Link's imagination told him that when he opened the door the monster had entered the kitchen from the night before last, he would find a spectacularly horrifying beast lair riddled with skeletons.

The door did not lead to a spectacularly horrifying beast lair riddled with skeletons.

It led to a completely harmless, even boring room full of boxes. The monster wasn't even there (and this would be a terrible spot to fight it if it was because there was a large patch of ice in the middle).

Link let out his breath (he'd been holding it?). Okay. Okay, this was nice. He could live with this. Wonderful. Next stop… that door. That one, over there. Maybe the monster's (not) behind that door (either).

Oh.

There was a grate over the door, just like the grates over the doors in the living room.

Perhaps there was a door behind the boxes piled up in front of that far wall, and the monster had had to climb over the boxes to get to the kitchen? Or could it have dropped down from that overhanging balcony? But Link didn't want to climb over boxes or up onto a balcony….

Then he saw the button in the middle of the ice patch.

Oh, so it was one of THOSE doors.

In his travels, Link would often find doors that could only be opened by pressing some button or otherwise manipulating the room. The "room is the key" setup made no sense whatsoever to him. He'd been quite surprised to find that arrangement so common in Hyrule; in Ordon, everybody just locked their door with keys, and no one could get in, not even if they were smart enough to figure out which buttons to put pots on or what propellers to throw a boomerang at. Perhaps Link usually only found such doors in old, abandoned dungeons because the downsides of the design had been discovered a long time ago (If you don't come out of that bathroom in five seconds I'm going to start working on the puzzle that keeps the door locked!) Well. He couldn't really complain; it made his life easier often enough to just solve the puzzle and get on with things instead of having to hunt down a key. Or NOT solve the puzzle… this door was "locked" with a grate, and Link had a plan.

He sat down and pulled his iron boots out of his gear bag. He'd stopped questioning whatever magic let him store them in such a small pouch a long time ago because it WORKED so well… if there was some horrible, universe-bending secret to it, he honestly didn't want to know. He carried the boots across the ice to the button and set one on top of it.

Fshhhh, went the grate over the door as it opened.

Link carried the other boot over to the door and set it down, right under where the grate had been.

Then he went back to the ice and retrieved the first boot from the button, returning it to his gear pouch.

Clank, went the grate as it slammed down on the other boot.

There were a few big crates sitting on the ice that could perhaps be carefully manipulated so one of them ended up resting on top of the button. But there comes a point when you've solved so many little puzzles that you get smart enough to think of ways not to have to solve the puzzle in the first place.

Link pulled up the grate and rested it on his back. He was about to open the door, pick up his iron boot, and go through when he realized that he wouldn't be able to come back through the door if he let the grate fall back down. If this one was anything like the ones in the living room, there was some mechanism that held the bottom part in place once it had been shut.

The kitchen and the living room weren't necessarily any safer than the other parts of the mansion. But the kitchen had food, and… and little delusions are just a part of life, okay?

Link pulled the grate back down onto the iron boot and went to the kitchen in search of something to prop it open with. When a few cursory glances found him nothing, he wandered into the living room.

Books on a shelf! Perfect.

The books wouldn't fit in his gear bag (DON'T QUESTION IT! DON'T QUESTION IT!), so Link had to carry them a few at a time.

The fact that his injuries left him unable to carry more than three books at once might have some significance, he mused, if he ever wanted to rethink the sense of hunting down a monster yeti. But he wasn't going to rethink that, so it didn't matter.

Nope.

As Link stacked the books under the grate, he noticed how incredibly old they were. Some held stories, but others seemed to be about things like magic and building robots. Building robots with magic. It looked like the books were important historical artifacts, perhaps Hyrule's last remaining windows to lost knowledge. Were you really allowed to use that to prop open a door?

Link sighed.

He really didn't have time for this…

He put the books back and returned with a chair. He should have thought to use a chair earlier—it would have meant only one trip. The wood was old, but the thing probably wouldn't break under the pressure of the grate.

Probably.

When Link finally opened the door, he was sorely disappointed to find a small room with four heavy stone walls. There was a small opening in one of the walls, but that was blocked by ice. There was no way to move forward.

After all that work…!

Unless…

The floor was all snow, and, judging by the wind whistling through the opening above the ice barrier, this room was more or less an "outside" area. Part of one wall had crumbled. The back of Link's mind searched for those huge, shovel-y paws so he could dig dig dig dig his way through that patch of snow. Digging is nice.

Link didn't have access to those paws, but he had to find a way into the rest of the mansion somehow. The other two living room doors were locked, so he could either dig through here or try and climb over those boxes in the room he'd just come through.

After all that work to get here, there was no question as to which option he'd choose. Besides, you can go through a hole in the snow any direction you want. If you use a chair to climb over a high wall of boxes, that chair won't be on the other side to help you back over.

Especially if something's chasing you.

He squatted down and began to push snow away with his good hand. After a moment's thought, he got out his clawshot and dug with that.

Progress was definite but slow. Link's arm began to ache. Could he afford to risk wearing out the only arm he had the use of?

Sure.

Almost…there…

Finally. A hole big enough for his head. Curious and in need of a break from digging, Link got on his back and eased his head through the opening. He could see the sky. A courtyard? Or maybe the rest of the mansion consisted of a patch of snow surrounded by crumbling walls. Maybe once he was through this hole, he wouldn't have to do any more exploring… no more puzzles, no more dragging around furniture…

But he never got to finish contemplating because at that moment a wolfos sprang up out of nowhere and locked its jaws around his forehead.

Link almost shouted. Perhaps he would have if he had only seen the shadowy form of the monster and not the eyes. Not the fangs. Perhaps he would have shouted if he hadn't felt its breath on his face or felt its terrible strength. He couldn't let the monster find him like this.

In a remarkable feat of willpower, Link left it at one quiet "Gahh!" as he struggled to pull his head back through the hole. His legs were stronger than the wolfos's, and he made progress backwards, but the animal's grip was strong. For several minutes, they struggled at the mouth of the hole, unable to fit through together. Finally, the wolfos let go and trotted off, its nose raw and bleeding from its contact with the wall.

Link quickly pulled his head back through the hole and shrank back against the opposite wall, shivering violently. He hadn't really noticed how cold the room was, thanks to the proximity of the ice and the surrounding environment.

Hadn't really noticed how stupid it was to stick your head through a hole because you didn't know what was on the other side.

Idiot, he thought, gently touching the side of his head and finding it predictably wet, finding his fingers predictably red.

How did I even last this long? Why would I even do something like that? Is it because Midna's not here to ask me if someone dropped me when I was little? I thought she was annoying and bossy sometimes, but… we could talk things through with each other, get advice… and there's no doubt she cared about me… well, she did eventually, anyway… I never knew I'd be so lost without her…

But he hadn't shouted. The monster wouldn't surprise him here. He still had a chance to face it on his own terms.

How is that going to make a difference? If THIS happens when I go up against a wolfos, how am I going to fight a monster yeti?

Link sneezed violently and hugged himself as tightly as the pain in his arm would allow. That pain was greater now. Shielding the injury hadn't been his first priority when he'd struggled to escape the wolfos.

Freezing. Badly shaken. Wounded. Bleeding. Perfectly alone.

If I run into the monster, I'm finished. Unless it offers to jump off a cliff for me. FINISHED. The only reason I'm going after it at all is because I thought it would be cool to go out with a fight. But this isn't cool. This is nerve-wracking and painful. I might as well shout, scream, and stamp my feet right now—make it come, get this over with.

That would be easy. Very easy. But what about Yeta? What about Yeto? What about all of the people who counted on him?

What about Midna?

He closed his eyes and rested his head against the wall, breathing evenly, trying to calm down.

He was not automatically finished. There was hope. He had the Master Sword. He had people to fight for.

Also, he wished all of this could be over and he could just go home.

When he opened his eyes again, the meager bits of calm he had managed to restore vanished like smoke because the monster's bright, red eye was gazing at him through the hole. Half a second later, it was gone.

Link stared, frozen in terror. Had he really just seen the creature? Or was he just imagining things?

Outside the hole, wolfos feet crunched through the snow.

Would they be there if the monster had been around?

Five, ten, fifteen minutes of waiting and listening yielded no indication that the monster was anywhere nearby. Eventually, Link crept nervously back to the hole and began to widen it again. There was nothing else to do. And if he ever heard the horrible sound of the chair in the other room snapping to bits under the weight of the grate, he faced a smaller risk of completely losing his mind if he was digging dutifully instead of sitting around and feeling sorry for himself.

The wolfos knew he was there, and some of them were even helping him dig. He was glad to have brought out the clawshot. Whenever the wolfos got too close, one punch from the claw was enough to send them all packing.

Eventually, finally, the hole was large enough for Link to crawl through. He waited, ears straining for monster-like sounds, a good while before he dared enter. Then he scattered the waiting wolfos and slid through. He bumped his arm on the unforgiving stone wall a few times, but being on the other side was worth it.

There. The courtyard. It was only a courtyard after all; there was still a lot of mansion around it. A lot of places for a monster to hide. The snow here was too deep to fight in, but at least he had access to more of the mansion. He hadn't found a good "arena" yet, but he'd made progress. Of sorts.

As Link struggled through the snow, wolfos danced around him, jaws snapping. One of them had a bleeding nose and a red-stained mouth. Link had to frequently stop and drive them away with the Master Sword.

The sun marched dutifully along its daily path. If it had been close to noon when Link had woken up… it certainly wasn't noon now. This was taking a lot more time than he had anticipated. As he thought of Midna and how he had to save her, he wondered, not for the first time or for the last time, if he was already too late.

Link waded onward. The best he could do for her at the moment was stay alive.

He didn't think to wonder why Yeto had gone hunting for wolfos on Snowpeak Mountain if there were several right here in the mansion. But later, when he returned to the living room after a surprisingly fruitless attempt at challenging the monster, he did wonder who in the world had unlocked the other two doors while he was gone…