Ten

The City was once more filled with Gorons, many of whom were happily celebrating their freedom, and the restoration of normalcy to the volcano. Mostly by eating very large rocks that they called Rock Sirloin, racing around the middle track, and wrestling with one another. It took us some time to find Link the Goron, but when we did, he greeted us with unbridled enthusiasm.

"Brothers! Everyone has returned, goro!" he exclaimed, hugging first me, then Link, with great care. "Where's Dad?"

"He's got to stay in the Chamber of Sages for a bit, and then he's going to be in charge of the Fire Temple," Link said after a moment of hesitance. "At least, that's how Rauru explained it to me..."

"He said that you were to be the Big Brother now," I said, though I gave my Link a curious glance; this was news to me, though admittedly I hadn't wondered about it before. "And he also said that you would do very well at it."

Link the Goron's expression was one I knew well; he didn't know whether to be happy, sad, or something else entirely. After a moment, he settled on somewhere in the middle, sad, but also proud.

"If Dad thinks I'm ready, then.. then I'll do my best, goro! Where are you going now, Brothers?"

Link looked directly at me, and I sighed. I only really knew of two other Temples, and to be fair, I did not want to entertain the idea of crossing the desert. Hells, getting out to the desert would be intensely difficult on its own, crossing it? Not a pleasing or comforting thought. But at the same time, going to Zora's Domain...

When I didn't immediately answer, Link the Hylian shrugged a little.

"A place to take a break?" he offered after a minute. "It's been a trying couple of days..."

Link the Goron nodded.

"The mountain has stopped rolling stones down the paths, so soon my Brothers will be able to open the path down to Kakariko," he said cheerfully. "It will be good to learn how they are doing!"

His cheer made me smile, and for a short time we allowed ourselves to get caught up in the revelry. Link the Hylian threw me concerned looks from time to time, but I did my best to ignore them. Here, with happy Gorons, was not the place to try and explain what had happened to Zora's Domain.

Of course, celebrating Gorons can go for hours. Sometimes days. Us, though? We snuck out of there after only a handful, worn out from the enthusiastic hugs and the constant reminders that the Gorons needed to treat us gently.

We headed out of the City, though it was not in the direction of Kakariko. It was, in fact, into the forest, and I'll admit this much freely; I have never been so glad to be hemmed in by trees. Judging by the light, the sun was trending in a decidedly downwards direction, and I was more than willing to let it.

Not, mind you, like I could have stopped it, but considering that we had freed two Temples from their curses in under a week—give or take a handful of days—a break was definitely warranted. I found the nearest comfortable patch of grass, and flopped down onto it, nursing my bruises. Link sat down next to me with a faint groan, leaning back against a tree.

"Gorons," he complained mildly, "don't really know the meaning of the word gentle, do they?"

I couldn't help but snicker.

"Not in particular. Gentle for them is different than gentle for us. We are squishy. They definitely aren't."
He just groaned a little again, and flopped sideways, silence reigning for a few minutes. Then...

"So, where are we going next?" he asked.

I sighed again, and let my eyes close; it was easier to say without looking at him.

"There's two temples that I know of specifically," I said quietly. "One is... it's in the desert. I don't think we're ready for the desert, but if you want to, I can... well... we can..."

I struggled to find the right words, the ones that wouldn't brand me as the coward I was. Part of me still wanted to go back, but that was the heart of where Ganondorf's forces lay. No doubt all the Gerudo there reported to him in some fashion, and I still remained fearful of what would happen if he knew my whereabouts.

"What's the other one?" he asked, sparing me from my lack of explanation.

"It's... it's in Lake Hylia, but I think we have to go to Zora's Domain first," I exhaled slowly, then rolled onto my side, facing him and half-opening my eyes. "It's... Look, Ruto said it wasn't my fault, and I kind of believe her, but it almost killed both of us, and it feels like my fault because... because I was there, a-and..."

He reached out and just lightly brushed some of hair out of my face as I ran out of words.

"If Ruto doesn't think it's your fault, then it's not your fault," he said, voice firm. "What happened?"

"...Zora's Domain is... it's frozen over," I said, pain in my voice, squeezing my heart. "Ruto's at the Water Temple, and has been for a few years now, so maybe it's not, but I've been too scared to go and look."

"So we'll go together," Link smiled at me reassuringly. "And if it's not, we'll find some way of fixing it."

I nodded after a long minute.

I did not, at the time, feel like I was a strong person. Even though I know now that things would have progressed as they did with or without my personal involvement, at the time... even now, it still feels as though I am somehow to blame. I do wonder what might have happened if I had gone to Lon-Lon Ranch first; could I have remained there unmolested? Would those things have been rumors that I heard about later, not knowing until I was with Link what precisely had happened?

I don't regret hiding away with my friends; like Link, like Sheik, the Zora and the Goron saved my life and became family in a way that I have not felt since. But I do regret the fact that they were targeted, were harmed, and I could do nothing.

But I digress.

We slept in the Lost Woods, taking peace in the faint melody we could hear echoing through the greenery as though Saria was once more on her tree stump in the Sacred Forest Meadow. Nothing tried to eat us, the forest itself didn't attempt to swallow us, and we woke in the morning to birdsong and a sky going pale blue as the sun rose. We ate—we couldn't do anything else—and went in search of the pool that connected the forest to the edge of Zora's Domain.

Before we jumped in, I traded the red tunic for the blue, and Link looked at it curiously.

"...we'll have to find some way of getting you one of these," I said after a moment. "Though I'm not sure how. It's a Zora Tunic. With this, I can breathe underwater."

"That... is so cool!"

I couldn't help but laugh; he was very good at surprising me just when I needed it most. I jumped in and swam down to the tunnel that was also a portal, waiting for him to follow, which he did after a minute. He was holding his breath, and we swam through quickly. I felt the faint buzz of magic that flickered across my skin, a similar tingle that usually happened in the tunnel from the Goron City to the Lost Woods, and then there was daylight above us again and the water was freezing.

The faint hopes I'd had that Ruto had managed to free her Temple of its curse died as we popped to the surface and hauled ourselves out into the icy air. Snow was falling in small flakes, something I only knew about because Sheik had once described it to me; mostly by comparing it to sand, but colder. Snow is not, after all, native to Hyrule. Winters are cold, yes, but they are rainy, not snowy, and for the most part, the temperatures don't actually change too much.

I don't think Link really realized the truth behind the words 'Zora's Domain is frozen' until he stepped beyond the waterfall, into the icy world itself. We were both dripping and shivering, but he stopped still and stared around in horror.

"...yeah," I said softly. "It's been like this for three years, give or take a few months. Ganon put a curse of some kind on the Water Temple in Lake Hylia, and this was the result."

I shivered again, more from fear than from cold, recalling how quickly the ice had formed, and how close it had come to killing me. If not for Sheik... if not for Sheik, Ruto would be just as frozen, and I no doubt, would have died. Link did what was starting to become natural, and grabbed my hand, holding it comfortingly.

I let him for a few minutes, then pulled out the Fire Medallion—he had insisted that, since it was given to me, I should carry it—and let the warmth of it evaporate the water and coil around me like a blanket. After a moment I passed it to Link, who breathed a faint sigh of relief as the heat dried him off too.

I took the curved path down, looking for the Zora shop, which was blocked off by strange red ice. Din's Fire did nothing to melt it, and not even the Megaton hammer seemed to crack it. Baffled—and no small amount annoyed—I led the way up to the Zora throne room, then stopped in my tracks and swore. King Zora was also enveloped in the red ice... I didn't know if that meant he was alive or dead, and after punching the ice a few times to vent my temper, Link caught me by the arm and pulled me away, out into the head of the fountain where the water was still flowing, if very icy.

Jabu-Jabu, as I said, had not survived out clumsy and rather... haphazard attempts at freeing him from his curse. So there was no sign of the whale. Instead, large ice floes dotted the rather massive lake, bobbing quietly in the water.

In my youth I had, I thought, explored every inch of Zora's domain, but to be honest, I had only explored every inch that I could reach, and I hadn't reached my full height while I was living with the Zora. (To be fair, I didn't reach my full height until I lived on Lon-Lon Ranch for a year.) With the aid of the ice floes, Link and I reached a cavern that had been previously unexplored.

It was cold in there. I took out the Fire Medallion on principle, and didn't care much that it meant my feet were sinking into the piles of snow. It was cold, and I did not handle it very well at all. I silently blessed the fact that the Medallion bestowed warmth, sharing it in spurts with Link as we cautiously explored the frozen world that was so at odds with how things should be in Hyrule.

There weren't too many caverns to explore, though they were peppered with enemies. Freezards, mostly, but there was the occasional keese that carried ice on its wings that was just nasty. We found blue fire that gave off light, but no heat—if anything it seemed to radiate the cold and make it worse—and managed to put it in a bottle, of all things. In several, rather, as we had no way of knowing how much we would need, and the idea of backtracking was not palatable.

We used one on a door that led to a room that would have been pitch black if not for one thing. Ice-like protrusions glowing a soft, cool blue cast light onto the white, white snow. More ice crystals jutted up from the ground, and actual ice itself hung in jagged lines from the ceiling.

It...

For a moment, I forgot how cold it was. And it was cold, because I didn't want to abuse the gift of warmth Darunia's medallion granted, even as I felt the cold biting deep into my bones. (I did think for the short time we were there, that I would never be warm again. Dramatic, and untrue, but still.) But it was like the night sky writ small, and there was such beauty in it, that I thought I might never want to leave.

I rescinded this thought quickly as my breath misted out into the air; I did not like the cold.

At the far end, before a pool of water, was a small chest. Link approached it carefully, and tried to shove it open, but the damp and the cold had frozen the hinges shut. He started to try and slide the blade of the Master Sword between the edges in an attempt to pry up the lid when the white wolfos jumped him.

I made a very undignified sound as Link went over backwards, the flat of the blade between himself and the wolfos. Had it not been a very dangerous wolfos, I might even have laughed. As it was, I full on body-checked the creature, throwing knife in hand, to get it off of him, and heard a sharp intake of breath that did not belong to Link.

Sheik, when I pulled away from the now dead wolfos, looked a bit like he wanted to strangle me himself for the reckless reflex. Despite how serious the moment was, and how confused I still remained about the inconsistency of his appearance, I had to smile. We had not yet had that talk that he'd said we would, but I saw the resignation in his eyes, and watched the tension leak out of his shoulders. Instead, he offered Link a hand up as I cleaned the throwing knife I had used in the snow.

Once Link was on his own two feet, brushing the snow from his body, Sheik retreated back a few steps, resuming a formal guise that I had seen Zelda-as-Sheik adopt in the Sacred Forest Meadow.

"We meet again," he said quietly. "If your goal was to meet with the Zora, I'm afraid your time was wasted. Save for three, the Zora are sealed away under a thick sheet of ice, and of those three, two are sealed beyond the strange red ice that no spell has broken."

Link nodded a little; we most certainly had noticed that.

"As you have no doubt been informed, Princess Ruto yet remains free, and went ahead many years ago to try and dispel the curse that was placed on the Water Temple," he continued, voice and expression grave. "While the curse yet remains, Zora's Domain will continued to be an icy wasteland."

"We're going to change that," Link said firmly as guilt stabbed me, robbing me of my voice. "We're going to return Zora's Domain to what it used to be!"

Sheik paused, and then a modicum of warmth entered into face and voice both.

"The allow me to teach you the song that will take you to the temple. It will save weeks of travel that you cannot afford."

Link nodded, and brought out the Ocarina, though Sheik didn't yet have out his harp. I swallowed, and lifted my chin slightly, waiting as well.

"Time passes, people move," Sheik said quietly. "Like a river's flow, it never ends. A childish mind will turn to noble ambition. Young love will become deep affection," and he glanced at me, his visible eye softening slightly. I couldn't help myself, and gave a tiny smile in reply. "The clear water's surface reflect growth. Now hear the Serenade of Water, to reflect upon yourself."

It was a soft song, with only a handful of notes. It bespoke of peace and solitude; a quiet certainty that reminded me of the few times I had found comfort in the steady, delicate drumming of the rain whenever it happened. Reminding me that to have water was to have life, even if I was not necessarily fond of the rain itself.

I almost didn't want that song to end, but of course it did, once Link had mastered the notes. Sheik nodded to him, and put the harp away once more. He looked from Link, the me, then sighed.

"I'll see you again. I promise," he said quietly.

And then without flare of light, or trick smoke, he was gone.

My heart sank to somewhere around my booted toes, even as I melted the ice from around the hinges of the chest Link had failed to open. I wanted, badly, to have him explain just what was going on. Why he was as he had been, after being so different.

Within the chest was an unexpected thing. Two pairs of boots that had iron bolted to the soles. They most certainly weren't light, and it didn't take much effort to realize that they would be good for holding down bodies that tended to float underwater, a fact that amused me even as I yanked them on and sank into the ice water at the back of the cavern. Link followed suit, but it was clear he was holding his breath, so we ran for the far end of the water as quickly as possible; I had no desire to drown my friend, even as I reveled in the peace that being underwater brought me.

We had discovered mostly by chance that the blue fire would melt the red ice, and Link put that observation to good use, freeing King Zora from his icy imprisonment.

"Ho!" The King gasped once the ice had fully melted. "I live again! And you... you are the ones who saved me?"

I just pointed at Link, who blushed a little.

"You landwalkers do not do well in underwater situations," King Zora said gravely looking at Link, who was still garbed in the red Fire Tunic. "As a reward, please, take this."

He was surprisingly dextrous for a fish, and tossed Link the deep blue tunic that would allow him to breathe underwater.

"Now. Where is my daughter?"

This question was directed at me, and I winced a little.

"Water Temple?" I offered.

To my relief, King Zora nodded contemplatively.

"You are going to help?"

"Yessir."

"Then do so quickly; I have no desire to be a frozen fish again."

I couldn't help giggling.

"Yessir."

We escaped to frozen domain after releasing the imprisoned Zora shop owner—who complained about the cold and also asked us to hurry and return the place to normal—going out into the chilly air that was a proponent of the ice water flowing down the front of the cliff face.

"Should we use the song like Sheik suggested?" Link asked, raising his voice to be heard over the rushing water.

"It's either that or spend almost a month crossing the plains," I replied. "He is right; we don't really have the time to waste."

I was starting to wonder, though; thus far, other than cursing the Temples, demanding tribute, and spreading that slow, creeping blight, Ganondorf had actually not done any active pursuit either of myself, or anyone else who could be considered a threat. Yes, he had moved to take the Zora and the Goron out of the resistance effort, but even those were starting to feel more like bait than actual threats. The ice clearly hadn't killed King Zora any more than the Gorons had actually been eaten by the dragon.

Something did not sit right with me, but I wasn't sure I wanted to dig too fully into that suspicion. I will admit here, that is the one time I have actually seen Ganondorf be sneaky. He has lost his taste for stealth, I think, with the continued connection to the Triforce of Power...

Anyways.

It was our first experience with actually using one of the teleportation songs we'd been granted; we had not needed to leave either the Meadow or the Crater, and—fortunately enough—also had no reason to return to them. To call it disconcerting would have been an understatement.

Perhaps naturally, the moment we arrived at the lake, it was raining. The rain, however, did little to hide the fact that the lake itself, save for a small space before the entrance to the Temple, was dry. We were both disoriented enough from the travel to need to sit for a few moments, and I stared out at the lake, feeling numb. The idea that this large, pristine, beautiful lake was empty.

It broke my heart. I was glad of the rain then; it hid the fact that I had tears running down my face.

Link, ever perceptive, put an arm around my shoulders. For a minute I allowed myself the grief, and accepted the comfort he was offering. His belief in me, his faith that this was not my fault, helped to bolster my own waning strength. It was one thing to be told it was bad, it was another thing entirely to see it, and feel it, and know that alone, it couldn't be fixed.

In truth, it's amazing that Link, who had slept for seven years, was as mature as he was. Sure he over-extended sometimes, but he worried more about his skill than he bragged, and he comforted me, giving me strength instead of ridiculing me for how I felt. He was driven far more than I was to fix things, but he didn't hesitate to stop and give me help when I faltered.

In that moment, I realized then that I was falling in love with him as much as I had fallen in love with Sheik. It wasn't unusual to fall in love with more than one person, not for my people, but it was unusual for Gerudo to love outside their—our—race. At least, to the degree I knew I was heading in. Males were, to the Gerudo, a way of making children, but they weren't to be loved. Love was for the children, for the tribe. A Gerudo in love with her daughter's father... usually didn't end well. Usually.

I digress. Again.

After a few minutes I picked myself up, wiping rainwater and tears from my face. Link watched me for a moment—I felt his gaze more than saw it—then briefly turned away to trade Goron red for Zora blue. The blue looked just as good as the red had, I admit; his eyes certainly became more noticeable. The red looked good in a different way...

He moved close to the edge of the small island, glancing down at the pool of water below, then at me.

"Just close my eyes and jump," I said grimly. "Believe me, I know."

He held my hand as we jumped, which kept me from stopping short at the edge; it was not a graceful jump because I did attempt that very thing, and we tumbled headlong into the water that—to our luck—didn't break anything.

Also, difficult takes on a new meaning when one is trying to put on iron boots while underwater. The weight was not as much as it was on dry land—water's buoyant properties are quite handy at times, I will admit—but the boots still dragged a body down by the hands until the boots themselves rested on the lake bottom, at which point they could be pulled on and strapped into. And yes, it required straps.

Getting in for us was not as straightforward as it is for the Zora, who, at the time, could quite literally become the water they lived in. (Such a thing has since vanished; I believe the trait was wholly magical in nature, and with a sundered Triforce, the gift no longer exists.) The gate that barred our entrance was held in place by a switch that, no matter how I braced and pulled, refused to come out of the gate.

Underwater, swords are not necessarily practical. They can be used, yes, but without the grounding factor of the iron boots, it's easy to get turned about by your own movements, not to mention the resistance of the water, and the enemy. A bow is entirely pointless, and my throwing knives are not much better. They can be used as knives but close-contact fighting underwater is generally not a good idea. Too many things have poison spines, or can clamp shut faster than an arm can move through water.

The hookshot was what finally let us through, and it was a last ditch attempt at getting the gate lock undone. The sharp point at the end dug in, and Link's stubborn yank back as he triggered the retraction of the chain finally dislodged it, allowing the gate to trend slowly upwards. He grinned in triumph as I swam back down to collect the boots I had abandoned—I didn't wear them all that much in the Temple itself, honestly, since I was, again, of little use—and we went in.

The Zora have one thing about them that does tend to drive me rather up the wall at times; they are intensely fond of things like mazes, puzzles, and logical problems. Critical thinking is very high on their list of favorite pastimes. Their temple is built with that logic in mind, and can accurately be called something of a pain in the ass. Even by other Zora.

In this case, by Ruto, who we found swimming in frustrated circles around the large pillar at the middle of the temple, wide enough to contain rooms and quite plainly part of the structure that kept the hollow interior from collapsing.

Zora communicate underwater through a type of telepathy, one that wearers of Zora tunics can also participate in. In my case, once I hit the water, words weren't needed; Ruto swam into me fast enough to bowl me head over heels, hugging me tightly. I hugged back, glad that she was alive, glad that—despite the years, despite time—she was still clearly herself.

She was, in many ways, my sister as much as my friend.

You came at last! I was starting to think I'd be here by myself until I died from boredom!

I couldn't help laughing, the sound escaping as bubbles.

I had no idea you needed the help, I admitted. Plus, I wouldn't have been able to get in without help. I'm not a Zora, you know.

Oh fine, get technical about it.

I grinned at her ire that wasn't really ire, and hugged her again. When we separated, she finally took notice of Link, and she stared as he did. It was, in all honesty, rather amusing.

Link? She turned to me, and pointed. That's Link isn't it?!

I grinned a little, nodding. Ruto's put-out expression was really entertaining, giving me a sense of the young woman she'd become in the time since I'd last seen her. She was still herself, still so clearly the occasionally snobby princess, but she had matured well.

We are going to save Zora's Domain and its people, she said after a long minute, very firmly. And then we are going to have a very long talk about certain things.

He looked so confused that I snickered at his expense this time.

She means the Zora's Sapphire, I told him, following Ruto as she headed for one of the doorways down at the bottom of the temple. Technically, you're supposed to marry her.

He made a strangled sound that didn't translate too well, but got his shock across. Navi's chiming laugh was clear enough, housed safely as she was beneath his hat, and I just grinned at him, even as the thought of him not being with me pinched at my heart. Even then, however, I knew that there were some things that were not mine to hold, no matter my own feelings on the subject.

Even with Ruto as a guide, we backtracked many times to find some switch, some key that we missed. When the water was lowered and she could vocalize, she did so at length, soundly cursing the original creators of the temple, using many words that she had picked up from me. Me laughing about it clearly encouraged her. Link, poor, stunned dear that he was, just remained mostly silent as the temple itself gave us the exhausting runaround.

The most notable event that took place was the one that split us up. It happened more or less by accident; I don't know who hit the trigger that opened up the floor, but we all fell. I could hear, vaguely, Ruto and Link yelling—in Ruto's case I'm quite sure she swore, and I admit, teaching a princess to swear still makes me laugh a little—as I hit a slide, and water shoved me down to a room that was wrapped in magic.

It made me think of the Lake outside, just... writ small. The water I landed in was shallow, and if not for the fact that the floor was plainly solid stone, I would have thought myself out of doors. The 'sky' was a misty blue-lavender that spoke of early dawn, and fog drifted harmlessly over the top of the water. At the opposite end of the room where I had been dropped, I could see a door. It looked to be barred, but I picked myself up and went to examine it anyways.

I knew I was being watched the moment I crossed the midpoint of the room; though I will freely admit that I was not always the most observant of people, it's hard to miss your reflection vanishing from view. I delayed turning around, but I could only stare at a locked door for so long before giving into the inevitable.

I turned, and saw myself. She was made of shadow, or something like, given solid form. The only hint of color that was not black or gray were the eyes that burned with a malicious red light. I tensed, and so did she. I moved left, and she moved with me. I drew a dagger, and she mimicked the movement in eerie silence.

The nature of the test itself was clear; to move on, I had to fight against this doppelganger. The actual surmounting of it... hurt. She mimicked my movements as though I was standing before a mirror, my long knives bouncing off hers in a clash of sound that echoed painfully across the water. It wasn't a training session, it wasn't a dance, it was an exercise in keeping my temper.

In truth, I didn't keep it so well, but when I finally did snarl from frustration, I pulled out a trick that she could not. Din's Fire, coalesced into a ball, flew at the shadow and stuck her in the chest, knocking her back off her feet. The pained grunt was the first sound she'd uttered during the whole of the fight, and I admit, it startled me. Not enough to lose my focus, but as she splashed down, she seemed to melt into the floor.

When she came back up, she was no longer mirroring my movements. Instead, she attacked furiously, displaying skills that I had never had, and forcing me to block and dodge on instinct alone. In what little breathing space I could get as I more or less forced her to chase me around the room, I built up another fireball. It was not bigger than the last—they can only get so big before becoming rather ludicrous in appearance—but I grabbed for the Fire Medallion as I turned, taking a hit so that I could slam the fire, and my fist, into her chest.

She screamed as the fire took hold, flying backwards from the hit. She vanished into the floor again, the scream lingering even as the spell snapped. The blade she'd stabbed into me—I suspected with the intent of ripping it out of my side in a move that probably could have killed me—evaporated into mist. The wound itself, unfortunately, was real, and it was deep. Blood did not gush, but it didn't trickle either, and my tunic was quickly, overtly, stained crimson.

I put the Fire Medallion away, and did my best to clamp my hand to my injured side, staunching the flow of blood as best I could without tearing up part of the tunic for makeshift bandages.

In truth, I had taken a number of injuries; the stab wound was just the worst of them. Bruises and other shallower cuts stung as I limped my way over to the now-unlocked door and pushed it open. Ruto's squawk of alarm and rush to my side helped a little when it came to reassurances.

"What happened?!" she demanded, helping me to sit. "Did you and Link..?"

I shook my head a little.

"Your temple," I said tiredly, "has a terrible sense of humor."

"Don't I know it," she huffed a little, carefully washing some of the less threatening scratches. "But this seems a bit excessive..."

"I'm... willing to bet this wasn't actually... the temple's fault," I conceded after a minute in which she did her best to tend to me. "More like this is another part of the curse that... that jerkass laid."

Ruto only looked partially convinced. I half-shrugged lightly, grimacing.

"Fighting a shadow-self really doesn't seem very.. Zora."

To that the princess only sighed.

"Well, you did it, but..."

"Yeah, I came out pretty banged up. Link'd better hurry his ass; he's the one with the Light Medallion."

She cocked her head curiously.

"The Light Medallion heals injuries up," I informed her, wincing as I shifted a bit and looked down at the slowly spreading crimson. "I'm going to need it..."

She looked down too, and her expression went from slightly mulish to worried.

"You'll... be all right... won't you?"

I managed a weak, somewhat pained smile.

"If I get the Medallion, yeah."

Ruto got to her feet, and began to pace, occasionally tossing impatient and worried glances at the room's sole doorway. I could hardly blame her; had I been in a position where moving around wouldn't do me further harm, I would have done the same.

It felt like forever—it was only a handful of minutes—before Link staggered through. He looked far worse than I did, and I winced in sympathy even as Ruto jumped forward to catch him before he could collapse face first to the hard stone. She laid him out, and gave me a rather panicked look; unconscious Hylians were well outside her typical experience.

They were outside of mine too, but I knew how to help in this case. I pulled the pouch that contained the medallions off his belt, and just dumped them carelessly onto the floor. They glimmered in the faint glow from the luminescent moss, and I grabbed the Light Medallion. I could feel the immediate shift in my body as the ancient magic began working, that abruptly cut off as I set it onto Link's forehead.

The swelling black eye immediately started fading, as did the one visible knot just under his hairline. Navi hovered over the medallion worriedly.

"He couldn't figure out how to beat it," the fairy said, her tone miserable. "I tried and tried to find a weak point, but all I kept getting was something that made no sense, and he kept taking hits! It wasn't til he pulled out the hammer that he was able to win, but..!"

"Easy Navi," I said gently. "It's not your fault the temple has no sense of humor. He survived, and with the help of the medallion, he's going to live. We'll just have to wait for him to wake up."

The fairy bobbed in her flight, and ended up coming to rest on the hand I held out to her.

"It'll be all right," I said, projecting a confidence I wasn't actually sure of. "Link's too stubborn to die."

He was, unfortunately, out for the count while the medallion did its work. My side continued to leak blood, but when I checked it, the injury was much smaller. Small enough to ignore, at the least. The Forest Medallion provided food as we waited in tense silence, and as much as I wanted to talk to Saria or Darunia, I refrained from doing so, though I held both medallions in my hands for comfort.

"Raiha?"
"Yeah?"

"Do you... I mean, do you think...?" Ruto looked at me, at Link, and then sighed. "Are we really likely to win this?"

"...probably, yeah. I'm pretty sure that if we get through the temples in one piece Link will end up being strong enough to kick Ganondorf's ass all the way to the Desert Colossus and beyond."

"What will happen then?"

I shrugged, then winced a little.

"I wish I knew. Hells, I wish I knew that we're doing the right thing now, in clearing out all these curses. It sure is hard on the body..."

As jokes went, it fell pretty flat, but she did smile a little.

"Cheer up, Ru," I said with a tired smile. "We're still alive, right? That means there's always a chance for things to change."

That did seem to help, and she fell silent for a time, allowing me to slip into a doze from a mix of physical exhaustion and blood loss that turned into a surprisingly deep sleep. When I woke, the Light Medallion was balanced on the back of my neck; I felt it even as I stirred, banishing the dreams I had been wading through.

Link was a warm weight on my left, and Ruto was on his left; apparently sleeping in a pile had been a good idea for all of us. I removed the Medallion with care, putting it and the other two back into Link's pouch, then shifted my weight slightly and leaned against the sleeping hero. He stirred a little, and in turn, so did Ruto, who sat up with a yawn.

Link did the same after a minute, then glanced up at me. Concern faded into embarrassment as he realized he'd ended up leaning against me, but I only grinned a little down at him. Had Ruto not been present, I may well have attempted to kiss him then. As it was, we all got up, stretched out the stiff kinks that came from sleeping in unnatural positions, collected the new toy that we were granted after defeating our shadows—the longshot, which meant Link could then pass me the hookshot—and continued deeper into the temple.

It took, I think, the better part of a week before we finally managed to clear everything. Every room, every key, every damned switch in the place.

The room where the curse was sourced was simple in execution. A pool of water with four raised 'islands' in the middle, in an otherwise nondescript room; like it had been within the Forest Temple, I could feel the cold, the darkness, otherwise we all might have turned around and left in disgust at being tricked by the temple yet again.

I almost wish we had.

Ruto approached the water cautiously, Link and I flanking her to either side. It looked enough like normal water that she carefully slipped into it, looking around below the surface far faster than Link or I could. It was when she tried to get out that things got... nasty.

Morpha was a strange creature. It could take the seeming of water, was just enough water that Ruto didn't have to worry about breathing, but it could also form a hard skin, and it left her trapped under the surface, banging her fists fruitlessly against a barrier that quivered but did not break.

A strange warbling sound filled the air, and tentacles rose from the surface, one of which had what looked like an eye in its middle. Link and I immediately split up.

Neither of us avoided being grabbed.

The tentacle oozed around me, pinning my arms—and by consequence, my blades—to my sides. It then proceeded to squeeze hard enough that I felt ribs crack, before launching me across the room and into the very unyielding wall. To say it hurt would be an understatement. I am fairly sure I blacked out for a moment, coming too as I was picked up again, this time upside down. Woozy does not even begin to describe how that felt.

It is, to date, the most difficult fight with a cursed place that I've participated in. I certainly hadn't meant to paint myself as particularly bouncy, but apparently I was. I admit, I entirely lost track of everything in that fight other than trying to brace for a new introduction to the wall. Eventually my body simply couldn't take it, and the darkness closed in.