I'm back! I'm not even gonna try to give any excuses for how long this chapter took because I've just been doing other things in my free time. But, when I had free time and wasn't writing this chapter, I did still do some work on this story. I revised my plans, wrote some scenes of future chapters, stuff like that. By 'some' scenes of future chapters I actually mean that I've got about 9,000 words of scenes written down that'll be in the story eventually. I am awful at writing in chronological order. Here's chapter 11, finally.

It made me feel good, in the worst way, to see that Link couldn't handle the heat as well as I could.

He had us take a lunch break as soon as he got into the mines, during which time he chugged down an entire canteen filled with water that Luda had given him. He restrained himself from drinking any more out of the other canteen he had, despite how much he was itching to. As I sipped the water from the first of my two canteens, Link gave me a worried look.

"...You should drink more," he said, his voice slightly quiet. "You have to be dehydrated."

"If one of us is dehydrated, it's clearly you, judging by how much you've drunk. Not that I want you to pass out from dehydration or anything, but you really should have drunk less. God knows how long we'll be in here, and you've finished half your water supply before we even started anything," I said.

"You're not even sweating."

"Women don't sweat as much as men," I said with a shrug.

Link made a noise of displeasure before removing his belt and his baldric. Before I could ask what he was doing, he took off his green tunic and chain mail, his long pointy hat falling off in the process. A very unpleasant smell drifted over to me as he lifted his arms, making me scrunch my nose up and scoot backward. He had never smelled the best to me, but he really didn't smell good now. His current odor was entirely repulsive, unlike his old earthy scent of trees and dirt with a tinge of what I could now identify as goat manure.

He placed his shirts in his pouch, seemingly unaffected by his own stench. He then strapped his baldric over his undershirt that was absolutely drenched in sweat around his neck and armpits, and buckled his belt around his hips. Link picked up his hat from behind him and put it back on his head, then stood up and put his canteens away.

"Have fun with your impending heat stroke because of that stupid hat," I said as I got up.

He reached up to touch his hat and frowned, looking hurt. "My hat ain't stupid... I can handle feeling a little warmer if it means feeling a lot more at ease. I've gotten so used wearin' my hat that I feel weird without it."

"Your hat is definitely stupid."

Link glared at me and started down what little of the path there was before the magma lake, grumbling "My hat is not stupid" under his breath. I laughed quietly as I followed him, and he glared back at me again.

"What's so funny back there?"

"What's funny is you getting worked up over a hat," I said.

He stopped walking and turned to face me. "This ain't just any ole hat. This hat was given to me by a Light Spirit, and it was once worn by an ancient hero who saved Hyrule."

"Any ole hat or not, you have to admit it looks funny."

"You've got no room to be talking about my hat when you wear a shirt that doesn't even go past your ribs. Don't you know that shirts are supposed to cover your entire torso?"

"Says the one who wears a shirt so long it's practically a dress."

"It's called a tunic."

"And my shirt is called a crop top."

Link rolled his eyes and let out a long breath through his nose. "Okay, I'm done with discussing clothes inside a volcano. I just want to go find Darbus, get the Fused Shadow, and get out of here before I melt."

"Fine."

With that word, the quiet returned.

I always hated the quiet. Having only the sound of the magma lake bubbling over top of the constant electric hum produced by my hearing aids was maddening, but it wasn't like I could get my phone out and start listening to music. We had to hop over dangerous chasms and avoid geysers of magma to make it to the end of the sweltering room. One second of distraction was all it would take for me to make a wrong step and fall to my death.

We were out of the long room after several of the most stressful moments of my life, and outside into what I supposed was the main area of the mines. Large and stationary metal cranes hung over platforms that rose out of the lava, and metal ramps and gratings were connected to form entrances to different rooms back inside. We took the only path we could take from where we were, ending up in a room with more magma geysers and chasms, and...

"Since when do alligators live inside of volcanoes?" I said.

"You talkin' about the Dodongo? They've always lived in the volcano regions," Link said.

Alligator or not, it was actually a strangely comforting sight in a way. In the midst of this unfamiliar world, at least there was something else that my world had, too, even if that something was slightly different with its purple gecko-like toes and orange tail.

"Don't jump down here until I tell you to," Link commanded. "Those things are really dangerous. Just let me take care of it."

"You're a goat wrangler, not a 'Dodongo' wrangler. Do you want to get eaten?"

Link looked at me like I had just said the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard. "I ain't gonna wrangle it, I'm gonna kill it!"

I stared in disbelief as he hopped down and ran over to the Dodongo, sword and shield at the ready. The Dodongo opened its mouth wide and I cringed away, thinking it was about to lunge forward and bite Link. Instead, Link jumped over to the side just as fire began to erupt from its mouth.

"The alligators breathe fire," I whispered to myself. "They. Breathe. Fire?"

The Dodongo was even more dangerous than I thought—and Link was even stupider than I thought.

"Get away from that thing!" I yelled.

"I've got it, calm down!" Link yelled back.

He jumped to the side again as the Dodongo sent another stream of flames his way. Link raced around to its back and slashed his sword down at its orange tail repeatedly. It exploded into nothing after a good ten slashes at its tail, just like the Deku Babas and Skulltulas and Bokoblins did.

"...Link?" I said.

He looked up at me. "Hm?"

I jumped down and walked over to him. "How can you tell what creatures are evil and what creatures aren't?"

Link raised an eyebrow. "Evil creatures want to kill you."

"I know that already. How do you know which creatures want to kill you?"

"Well, typically the ones who want to kill you will try to kill you."

I huffed, and he smiled a bit. He walked up to the edge of the rock platform we were standing on, and motioned with his hand for me to come with him as he jumped over onto another. I followed him, hopping from rock to rock until we got to the other side of the large platform. There was a big metal chain attached to a concrete slab that went through the middle part of the platform that was sectioned off by two walls.

"Let me put it this way," I said. "How do you know that Dodongos are evil when other animals like goats aren't evil? Don't answer something stupid like 'Goats won't try to kill you.' There has to be some other way you know."

Link shrugged. "I've read a lot of books that have monsters in them, so I recognize them from those. I'll tell you about the monsters we see when we see them, okay?" I nodded. "Just remember that it's best for you to be careful around anything that isn't a person."

"I don't know what classifies a person as a person here either, though," I said, frowning. "If you hadn't told me Gorons were people, I wouldn't have considered them to be. In my world, the only people are other humans like me."

"Hyrule has humans like you, Hylians like me, and Gorons, Zoras, Fairies... We used to have a few more kinds of people, but those are the only ones left, that I know of at least. Zoras are fish people, and Fairies are these tiny little people who fly around with wings. You'll know what I mean if you see them."

I was about to tell him that I knew what Fairies were even though they were nothing more than fiction in my world, but I didn't want our conversation to go there. "Why would fish people be considered people more than Bokoblins, though? Bokoblins just look like a really ugly green or purple mix between Hylians and apes. I know that they're evil, but why does that negate their personhood? I'm sure Hylians and humans have kidnapped kids before, just like how that big Bokoblin kidnapped Colin."

"The green guys aren't Bokoblins. They're Bulblins. There's a difference, and not just in their skin color. Look closer next time you see one." Link picked up the chain and turned it over in his hands. "And yeah, I'm sure there are Hylians that do evil things, too, but Hylians aren't inherently evil like Bokoblins and Bulblins are. We're the chosen people of the Goddesses, we weren't born of evil." He paused and looked at me. "Was there another path we could have taken?"

"No, this was the only way. Give me that." I grabbed the chain's handle from him and tugged on it, making the slab pull out of the wall the tiniest bit. "The exit from this room has to be hidden behind that slab. We need to pull it out as far as we can."

Link took hold of the other side of the handle, and together we pulled it back, the slab sliding out along with it. When it got to the point where we could pull it out no farther, we dropped the chain, and as soon as we did the slab began to slowly slide back. Link and I exchanged a quick glance of confirmation, our eyes saying the word that our mouths didn't—run.

We just barely made it within the short window of time we had, the slab blocking us off from the rest of the room just seconds after we got past it. Just like I suspected, there was a door right in front of us, another one of the weird round rolling doors that seemed to be the standard in temples. Unlike the rock doors in the Forest Temple, these were made of wood, with a metal decal in the middle and metal around the rims.

"Kinda dumb to have wooden doors in here, don't you think?" I said. "It's like the torches inside of the Forest Temple. Is it not common knowledge in Hyrule that fire and wood don't mix?"

Link narrowed his eyes at me, still trying to catch his breath from our dash over here. "Just because our world may not be as 'advanced' as yours is doesn't mean we're stupid."

"You've been carrying around a wooden shield inside of a volcano that has fire-breathing creatures."

I could practically see the 'Oh, right. Huh,' look on his face. "I know it's not ideal," he said, "but I need a shield, and it's all I got."

I pulled mine off my baldric and held it over to him. "Take mine. You're the one that wants to fight. You need it more than me."

"But you—"

"Take it," I said. It should have been his in the first place anyway; it belonged to his great-great-grandfather, not mine.

With a sigh, Link dropped his wooden shield into his pouch, and attached the metal one to his baldric. He looked more of a hero with his ancestor's shield on his back, more right. I remembered how his birthmark matched the yellow design on the shield, like it was made for him to hold. ...But how did his great-great-grandfather know, in his youth when that shield belonged to him, that his great-great-grandson would someday wield the shield and be born with that same mark?

Link placed both his hands on the wooden door, and before he opened it, he looked back at me and said, "So you know—I don't want to fight."

I nearly snorted. Sure looked like he wanted to fight when he hopped right on down to fight that Dodongo.

The room the door led to was much smaller, and much cooler, with no magma inside. Instead, there was a pool of water with a metal fence halfway through it. There were two floors in one, with a higher door and a lower door in sight, but they both looked impossible to get to, both too high up.

Midna emerged from my shadow. "That's weird. This place is pretty cool. Good place to take a bath?"

"You could use one," I said to Link.

Midna giggled at my comment. Link looked like he took offense to it until he sniffed. His expression was a mix of surprise, disgust, and embarrassment.

"Sorry," he said. "Didn't know I smelled that bad."

Link jumped into the water and submerged himself in it. When he came back up, he took his hat off and shook out his hair, little droplets of water flinging out.

"What are you, a dog?!" I said as I backed up.

"Oh, aren't you in for a surprise," Midna said.

Link shot her a look, then looked at me. "Get in. It's real nice." He drank some of the water and hummed in delight. "Tastes good, too."

I scrunched up my face. "Ew! Swimming in it's one thing, but why would you drink it?"

"Um, I'm thirsty?"

"Who knows what's in that water? That's disgusting!"

"Too thirsty to care," he said, taking another big gulp. "Come on and get in."

I walked closer to the edge, and peered down into the water. The pool was probably between ten and fifteen feet deep. There was a hole big enough for a person to get through at the bottom of the fence, and just beyond it was a switch on the ground. I guessed that it would raise some platform that would take us up to the strange, flickering blue overhang that led to the lower door.

"I don't know if..." I trailed off.

"What, can't swim?" Link teased, an amused look on his face.

His look faded as he saw mine.

"I-it's not, it's not that I..." I staggered. My cheeks were as hot as the magma. "I can swim. I just—not underwater. I'm fine on the surface, kinda. But we have to go through that hole," I pointed, "at the bottom of the fence to get to the other side, and I..."

Link looked behind him. "Swim up to the fence, and climb over?" he suggested.

I wasn't good at climbing, either, but at least I knew that it was something I could actually do. "Y-yeah, I can do that."

"Meet you on the other side," Link said.

He dove down, and I watched as he swam deeper and deeper. He came up on the other side of the fence and shook his hair out again, then looked over to me as he put his hat back on. I was still standing in the same place.

"Right," I whispered to myself.

Rather than jumping in, I lowered myself into the unexpectedly chilled water. I slowly made my way over to the fence, and grabbed onto the metal and pulled myself up out of the water. I stopped for a second at the top, my legs straddling either side, thinking about how to maneuver myself and climb down. My hands gripped the beam on the top of the fence so hard I was sure the rivets would leave dents in my skin. I carefully pulled my left leg over to the other side, then slotted my foot into a hole. I went to move my right foot down.

It slipped. I lost my grip on the top of the fence, and went falling backward. I could only let out a short scream before my body was completely under the water.

I wildly flung my arms and kicked my legs up and down. I freaked out so much trying to get myself to the surface that I didn't even close my mouth or plug my nose, so when my head finally came up, water was pouring out of my mouth and nose. An arm wrapped around my waist, preventing me from going back down again.

"Are you okay?" Link asked.

I rubbed the water out of my eyes and blinked them open. Link was in front of me, one of his arms floating on the surface of the water, and his legs kicking underneath to keep us both up. I spit out what water remained in my mouth and wiped at my nose as I nodded.

"You were really thrashing around," he said. "I thought you were gonna make yourself drown."

I moved his arm off me and pushed away so that I could kick my own legs. "No," I said, though I wasn't sure what I was saying it to—I was thrashing around, and I thought I was going to drown, too. "I can swim, see? I just needed to calm down. I'm sure you would have been scared if you suddenly fell that far down, too."

"So, you're fine now?" he asked. I nodded. "You're not going to drown?" I nodded again. "Okay, good. Follow me up above the switch over there."

We swam over, and I could tell he was going slower so that I could keep up. We stopped above the switch, and Link reached into his pouch. He brought his iron boots out and slipped them onto his feet, and he started to sink down immediately. I was horrified watching him go down, imagining myself in his spot, though he looked calm as ever.

The ground didn't rise when Link sunk onto the switch, like I thought it would. The door didn't lower either, like my second guess. Instead, a shining ring of blue light erupted from the ground to the overhang of the flickering blue floor above us, and we went flying up to it. I hit the floor with a bang, immediately becoming disoriented. We were upside-down. My whole body felt like it was buzzing with electricity.

Link looked down at me—up at me?—and I could tell he was just as confused and disoriented as I was. "How are you sticking?"

"How are you sticking?" I shot back.

"This floor must be magnetic. My boots are sticking. But you..."

But I wasn't wearing iron boots.

I sat up, becoming even more disoriented as I noticed my wet hair was hanging above my head instead of down my back. I slowly stood, feeling like my body was trying to hold me against the magnet. I looked at my feet when I was all the way up. Like Link's, they were the only thing keeping me from falling down into the water, down where gravity should have made me be.

"Do your boots have metal in them?" Link asked.

"No, they don't. Nothing that I'm wearing has any—" I stopped myself as I realized that while my whole body felt like it was being tugged down, or up, something at my hips and torso was tugging with more vigor. I reached for my gun, and as soon as I grabbed it, the buzzing sensation multiplied in my hands, and I could feel it trying to bring itself to the magnetic ground. Though I didn't pull it out, I was certain that what was tugging down on my torso was my sword attempting to pull away from my baldric to meet the magnet. "My gun and my sword must be enough to keep all of me up here with them."

"Better make sure you don't drop them, then, if they're what's keepin' you up here."

I looked up/down at the water, holstering my gun but keeping my hand firmly over it. I gulped. "Yeah."

I wasted no time walking forward and over the edge of the overhang, and Link followed my lead. My feelings of being disoriented washed away when we were no longer upside-down. The buzzing feeling I felt washed away too, along with the pull of my gun and sword, as I stepped off the magnetized blue floor onto normal earth. The lower of the two previously unreachable doors was before us. Our boots squeaked as we walked over to it.

Inside the room was what looked to be another sumo ring, with an elderly Goron standing on the middle of it. He was by far the smallest Goron I'd seen, his narrow eyes even with my belly button, and he held a walking stick in his left hand. Even though he was holding the walking stick and standing in one place, he was still wobbling uncontrollably as he tried to keep his balance. My eyes flicked back and forth between his long rock beard, and the miniature smoking volcano that was the top of his head.

"Ah... I thought I felt a presence ... but what a surprise to find young humans," the old Goron said in his deep, shaking voice. "Word has come to me of you ... and if Gor Coron has faith in you, then your hearts must be true. I am one of the four Goron elders. Gor Amoto is my name. You are heroic, young humans. Please, you must lend this tribe your power. Take the key shard I've left for you on the table over there, and the map with it."

I looked over to where his eyes did, spotting the key shard he spoke of on a small table. I went over to it and picked up the big blue and gold hunk, and the yellowed map of the mines.

"When merged with the other key shards, you'll be able to get inside the room where our patriarch, Darbus, is being held," Gor Amoto said. "Each of us three elders keeps a piece. You must hurry to the other elders!" He wagged his cane, but quickly put it back down when he nearly toppled over.

I put the key shard in my pouch and looked at the map. It didn't seem like it would be too difficult to get to Darbus. There were only two floors, and we had already been through all of the first one. The second looked a bit more complicated, but I figured the lines on the map would be easier to decipher when we actually got to the rooms they represented, if we even would need the map at all. I folded up the map and put it in my pouch next to the key shard.

I thanked Gor Amoto for the map and the shard, and then climbed up the ladder to the upper half of the room. A high-pitched clucking noise brought me attention to a collection of pottery, and I saw something poking out of one of the pots.

"Ooccoo?" I said.

I walked around to the pot and picked it up. I flipped it over, and Ooccoo fell out of it. She stood up and shook out her feathers.

She looked just as weird the second time meeting her as she had the first.

"Gracious, you're that nice girl who helped me out the other day! How nice to see you again!" Ooccoo said.

"Yeah... So, uh, find your son?" I asked.

"Why, yes I did! Let me introduce you! Ooccoo Jr.!"

The pot next to the one she had been in stirred, and then out came a baby-sized disembodied head with cracked yellow skin, beady pink eyes, and wings where its ears should have been. The wings flapped up and down so fast they blurred as Ooccoo Jr. flew up to me and stared me dead in the face with his creepy blank expression. I heard Link walk up behind me and make a quiet exclamation of shock at the sight of him. I was sure that Ooccoo Jr. would feature in my nightmares if I ever had them.

"He can warp you out of here, and then right back to wherever you left me," Ooccoo said. "Just let me know if you want to warp out—he's a very shy boy, goodness, yes! May we stash away in your pouch, Link?"

Link opened his pouch, and Ooccoo and her son flew into it. I was very happy in that moment that Ooccoo's kind were just as strange to Link as they were to me, so that I could at least look at him and know I wasn't alone with my creeped-out feelings.