This chapter was one of my favorite chapters to write. I put on the soundtrack for the Guardians of the Galaxy to get the mood just right when I was writing it... So hopefully you find it as entertaining as I did! Really, any scene that Purah is in is just a delight to write. Hopefully you all agree that I do her justice. Thanks for the reviews and follows! Keep them coming. I'll have another chapter posted later this week.


Chapter Eight

Enjoying the feel of the soft, warm bed, he remained in it the following morning until the sun had risen high enough to banish the morning's dew. He remained in it long enough for the few other patrons of the inn to rise and go down for breakfast, which did smell good. But, no. The bed was soft and inviting, and after several days of hard travel, it was just too nice to leave. Breakfast could wait.

Unfortunately, someone else had other ideas.

"Oh, Linky…"

A singsong voice. High-pitched and cheery. Childish. Link did not open his eyes. Perhaps if he just continued to pretend to be asleep…

"Linky…"

He felt a finger poke his leg. He still did not move. Just a few more minutes…

"Linky!"

Something soft hit him in the face, and he jolted, eyes opening. He sputtered and looked around in surprise, hair hanging down over his face. He reached up, sweeping his hair back and shooting the diminutive Purah a glare. She, in turn, clasped her hands behind her back and gave him a sweet smile.

"Oh, good, you're up!" Purah said, clapping her hands together in front of her. "I hoped you would be." She walked over to his bed and, despite his protests, yanked the bedsheets back.

"Purah…!" Link said, face turning red as he rolled out of bed. He was only wearing his undergarments.

"Oh, please." She snorted but had a mischievous glint in her eyes. "I'm a very old six-year-old. Nothing there that I haven't seen before. And, snap! It's not like we put you in the Shrine of Resurrection with clothes on, so…" Link's face began to grow warm at the thought, but Purah, unfortunately, was not finished. "Wait, you didn't wake up with clothes on, did you? Because that… that would be interesting."

"No," Link said, grabbing his trousers and pulling them on. His tunic followed. "No, I did not wake up with any clothes on. Thank you for that."

"Anytime!"

Link sighed and sat on the bed, his back to her, to pull his socks on. "Why did you come all the way down here? I was planning on riding back up to the lab right after I ate breakfast."

"Breakfast? There is no time for breakfast!"

Link's heart sank at this and he looked back around at her. "…Why?"

"Because I've just about got the Sheikah Slate fixed! There's just one more thing I need to do, and I need your help to do it."

"And it can't wait until after breakfast?"

"Nope!"

"Surely it can wait ten minutes."

"Science waits for no one." She placed her hands on her hips, striking a pose with her feet slightly more than shoulder-length apart and chin raised. It looked very comical to Link, but he chose not to say something lest she throw another pillow at him.

"Well, science sounds pretty damned rude." Link said, grumbling as he laced his boots.

"Linky!" Purah said, gasping. He stiffened, looking back at her, suddenly worried that he'd offended her somehow. "I don't think I've heard you make a joke before!" Link felt his face flush, not sure what to think of that at all. Purah ignored this, however, tapping her lip. "I wonder if that is a side effect of the Slumber of Restoration or the memory loss… Or, perhaps, you just never showed that side of yourself to me! Hard to say… How does a person's personality change after such a traumatic event and subsequent memory loss?"

Link, suddenly, felt no desire to continue this conversation any longer, much less make wisecracks around her. He stood up from the bed, tapping his boots on the ground to settle his feet in them better. The leather had mostly been broken in after his days of traveling, thankfully, though he expected they would feel far more comfortable after a few more days. They were, at least, much more comfortable than the boots he got on the Great Plateau. Those had left blisters on his heels after his first day of walking.

"Oh, good, are you ready? It's about time! Come on, come on!" Purah hurried to the door that led out of the communal room Link had rented a bed in. When she opened the door, the savory scents of bacon and eggs filled his nostrils. His stomach growled, and he rubbed it miserably.

He had rented the bed for at least two nights, so he didn't bother bringing all of his supplies, but when Purah saw him, she stopped him. "I'd bring your sword and shield, honey."

"Are we going somewhere dangerous?" Link frowned at her, thinking of the bokoblins from the day before.

"Snappity snap! You never know what kind of trouble is going to find you! Always got to be prepared."

Not at all sure that he liked the sound of that, Link did as she suggested, grabbing his sword and shield, as well as his small waist pack with supplies, quiver of arrows, and unstrung bow. As they walked down the stairs and into the inn's common room, he saw quite a few people had come to the inn for what looked like a delicious breakfast. Fresh cucco eggs, bacon, and biscuits were piled high on wooden plates. Some of the people drank from steaming cups of tea.

Pursing his lips, Link sat resolutely down in a chair. Purah looked back at him, eyebrows raising. "What are you doing?"

"Science can wait for this man." Firm. That was good. She had made him wait outside for hours the day before. He wouldn't let her push him around today. Purah looked at him in irritation, crossing her arms. She began to tap her foot impatiently. Link chose not to meet her eyes but waved at Prima as she looked in his direction. She came over and took his order.

"Ten minutes," Purah finally said, looking every bit as threatening as a six-year-old little girl can.

"Ten minutes."


Ten minutes later, Purah pushed through the morning bustle of Hateno Village, fists clenched at her sides, Link following behind. At one point, a boy who seemed very excited to meet a new little girl his age ran up to her, but she simply shouldered past him, ignoring him. Link shot the boy an apologetic look, who responded by sticking his tongue out at Link. Little brat, Link thought as he hurried to match Purah's pace. For such a diminutive girl, she moved rather quickly.

They made their way down the hill until they reached the large silo. Link began to suspect her ultimate destination, and his suspicions were confirmed a moment later when Purah turned them past the silo, to where the conical Sheikah structure stood just behind it. It was situated on a small ridge, which ended up being easy enough to climb, though Link had to help Purah up one particularly steep section.

When they stood in front of the structure, Purah grinned up at it before looking over at Link. "We tried for years to activate one of these shrines. Princess Zelda, Robbie, and I." When she spoke, her tone was different than before; excited, but thoughtful. Reverent. "Robbie was always more interested in what kind of weapons and artifacts might be within, of course, but Zelda and I… We were interested in the science of it. In the history. The technology that was lost long ago, and what we could recover through its discovery."

Purah stepped onto a circular platform in front of the Sheikah shrine and walked over to a pedestal just like the ones inside of the Shrine of Resurrection, which was placed just next to the closed door. She reached out one small hand, touching its cool surface.

"Nothing we did worked. For years, we did everything we could, hoping to find a way in. Of course, we also hoped something inside them could be used to stop Ganon, but…" She looked back at Link and he was surprised to see tears shining in her eyes behind the bright red glasses. She blinked rapidly and turned away, taking her glasses off and rubbing her eyes. When she replaced them and looked back at Link, she seemed to be back to her normal self.

"Of course, we never could figure out a way to power them, but we were missing something, weren't we? Snap, I'll bet those towers that popped up all over Hyrule has something to do with it, don't they? Did you activate those?"

Link stepped up to Purah, looking up at the shrine curiously. "I just… found one on the Great Plateau. It was partially buried, but it had a pedestal like the one back in your lab. I placed the Sheikah Slate in it and…" He made the motion of something rising from the ground with his hand.

"I'd bet that the earthquakes that happened when Calamity Ganon broke free revealed it! Snap, if we'd spent more time on the Great Plateau after placing you in the Shrine, we might have even found it… But with Zelda running off to seal Ganon, we couldn't stay long. I wonder… but I suppose we couldn't have activated them, anyway! We sealed the Sheikah Slate in the Shrine with you, didn't we?"

Link reached out and touched the pedestal thoughtfully. "And you think this will fix the Sheikah Slate?"

"What?" Purah looked at him incredulously and then, after a moment, snapped her fingers. "Oh! No, of course not. I already did that. Upgraded the existing runes on it, too. That was easy."

Link looked at her, exasperated. "I thought we were here to fix the Sheikah Slate."

"No, we're here to activate the shrine!"

"Well… what does the shrine do?"

"No idea!" At Link's deepening frown, Purah shrugged. "I mean, we have theories."

"Well… what are your theories?"

"We thought that maybe these were placed by the ancient Sheikah over ten thousand years ago to help train the Legendary Hero—you—to defeat Ganon. But really, that's just a theory." She paused. "A theory backed up by years of research, fragments of ancient texts, and the brainpower of yours truly, so it's probably pretty accurate." She shrugged again.

A shrine to train the Legendary Hero. Link felt that sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach again. Was this yet another task he would have to complete on his journey to defeat Ganon and free Princess Zelda?

"Is this the only one?" he said, looking back up at the orange Sheikah eye above them. He had a feeling that he wouldn't like the answer.

"Of course not! We've got these things all over the country, though I think most of them have been hidden by time. We excavated some of them, but I don't think we even came close to finding them all."

"And I need to find them all?" Link grimaced, suddenly feeling any hope of accomplishing this task drain out of him. If he had to find these to defeat Ganon…

"What?" Purah looked at him with wide eyes. "Are you insane? We're way past training you to be a hero, Linky! I suppose if you find some others out there, it wouldn't hurt to check them out—might even be fun! But you don't have time to go trying to dig these up now."

Link wasn't sure if he should feel relieved or not. It was good to know that he wouldn't be expected to go find each of these ancient shrines, but if they'd been built for the express purpose of making sure he was ready to face Ganon, then was he setting himself up for another failure by not doing so?

Purah brought him back out of his introspection by snapping her fingers at him. "You get distracted more easily than Symin. Pay attention!" She pulled the Sheikah Slate from a small bag she had slung over her shoulder. "Snappity snap, we're going to make history today. Linky! Give me a good snap!"

"I… what?"

"Snap! Give me a snap! A good one."

Link opened his mouth, utterly confused by this. Finally, he cleared his throat. "Um…snap?"

Purah gave him a look of disgust before rolling her eyes, mumbling something under her breath. Then she straightened, looked back at the pedestal, and placed the Sheikah Slate against its flat surface.

The pedestal flashed a brilliant blue, followed by the circular platform they stood on. The shrine shuddered as the door, which was made up of a series of horizontal, interlocking stone blocks, swung open with the sound of stone grinding on stone.

Purah whooped and laughed, jumping up and down as the shrine came to life. Link couldn't help but smile some at the exuberance shown by the little girl—until he remembered that she was actually well over a hundred years old, which made the sight seem a little strange.

Surprisingly, there did not seem to be much of interest inside of the shrine, however. A simple glowing platform sat in the small rock enclosure. It was clearly Sheikah in design with its blue glow and was much smaller than the large circle on the outside of the shrine. There wasn't even another pedestal with which to use the Sheikah Slate.

Purah grabbed Link's hand with her own small one and pulled him forward onto the circle inside. As they stepped on it, the floor shifted under their feet. Link stumbled, his eyes widening as the glowing blue circle under their feet began to sink into the ground.

Purah laughed again, her eyes wide with unbridled excitement. Link, for his part, felt naked and unsure. He had his weapons, yes, but they were entering some kind of underground cavern, it would seem. He had no idea what to expect, and, to make matters worse, Purah was with him. He would possibly have to protect her as well.

The floor beneath them continued to sink, and, soon, they were surrounded by rock walls. The only light came from the soft blue lights on the platform and the increasingly distant circle of light above them. Link wondered if any of the other villagers would investigate the shrine. What if one of the children fell in? He felt sick just thinking about it. Had they been irresponsible trying to do this without properly warning the villagers? As if sensing his concerns, the circle of light far above grew suddenly dark. Distantly, Link could hear the sound of the stone door closing again.

Well, at least that takes care of that. Now we just have to find a way out, he thought, his heart sinking further.

For a few seconds, the only light came from beneath their feet, and Link could just faintly make out Purah's excited expression. Light suddenly flooded the small shaft they were descending into. The platform had cleared a lip in the rock and now floated down in a brightly lit cavern. Link's eyes widened as he took in the sight.

They were in some kind of cylinder made of stone rings and vertical beams of light. He couldn't see anything that was actually controlling the platform they were standing on, but it continued to slowly descend without any trouble. Outside of the cylinder, however, was a large cavern. Really, cavern probably wasn't the right word for it, as it was clearly not natural. Familiar glowing orange lights and lines formed strange patterns reminiscent of celestial constellations covered the otherwise plain black stone walls. The ceiling was a strange mass of blue light crisscrossed with support beams that didn't appear to support anything that Link could actually make out. The floor was the strangest thing, however.

The floor wasn't a floor at all. Instead, the actual floor appeared to be so far beneath them that it was impossible to make out. They were descending toward some kind of large platform, blocky and solid. He couldn't see any way that it was floating, other than being attached to the one wall at Link and Purah's backs. It seemed far too flimsy for the platform's mass, yet it stood without any difficulty. There were others like it as well. In fact, the platforms in the room were of many different shapes and sizes and appeared to have different purposes. For example, directly after the platform that Link and Purah were descending to, there was something that looked like a pair of windmill's blades, turned on their sides to form rotating platforms. This rotating platform crossed a large gap leading to the next solid platform, attached to the wall at its side.

Purah gasped as she took it all in, taking out her notebook and scribbling furiously with a small charcoal pencil. She didn't speak out loud as she wrote—it would appear that this was all too much to even warrant that. The look of concentration on her face might have even been comical, with her eyebrows furrowed and tongue sticking out, caught between her lips, but Link felt too overwhelmed. Who were the ancient Sheikah? How could they make something like this? And to hide it underground, to mask it under perfectly normal-looking terrain features… It was astonishing.

They reached the ground with a soft thud and the strange light that had guided them down faded, providing them the way out onto the large platform. As Link stepped out, a sudden sound like a gong rang out, causing him to tense, eyes wide, as he looked around for the source of the sound. A voice, loud and booming, seemed to come from everywhere at once, filling Link's ears with its deep, resonance.

"To you who sets foot in this shrine…" Link glanced back at Purah in utter confusion, but she, too, seemed taken aback by the voice. "I am Myahm Agana." Purah gasped next to him and began writing again. "In the name of the Goddess Hylia, I offer this trial." Link heard another gong, and then nothing. Silence.

Finally, Link turned to Purah, opening his mouth to speak, but she shushed him violently, shaking her head. She kept writing, reaching the bottom of the page she was on before flipping it over and beginning to scribble on the back. Her hands moved far faster than Link would have thought it possible for anyone to write. After filling in half of this new page, she finally tapped her pencil and looked back up at Link. She looked flushed, and he wondered if it was due to the intensity of her writing.

"Okay!" Purah shoved her the paper and small pad she'd been writing on into her pack and pulled out the Sheikah Slate, looking at it quietly and then up at Link. She looked back at the Slate, considering. Finally, her shoulders slumped and she held the Slate out to Link. "These shrines are to train you, Linky, so you might as well have this."

"Thanks." Link took the Sheikah Slate, clipping it to his belt, which seemed to annoy Purah somehow. He stepped up to the ledge, looking at the rotating platform before him. "Do you think we need to cross this?"

"Oh, probably… Unless the ancient Sheikah wanted us to just stand here for a while." Her sweet smile was at complete odds with the sarcastic bite in her tone. He ignored it.

He sized up the rotating platform. It was moving quickly, connected by a spinning pole to the wall. He had absolutely no idea how it worked—or even if it would properly support his weight. But if he leaped onto it just as the first fin reached the proper height, he could sprint across and leap across. Hopefully before the angle grew so steep that he slipped and fell down into the bottomless pit.

Link backed up, taking a deep breath, readying himself, but then he hesitated. It was foolish, of course. Nigh suicidal! One misstep, running just a little too slowly, and he would plunge into the depths. What would Hyrule do then? Who could save the princess? It was foolish.

"Purah, maybe we should just go back up." Link shook his head, straightening. "This isn't… safe."

"Click, snap! Of course, it is!" Purah grinned at him, placing her hands on her hips.

"There is no way I can run across that without falling," Link said, feeling exasperated. "And, besides, you would have to get across too, and I just don't think—"

"Run across? What, are you blind? We're not going to run across!" Purah's grin remained, a strange twinkle in her youthful eyes. Link suddenly got the sense that he was missing something very important.

"Look, if you know something, just… say it." Link felt a headache beginning to form between his temples. He really wished he had a chance to eat breakfast that morning.

Purah sighed and walked over to him. She tapped the Sheikah Slate at his waist. "You know how we could not get in here without this? Maybe—hear me out here—maybe you should use this in here."

Link gave her a blank stare for several moments, considering her words, and then pursed his lips. Of course. He pulled the Sheikah Slate from his waist, looking at the runes available. He noted immediately that there were a few additional ones that hadn't previously been there, but he ignored those, for the time being, instead selecting the yellow Stasis rune. At once, the screen grew translucent and he gazed through it at the rotating platform, which was highlighted in a bright yellow light. At just the right moment, he selected the rune and the platform flashed brightly before going perfectly still, forming a perfectly stable platform for them to cross on.

Purah laughed happily and did a little dance as she crossed the platform. Link saw the timer counting down on the screen and hurried across after her, feeling relieved once back on the stable ground of the next platform. Once he was safely across, Purah grinned at him, showing teeth.

"Come on, come on!" She turned and hurried down a shallow slope that led to another gap between platforms. This one had two stone tracks connecting the platforms with a pair of metal platforms that were placed along the tracks, though neither of them was close enough to jump onto. She looked back at Link as he approached, smirking at him. "Can you figure this one out?"

Switching over to the Magnesis rune, Link shot out the strange beam and connected to the nearest metal platform. Using the Sheikah Slate, he brought the platform closer, and Purah happily danced onto it. Link followed and then used the Slate to bring the other platform closer. They crossed onto this platform and, using Magnesis, moved the previous platform forward enough to cross back over onto. Using the twin metal platforms like stepping stones, they crossed the gap without any other incident or word.


The next hour or so passed in much the same way. Link found that the shrine appeared to mostly be a series of simple exercises to make sure he was familiar with the functionality of the Sheikah Slate. They crossed a waterfall using Cryonis, formed a bridge with Magnesis, and had to freeze several more moving platforms with Stasis before they reached the other end of the chamber they were in.

Just when Link was beginning to feel that the exercises being presented him were, perhaps, a little simpler than he had expected from such a lofty place, they crossed through a door into a much larger room. There was no real floor in this next room—just a handful of stable platforms among a series of moving platforms, metal blocks, and several waterfalls. It was clear this was to be the real challenge of the shrine.

For the next two hours, they carefully made their way across the room. It was slow going and quite a bit more dangerous than the previous room. Even Purah's quips seemed to dry up after one particular platform that acted like a seesaw broke out of its Stasis before Purah had made it all the way across. As it began to tilt down, she screamed and leaped for the platform Link was standing on. Only Link's quick reaction in grabbing her by her wrist kept her from falling down into the seemingly bottomless pit below. They took a break after that before, finally, continuing on and reaching the final platform. Relieved, Link leaned against the wall, exhaling slowly.

"Do you think that was it?" Link said after catching his breath. Purah shrugged and shook her head. She was breathing heavily as well, cheeks flushed. Finally, they continued on down a set of stairs that led into a large open room. Several stone pillars reached up to the ceiling, and there was a conspicuous square-shaped hole in the center.

"Linky!" Purah said. Link looked back at her, eyebrows raised. "To answer your previous question—nope!" Link sighed and moved forward into the room, holding his Sheikah Slate carefully. He spotted a few heavy-looking metal crates off to one side of the room, but their purpose was not immediately obvious to him.

A rumbling noise from the center of the room brought his attention back to the hole. As he watched, the missing piece of the floor rose into place from the depths of the hole. It clicked into place, completing the room's floor. Located at its center was some kind of mechanical creature that looked somewhat related to the dead Guardians that Link had seen throughout Hyrule.

It was smaller than the Guardians that Link had seen, thankfully—shorter than Link's own height—with three spider-like legs and a squat body connecting them. It had a domed head with a single blue eye. Link's initial thought was that it did not actually look very threatening.

"It's a Guardian Scout! I haven't seen a functioning one in, what, sixty years or so?" Purah seemed quite excited by its presence and grabbed out her paper and pad to write on. "Its coloring is orange. Fascinating!"

At Purah's voice, the Guardian's domed head swiveled around, and its blue eye fell on Link. To Link's dismay, the head suddenly rose upon a cylindrical extension of its body, rising to be about Link's height. To make matters worse, two thin mechanical arms extended out from its body. With a flash, a pair of strange weapons appeared in its hands, if they could be called such.

The weapons appeared to be a sword and shield, but they were glowing and slightly translucent. As the Guardian moved them, they buzzed and hummed. Neither of them seemed terribly threatening—the sword was shorter than Link's sword, and the shield was fairly small as well—but Link didn't trust the way they looked. The hairs on his arms stood on end, and his breath quickened. He knew at once that this small, simple automaton was dangerous. And its eye was focused on him alone.

Link hooked his Sheikah Slate to his belt and unsheathed his sword and shield. The Guardian Scout appeared to wait for Link to arm himself before moving forward on its legs. The legs moved fluidly, made up of dozens of small joints that gave them great flexibility and speed. It crossed the distance to Link much faster than he had expected, and Link dodged back, narrowly avoiding a horizontal slice by the Guardian that would have taken his head off at the neck.

Breathing quickly, Link leaped forward, swinging his sword towards the Guardian's blue eye, but it moved its shield into place with a surprising quickness. Link's sword bounced harmlessly off, and he barely had time to get his own shield up in time to block the follow-on attack. The Guardian's sword struck his shield with powerful force, sending Link stumbling back a few steps.

Relentless, the Guardian advanced on Link, and he was forced to dodge and deflect more attacks. When he thought he saw another opening, he swung out, but again, his sword only found the blue, crackling shield.

From her place, sitting on the stairs that led down into the room, Purah called out to Link, but he ignored her. The Guardian paced around Link in a circle, the shield held defensively in front of its body. It seemed to be waiting for Link to make his next move. Link feinted left, and it swung its sword down through the air in a chopping motion, right where it thought Link should have been. Instead, Link stepped towards the right and stabbed his sword out, the tip slipping past the Guardian Scout's shield to find its way home to the Guardian's exposed central body, where it bounced off harmlessly.

For a frozen second, Link stared with wide eyes at the utter lack of damage dealt to the Guardian, and then it swiveled its shield around, catching Link's sword and wrenching it from his hands. The sword spun away from him, splashing down in the water that now covered the floor. When had that even happened? As Link stumbled back, he was surprised to find that the entire chamber was now covered by about an inch of water. Not enough to cause him to lose his footing, but enough to slow him.

The Guardian advanced relentlessly, its eye never leaving Link. Weaponless, Link had no choice but to keep retreating, looking for any other weapons with which to use. He had left his unstrung bow sitting on the steps next to Purah, who did not seem to be at all interested in assisting him, except… why was she waving at him? And what was she yelling?

"—kah Slate! Use the—"

Link tuned her out again and grabbed the Sheikah Slate from his belt again, pressing the Cryonis rune. With a hasty aim, he caused a block of ice to rise up right underneath one of the Guardian's legs. It tipped, nearly falling over, but then righted itself, walking around the block of ice to continue its advance. Link, however, had managed to gain more ground on the Guardian in the momentary distraction, and he was able to raise up two more blocks of ice in front of the Guardian, blocking its path for another few precious moments.

When it came around the block again, Link pressed the Stasis rune and, suddenly, the Guardian flashed with the comforting yellow light, freezing in place. Feeling a sudden rush of giddy joy, Link's fingers danced across the screen, selecting the blue Remote Bomb rune. The bomb appeared right in front of him, and he kicked it towards the frozen Guardian before running back several paces. As soon as the Stasis rune broke, he set off the bomb, which sent the Guardian flying backward in a heap of tangled limbs. To Link's astonishment, its two arms were sheared off in the blast, leaving the Guardian unarmed.

Feeling as though a weight had lifted off of his shoulders, Link grinned and lowered the Sheikah Slate. That's when he saw its eye flash white. His body moved of its own accord, diving to the side as a beam of light shot from its eye, striking the ground where Link had been standing moments before, sending a cloud of hissing steam into the air. The Guardian did not give Link much of a chance to recover after that and launched another volley of deadly light at him, narrowly missing as Link stumbled through the water.

Link ran around one of the stone pillars, which blocked the next two volleys from the Guardian, though it shuddered worryingly in the process, sending light dust and debris raining down on his head. Link could hear the Guardian's clawed feet splashing through the water as it approached him and he looked quickly around for another weapon he could use. His eyes fell on the large metal crates nearby.

There seemed to be something wrong with how the Magnesis rune worked. Link was no scientist, but he felt that it was strange that he could use the rune to lift such a large metal box into the air while feeling none of its considerable weight in his own arms. It didn't make a lot of sense. Of course, at that moment, Link really did not care very much.

He swung the Sheikah Slate violently to the side and the metal crate, obligingly, slid through the water with the terrible sound of metal grating against stone. The Guardian's eye turned to look at it as it approached, but it did nothing to dodge the box as it collided with the Guardian hard enough to send the automaton flying through the air. It fit the ground in a roll and settled some ten feet away. Link eyed it cautiously, still maintaining his mysterious hold on the metal box and, when it began to shudder back to its feet, he lifted the box high over its head and brought the box crashing down with enough force to shatter both the box and the Guardian underneath.

Breathing deeply, Link stumbled back and leaned against the stone pillar. Across the large arena-like room, one final door slid open. The water began to drain from the room, flowing into small grates that had opened at the room's edges. Over on the steps, Purah wrote furiously on her paper.

When Link finally approached her, she looked up at him and grinned. "Good job, Linky! That was some quick thinking! For a moment there, I thought we were going to have to find ourselves another hero…" She tapped her lips thoughtfully with her charcoal pencil. It left black smear on her lips. "I wonder what you would have done in this shrine had I not come with you…"

I'm only here because you insisted, he thought. He did not speak that aloud, however, and merely shook his head. "That should be it, right? There can't possibly be anything else after… that. What did you call it?"

"A Guardian Scout!" Purah shot to her feet and hurried across the floor to the mangled remains. "A Guardian Scout that appeared to not be under Ganon's control." When Link gave her a blank look, she scowled at him. "Link, don't you understand? We didn't know that any Guardians remained outside of Ganon's control! Somehow, the shrine… protected it. I need to study this." Her voice took on a singsong tone as she rubbed her hands together. "This could bring about a breakthrough…"

Deciding to leave Purah to her investigation of the Guardian, Link walked over and retrieved his fallen sword. He noticed with some irritation that its tip had been chipped in his failed attack against the Guardian. It was still usable for a time, but he worried that point of weakness would weaken the rest of the blade over time. Deciding there was nothing he could do for it now, he sheathed his sword and shield before, out of curiosity, walking over to where the Guardian's limbs had been blown off.

The arms, he found, had hands with three spindly fingers each. These fingers gripped a strangely designed sword hilt and a disc that he assumed was the Guardian's shield. They both appeared to be made of the same black metal that made up the Guardian's body, with familiar-looking Sheikah designs on them. Link bent down, prying the Guardian's broken hand open and pulling the sword hilt out. He turned it over in his hands, inspecting its smooth black surface. Finally, he found a small switch on its side. Carefully positioning it away from his body, Link pressed down on the switch.

With a flash of blue light and a hum, the sword's blue blade appeared. Gasping, Link's eyes widened. He carefully turned the blade, noting with amazement that it appeared to have no thickness to it at all. It was thinner than he thought possible, and he wondered at its cutting power. If this blade had caught him, it would have likely sliced through any of his limbs with ease. It was probably a miracle that his shield had survived a blow from this.

He placed the blade against the Guardian's broken arm and applied pressure. With surprising ease, the blue blade cut cleanly through the metal arm. With some surprise, Link found that the cut ends of the arm were glowing red with molten metal. Was the blade hot? It didn't seem to have any heat radiating off of it, but Link decided against testing it against his skin. He deactivated the Guardian sword and slipped it into his belt, determined to experiment more with it later. He picked up the small disc that he assumed was its shield, attempting to test it out in the same way. It seemed to have been damaged in the fight, however, and would not activate. He left it next to the discarded limbs and walked back over to Purah.

"Look, Linky!" She stood up from the Guardian's wreckage, holding a small yellow sphere with a smirk. "The core survived your beating! Hopefully, I can pull some important data from it. Get your new toys? Good. Let's hope we can get back to the lab so I can examine this."

They turned and walked towards the newly opened door, which revealed one more, smaller room. A set of stairs led up to a raised dais, where a large glowing blue cube sat. Curious, Link approached it and found, with some surprise, the old, desiccated remains of an ancient Sheikah sat within the cube. The Sheikah was thin enough to see its skeleton underneath its papery skin, with sunken eyes, nose, and mouth. In the center of its head was a white Sheikah symbol tattooed on its skin. It was seated cross-legged with its hands held up at chest height, fingers and thumbs forming a triangle. It wore simple Sheikah robes and pants, and its long white hair had been pulled up into a top knot.

Purah stepped up beside him, staring at the Sheikah with wide eyes. Perhaps unsurprisingly, she had no quips to make about this seemingly mummified member of her tribe. The man appeared to have been dead for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Which was why it was so surprising when the Sheikah's eyes suddenly opened, revealing empty sockets, and its mouth opened, showing a dark, toothless maw.

Link and Purah both stumbled back, and Purah released a series of curses that sounded extremely inappropriate to be coming from such a young girl's mouth. Link wrenched his sword free from its scabbard, alert for another trial or attack. But no attack came. Instead, the Sheikah in the glowing cage spoke with the same, resonant tone that they'd heard upon entering the shrine.

"Your resourcefulness in overcoming this trial speaks to the promise of a hero…" The ancient Sheikah moved slowly, uncrossing his legs and standing. As he moved, his bones cracked and popped, and Link was amazed that he could move at all. What kind of magic sustained this Sheikah's life for so long? The Sheikah stood, stooping slightly. "You have taken the first steps necessary to defeat the evil plaguing this land. Now, go. Hone your abilities. Save what remains."

Link slowly sheathed his sword, watching the Sheikah. To his amazement, the Sheikah man clasped his hands together and bowed at the waist. Link, hesitantly, did the same, bowing in more than a little reverence for the old man who had, to Link's approximation, waited in this shrine for far too long. When the Sheikah stood, it turned its empty eye sockets on Purah, and its cracked lips formed a smile.

"Be strong, little one." It bowed towards Purah, who looked on with a shocked expression. Finally, she seemed to come to her senses and clapped her hands together, bowing with a practiced air. When the Sheikah rose, it spoke again, still looking at Purah. "Guide the hero. Do not fail as we did."

The Sheikah fixed its empty gaze forward and then began to fade. Link and Purah both gasped as the Sheikah's body dissolved into thousands of glowing blue-green particles, which floated away before fading completely. The blue shield that had surrounded it faded as well, leaving an empty dais. Link glanced down at Purah, struggling to find words.

Whatever he might have said, however, was lost when he noticed that Purah's feet, like the ancient Sheikah, were breaking apart into the blue particles. Purah cried out Link's name, and he saw that the same was happening to his own feet. The sensation traveled quickly up his body, causing his legs and torso to disappear. He opened his mouth in a silent scream, but then the sensation reached his head and everything went white around him.

Moments later to Link's approximation, the world took shape around him once again. The white faded to reveal a bright blue sky overhead, full of puffy clouds. Trees swayed in a soft breeze, and birds sang happily with the day. The day had warmed considerably in the time they had been in the shrine.

Link gasped and looked around, finding that he was, again, standing upon the base of the Sheikah shrine. The orange glow of the Sheikah symbol upon its face had turned blue, and the door remained closed. He looked down and saw Purah beside him, patting herself down as if to make sure she was all there. She looked up at him, eyes wide, and, for a moment, still seemed unable to speak. That did not last long, however.

"Click, snap! Instant transportation! I've read of it before, of course, but to actually experience it… I must do more to study this. Perhaps figure out a way to activate it on my own Sheikah Slate…" She pulled the paper out of her bag again, scribbling several notes, muttering to herself as she did so. When she finished with a flourish of her wrist, she put the paper and pencil away, looking up at Link with a grin. He could see, though, that the experience they shared still haunted her, as it did him. The grin did not quite reach her red eyes.

"We should go back to the lab. I need to examine your Sheikah Slate one more time before I can let you go, alrighty?" Purah began down from the shrine, pointedly ignoring the few villagers that had gathered to see how it had changed. Link wasn't sure if any of them had seen Purah and him arriving again, but he hoped not. He did not want to answer the questions that would follow. The villagers, thankfully, chose to part around them as they passed, though Link heard several whispered conversations breaking out behind him. He briefly caught sight of Meghyn, who watched him with wide eyes, but she, too, kept her distance. Link and Purah walked in silence up the path to the inn's stables, where they retrieved Spirit and Purah's mule.


It was sometime later before either of them spoke again. Both of were deep in thought following the shrine, and the slow, plodding pace of their mounts only seemed to encourage the thoughtfulness. Finally, though, Purah broke the silence.

"Linky, I am surprised at you." She looked over at him from her mule, which she appeared to have named "Mule", and smiled.

"Why?" Link frowned slightly, unsure of what he had done this time.

"Well, yesterday, you wouldn't stop pestering me with questions, but you haven't asked any today."

Link did not particularly think he had been pestering her with questions the day prior, but he left that subject alone. Instead, he considered what he might ask. Before he could ask anything, though, Purah continued.

"Do you… want to know anything about your life before? I didn't really know you that well, but the princess was…" Purah smiled in such a way that made her look much older than the six-year-old body would suggest. "We were close. She was like my younger sister. And you were always two steps behind her."

Link's face flushed and he looked down towards Spirit's lazily bobbing head. He felt Purah's gaze on him but wasn't sure he wanted to meet her eyes.

"Come on, Linky… There must be something that you want to know. Do you want to know what the princess really thought of you? She might have let something slip one late evening when you were sleeping."

"The villagers mentioned a hero from the village that died defending it against the Guardians. Was that…"

"You? Yep!" Purah bounced a little in her saddle. "You were—are—the grand hero of Hateno Village. Not a very fun question to ask, but sure. You used to live here."

Link finally looked up at her, briefly, and then out at the village stretching below them. Of course, he could not recognize it at all. Nothing about it even seemed familiar to him.

"Really, I guess your family lived here. You probably wouldn't even remember much of it, even if you had your memories—your father was a knight in the Royal Guard, after all." Link's head snapped around to look at Purah again. "So you spent most of your life living in Castle Town or the castle. Still had some land here, though." She gave Link a sly look. "In fact, I think you and the princess even stayed in your house when you visited this area…"

"I heard that my old—" He hesitated and then cleared his throat. "—the hero's old house was still around. Is that true?"

Purah shrugged. "Do I look like someone that goes into town often? It was a few years ago, but…"

"Do I… still have any family alive?"

Purah's expression fell. "As far as I know, your entire family was near the castle when Calamity Ganon broke free."

Link's heart sank, but he couldn't find it in himself to truly mourn this. He didn't even remember his own parents or any other family he might have had. How could he truly mourn strangers?

For a time, silence fell between them again as they slowly made their way up and around the hill towards Purah's lab. She eventually broke the silence again, pointing at his Sheikah Slate.

"I did fix that. If you look at the runes, you'll see few more! The green one is the camera rune—you can take photographs with it." Link had no idea what photographs were, so he pulled the Sheikah Slate from his belt and clicked the rune. At once, the screen turned transparent again, and he was reminded of the telescopic rune that it had. When he pressed the green rune again, however, the screen flashed and he was presented with a still image of what he had been pointing it at—Hateno Village from above—perfectly captured in all of its detail. The still image remained for a few seconds before disappearing, replaced by the transparent screen again.

"You can look at the photos you've taken by clicking the rune next to it. That's the photo gallery. There's…" Purah hesitated, her voice hitching. After swallowing and smiling, she continued. "There's actually a lot of old photographs on there. We didn't clear them before…"

Link did as Purah said, opening the gallery. He immediately saw the photo that he'd taken first, but beyond that, he saw… himself. Clad in a blue tunic, hair styled much the same way it was now, though perhaps a little shorter. He was sitting in front of a fire, tending a cookpot with a long stick. He could see several pieces of meat cooking in the pot. His expression looked… content. A small smile played across his lips in the photograph. He began to flip through the different photographs.

There were dozens of them. Some were pictures of beautiful sunsets or interesting landmarks. There were pictures of ancient Sheikah shrines, of Guardians standing in non-threatening manners. Animals, insects, and even rocks and trees. There were pictures of beings, unlike anything he ever recalled seeing—a tall bird-like man with a beak and feathers, a shorter woman with warm eyes with fish fins, a massive brown-skinned being with an equally large grin, a tall woman with vibrant red hair and a dangerous-looking air about her. And there were pictures of him. Riding a brown horse, cleaning a beautiful sword with a purple hilt, or just sitting and standing. Many of them were taken, apparently, without his knowledge, as he was often turned away at the time.

Finally, he stopped at one photo showing a beautiful woman dressed in a flowing white dress. She was standing before a large pool of water with rock walls around her. Her golden hair parted around her round face, falling down past her shoulders to her back. Her green eyes shown with an expression that seemed sad, even though she was smiling in the photograph. Link's heart clenched, and he quickly closed the gallery rune. A lump had formed in his throat and would not go away. He did not know why the sorrow he felt all of a sudden came upon him so powerfully at that moment, but he found himself unable to speak. He could not get the sight of the woman's sad eyes out of his mind.

Zelda.

He knew her name. He thought that he might have known it, even had King Rhoam, Impa, and Purah not all mentioned it many times in his presence. He had no memories of her, nothing he could point to and explain how he knew… But he longed for her. He knew, in that moment, why nothing had felt right since he awoke. Why he felt lonely when making camp. He knew what was missing. He may not have had any memories of his time with her, but his heart remembered.

Purah looked at Link for several more seconds but said nothing more. Perhaps she could see something in his expression that suggested that he did not want to speak any further, or perhaps she just suspected what looking at the photos would do to his mind. Either way, she gave him the silence that he desperately needed in that moment.

Link gripped Spirit's reins with a vice grip. His knuckles were white. He tried to remember. He tried. He wanted to remember something—anything—yet his mind only showed him a black hole where memories should have been. Shouldn't he be able to remember something? He clenched his teeth hard enough to make his jaw hurt. If he traveled so much with her—if she meant so much to him—then why couldn't he remember a single thing about her? He knew her voice because she'd spoken to him since waking, he knew her face because of the photo, but what of her? What of their travels? Why did his heart ache so when he saw her, yet he found nothing—nothing!—when he tried to remember a single thing about her?

The remainder of the ride passed in silence. Purah made no more attempts at conversing with Link, and Link was happy to keep his thoughts to himself. When they reached the tech lab, she took the Sheikah Slate from him once more, retreating inside while Link remained outside, gazing out at the unfamiliar land stretching before him that had once been his home.