my luck with a Guardian cluster, but I couldn't resist the lure of ancient parts.'

Celessa raised an eyebrow. 'You hunt treasure as well as bachelors, then?'

Yaido blushed. 'And do a poor job of both, it seems.'

They helped each other to their feet. Yaido's heart still pounded as they tottered to the road nearby. 'Thank you, again,' she said. 'I don't know how I would've gotten out of that by myself.'

'Most people keep away from the marsh,' said Celessa. 'A great battle took place there once and it didn't end well.'

'With that many Guardians around, I can imagine,' said Yaido. She found herself walking beside Celessa along the road. For all she cared in that moment, Hateno Village was as good as certain. Celessa was on the verge of restraining something but couldn't help herself. She took a deep breath.

'It was actually the battle that caused Princess Zelda to confront Calamity Ganon by herself one hundred years ago. You see, Princess Zelda and her Champion Knight were making their last stand at Fort Hateno. Her Knight died on the battlefield, and with the other Champions gone, it was up to the princess to go to Hyrule Castle alone. If she hadn't, Hyrule would have been lost.'

Yaido nodded. 'I'm familiar with the story. Our Lady Urbosa was one of those Champions. It's said that Urbosa was like a mother to Princess Zelda.'

'Yes, that's what my research tells me. Did you know that there are people still alive from when the Calamity struck? Impa, the leader of Kakariko Village is one. She was kind enough to teach me about Princess Zelda and her historical journey. All I had to go on before that were the bedtime stories my father told me.'

'A scholar and an adventurer.'

Celessa smiled. 'What I really want is to re-create Princess Zelda's journey to the Spring of Wisdom.' She caught Yaido's puzzled look. 'It's a sacred place of the Goddess high up on Mount Lanayru. According to Impa, before the Calamity struck people would travel from all over Hyrule to pray there, including Hyrule Castles' princesses.'

'I'm sorry to say I hadn't heard of it. We Gerudo have our own ways.'

'Oh - I didn't mean to bore you.' Celessa clasped her hand to her chest with a small sigh. 'I just love and respect the princess so very much. I'd talk about her all day if people let me.'

Yaido couldn't help but smile. 'It's no bother,' she said.

'Impa told me the princess made pilgrimages with her knight to springs far across Hyrule, all to awaken her powers. The Spring of Wisdom was her last.' Celessa's eyes flashed. 'Imagine, after all she'd been through, what it must have felt like to reach the final spring at last.'

'Her feet must have been very sore. Although no doubt she didn't have to travel by foot like we do.'

Celessa burst into laughter. 'Don't worry,' she said. 'Fort Hateno is a safe place to rest. We should get there by nightfall.'

Yaido looked up at the afternoon sun and groaned inwardly. But Celessa's chatter about the princess proved to be a good distraction as they followed the winding road. From where they walked, they saw more Guardians across the marsh, and the bodies only increased with distance. Yaido shivered at each sight of them. 'It's alright,' said Celessa. 'Travellers come this way all the time. If any Guardians were dormant, we'd know.'

Yaido couldn't help but watch the moss covered bodies all the same, waiting for the red glow to emerge. Then the wall of Fort Hateno appeared ahead of them, and the sight of a Guardian frozen mid-climb along the broken wall made Yaido's stomach churn. She and Celessa passed through the gate in Fort Hateno's wall by sundown, just as Celessa predicted.

On the other side of the wall, the road led into woodland. A campfire burned off the road to their right. A man rested by its glow beneath a tree, and he stared up at Yaido as she slowed along the road. Yaido looked from him to the cooking pot at the fire and cursed herself for not thinking to forage during the day. Then she turned and saw that Celessa had already left her side and settled at a tree on the opposite side of the road. The ground was stonier there, but there was an assuredness in Celessa's manner as she unpacked her things that made Yaido suspect this was a routine decision. Yaido approached her at the tree. Celessa looked up in alarm. 'Oh - please - don't think you have to keep me company,' she whispered. 'I understand if you'd rather sit at the fire and, well, talk with him.'

'I'd rather talk with you,' said Yaido. She set down her pack and reclined against it beside Celessa. Celessa, not knowing what to say to this, offered Yaido half of her meat and rice bowl. They ate with furtive smiles.

'Your friend said you were heading for Hateno Village too,' said Yaido.

'Yes - the village is close to Mount Lanayru. There's a more direct path to it beyond the Kakariko hills, but it's filled with monsters.'

'You seem to handle yourself just fine.'

Celessa snorted. 'I'm afraid I've misled you.'

'But the road to Hateno Village has monsters too, you said. How do you protect yourself?'

Celessa shrugged. 'I run and pray they don't follow. But I'm pretty good at avoiding them, too. Unless of course there's a Gerudo warrior who needs saving.'

Yaido smiled. Then she scratched the back of her neck. 'Look. We're both heading to Hateno Village. We seem to get along well, and we could keep each other out of trouble. I think we might as well travel together after all, don't you?'

Celessa smiled back at her in surprise. 'Yes,' she said, and then paused. 'If you want to.'

Yaido's heart started to fill with excitement again. 'Then it's settled,' she said.