It was September 19th when we were preparing to leave Ordon Village for Kakariko. I knew the estimate was rough and unreliable, but I couldn't stop myself from counting down the days I had left before I had to officially start to be worried about Zi's arrival. I had at least five days left—but that didn't stop me from worrying in the meantime. I'd spent most of my days in Ordon sitting at the spring or with the goats frequently checking behind me, and my nights were spent staring into the dark at the vague outline of Link's door, listening to hear if the locked knob rattled. Only when I was around others—conscious others—did I feel I could let my guard down, but I was alone more than I would have liked. Link spent nearly all of his time with the mourning townspeople, and the only non-mourning person I could have spent time with, except Midna, was Ilia, who couldn't get away from her father for too long.

"Vanna?"

My eyes snapped away from whatever I had been unknowingly staring at and made contact with Link's. He was still frowning, just like I'd gotten used to seeing, but he looked mostly concerned, not just hurt.

"You all right?" he asked.

I nodded and picked up some bread off my neglected breakfast plate. "I'm fine."

"You've barely been eatin' food since we got here..." he said. I took a bite as if to prove him wrong, though I knew we both knew he was right. "...And I don't think you've gotten any sleep, either, have you?"

I looked down at my plate, my fingers playing around with the food I couldn't bring myself to eat. "No. I just... I can't. It's like—every time I close my eyes, I picture Zi sneaking up on me and taking me home, and then Mr. Rider..." I sighed. "But I'm fine. Really. I stopped being hungry and tired days ago. I just wish I could sleep instead of having to be awake all the time..."

"If you say so," Link said, sounding unconvinced. He finished the last bite left on his plate. "Made your decision yet? You've had a lot of time to think since you've been awake."

"I did the first day we got here, I just haven't really had the chance to tell you."

He looked surprised for a second, and his frown didn't return afterward. "Oh. What'd you choose?"

I hesitated a moment, knowing that telling him my answer would finalize it. "I'm going with you, at least for now. Once I get my bracelet back, I might leave after a while if I feel like Zi is making my life too difficult when he gets here, but I guess we'll just have to see about that..."

Midna emerged from my shadow just then. "Good choice! You know that you could get your bracelet back after we beat Lakebed Temple and get that last Fused Shadow, though, right? And if you get back to work quick, then that could be as early as tomorrow."

"I know, but I want to stay a bit longer just to see more of the world, and that'll give me more time to make my final decision," I said.

"Wait, are you two going back to the temple again without me?" Link asked.

"There's only one pair of that armor, and Vanna knows I'm not giving her her bracelet back if she doesn't help out, so..." Midna said.

I gave Midna a quick glare. "Actually... I think we should only need one pair of the armor for us to go to the temple," I said.

They both looked at me curiously. Rather than explain myself with words, I decided to show them something I had realized I was capable of. I closed my mouth tightly before plugging my nose with my fingers. Pressure slowly began to build up in my chest, and it started to become painful around the thirty-second mark. The pain reached a high before it suddenly stopped hurting, and I felt fine. Even though my chest wasn't rising and falling as normal, I felt normal, like there was nothing physically wrong with the fact that I wasn't breathing at all. Mentally, on the other hand, I was still just as freaked out as when I first tested my theory. It was the strangest, most unnatural thing, to not breathe and feel no negative consequences of it.

It seemed to take them both a few seconds to notice that I wasn't breathing, then a few longer for them to realize the implications. By the time the pain had settled, Link looked amazed, while Midna just looked amused. Midna started to laugh, and I allowed myself to breathe again.

"So you've been terrified of drowning this whole time when you don't even need air anyway?" she said.

"Better that you found that out now than never. Least now we can go together so I ain't gotta worry about you getting kidnapped and me not being able to do anything about it," Link said. He stood up from his chair. "Reminds me..."

He walked over to his bookshelf and started to pull some of the thinner books out to check their covers before sliding them back into their spots. He eventually found what he wanted and pulled it out completely, and then he brought it over to me. The last word on the red cover caught my eye first. It looked like Pabats, but I immediately knew that it said Robots. It took me longer to decipher the middle word as Ancient.

"'The Ancient Robots,'" I read aloud.

"Not sure how factual the events are since it's a children's book an' all... But I thought you might like to see it. It's about robots and humans working together to mine materials and build things, and fight off evil robots."

I opened it up. On the pastedown was a drawing of a Hylian man and a peanut-shaped thing with a wonky face, a sort of pirate hat, and giant three-fingered hands connected to the peanut body by squiggly lines.

"That's what the robots here looked like?" I asked. It was no wonder Link seemed wowed by how human I looked.

"If that book's got it right, then most of 'em, yeah. The evil ones later in the book look more human. Not as much as you, though," Link said. "I'm gonna go ahead and get Ilia and say bye to everyone. I'll yell for you to come out when we're ready to leave."

I simply nodded in response, and he walked out. Unfortunately for me, Midna didn't slip into his shadow and leave with him, and instead stayed floating in the air where she was. I hoped that if I didn't look at her then she wouldn't try to converse with me, so I tried to focus on reading the book. 'A long ... yule? No, time ago, in the desert...'

Midna cleared her throat.

'...there was a phce ... oh, race of people called the Ancient Robots. ...People? The metal peanuts? Maybe it's not just Link. Everyone from Hyrule must be crazy...'

She cleared her throat again, louder this time.

I groaned and slammed the book down. "Oh my god, what do you want?"

"I just have a question, is all."

"No."

"You don't even know if it's a yes or no question!"

I sighed. "What is it?"

"We're leaving for Lakebed Temple tomorrow morning. Do you think you could convince Link to come with us then, or do we have to go by ourselves again?"

"He just said we're going together."

"But he didn't specify a time. He said a few days ago that he was considering staying with Ilia in Kakariko Village awhile after they would get back from here. I don't want to wait around any longer. It's been almost three weeks, and we've still only got two out of three Fused Shadows."

"If you want to go so bad tomorrow, then you convince him," I said.

"He wouldn't listen to me back when he first found the kids in Kakariko Village and I was trying to get him out of there! If there's one thing he won't budge on, it's staying with those friends of his for as long as he can..."

"So what makes you think he'll listen to me?"

"You can tell him you're worried about your safety hanging around in such an empty village where you'd be easy to spot. How's that Zi guy gonna make it inside of an underwater temple without the Zora armor?"

I gulped. Monsters and all, the temple did seem safer. Even if Zi managed to get in there, either via teleportation or some other means, which didn't seem likely to happen, the layout of the temple was sprawling and confusing enough that he probably wouldn't be able to find me anyway.

"Guess I'll try," I said.

When a satisfied Midna dove back into my shadow, I opened up the book and started reading it again. The only good thing about me not being entirely literate in Hylian was the fact that having to pay close attention to every individual letter made reading a great distraction from my thoughts. I was only about halfway through the book when Link called for me from outside. I carried it out with me, planning to put it in the wagon since I had left my magic pouch in Kakariko Village.

I was surprised to find that Ilia wasn't the only person getting into the wagon. Beth, Talo, and Malo were all coming along.

"What's up with all of this?" I said to Link.

He picked up Malo and helped him get in. "The kids managed to convince their parents to let them go back to Kakariko."

"What? Why...?"

"They all want to be with Ilia to help her get her memory back, but Beth also wants to keep the Zora prince company, Talo wants to stand guard there to make sure everyone gets to safety if more Bulblins show up, and Malo wants to, uh..."

"Run my business," Malo said from inside the wagon.

"Apparently the four-year-old is running a business," Link mumbled.

"Oookay, then..." I said. "Um, before we go, can I ask you something?" Link nodded, and I asked my question quietly. "Can we go to the temple in the morning?"

Link looked inside the wagon quickly, then back to me. "Any reason you want to leave so soon...?"

I frowned and shrugged. "I'm just worried about Zi... There aren't many good places for me to hide in Kakariko, but I don't think he could get into the temple. I know you really love the kids and all, but... I'd love to not be kidnapped and murdered."

"Okay," Link said with a nod. "If you think you'd be safer, then we'll go in the morning."

"That'll be 300 Rupees."

My jaw dropped. As soon as we had gotten back to Kakariko, Malo went into the shop near the entrance of the village that I had seen him go into before, and early the following morning I went inside. He told me, quite rudely, that if I wanted something, I was to buy it, even though it was an unmanned shop that he had merely decided to take over. When I expressed interest in the shield and binoculars on display—I thought it'd be best if Link and I both had our own metal shields rather than one of us having to settle for the smaller wooden one, and the binoculars would have been handy for Link—I was hoping that maybe Malo would say he was just joking about the whole situation.

"Okay, look, I have no idea what the value of any amount of Rupees means in Hyrule, but that seems like a lot of money to be asking for merchandise that was never yours in the first place," I said.

"So I take it you don't have the money," Malo said.

"No, but—"

"The door is behind you."

"Are you kidding me? This isn't even your shop! You can't just walk into an abandoned shop and say everything in it is yours!"

"Didn't you walk into that abandoned house and say it's yours?"

My jaw dropped again, and I struggled to find a way to make myself not seem like a hypocrite. "D-don't you turn this around on me! That's totally different!"

"Tell you what, I'll give you a special deal just this once to commemorate the grand opening of Malo Mart," he said. "...299 Rupees."

I should have thought ahead and stolen the stupid shield and binoculars while he wasn't in there. I considered just hopping over the counter and grabbing them—what was he gonna do, bite my ankle?—but I left instead, planning to ask Link if he could get Malo to give him them for free before setting off. He had been in the Elde Inn eating breakfast when I left for the shop. When I got back, he was finished eating, and he had had his arms crossed on the table with his head resting on them. I walked over and tapped him on the shoulder, and he raised his head and wiped at his eyes as he yawned. Seeing him so sleepy made me start to feel tired for the first time in days.

"You wanna go now?" he asked.

"Yeah, but I want you to go to 'Malo Mart' first and see if you can grab some things," I said. "I couldn't get Malo to give me what I wanted..."

He stood up, raising an eyebrow. "What kinda stuff does he got in there already?"

As we left the Elde Inn, I explained to Link the things Malo had in the store and why I wanted them. He also thought that it was a good idea to get them before going, but he said he didn't have the money, either, since his job as a wrangler didn't pay all that well. Still, he agreed to attempt to coax Malo into lowering the price, or at least letting him pay later, hoping that his close relationship with the child might work in our favor.

It didn't, and we left on Epona with no binoculars and the two shields we'd already had in the first place.

Before we got on Epona, Link had stashed his sword and shield into his pouch, which made riding behind him a lot more comfortable than it had been the last time. Without thinking about it, I ended up resting my head against his back and closing my eyes. Neither the hard material of the saddle beneath us nor the way we bounced on it was enough to stop me from starting to doze off. What did, however, stop my dozing from turning into sleeping was the feel of something small and cold hitting my cheek.

My eyes blinked open, and just as they did, another something managed to fall right into one of them. It took me a moment to realize that it had been a raindrop. More and more started to come down, and in no time, it was absolutely pouring, so hard that each of the droplets stung as they hit me. I tilted my head down as much as I could behind Link to minimize the amount that could smack against my skin. It was annoying that we were going to have to be soaking and cold before even getting inside the temple, but a part of me was relieved that the rain had stopped me from falling asleep against Link. I felt embarrassed enough that I had basically been cuddling up to his back for that short amount of time.

The rain continued to pound down for the rest of our lengthy ride to the lake, effectively being a sleep deterrent for me. I was relieved when we made it down to the bank where the overhanging walls around the lake protected us from the rain.

"Can I have the Zora armor?" Link asked.

After I managed to retrieve all of its components from my pouch, Link went into a large, dark tunnel to get dressed. I decided to change out of the outfit Luda had given me and wear the outfit I'd been wearing when I got to Hyrule, along with with the pants I'd borrowed from Uli, figuring that would be easier to swim in than a knee-length dress. A minute passed after I had finished getting changed and Link still hadn't come back out, so I assumed he was having trouble figuring out how to wear the pieces just like I did.

I went ahead and got into the water to mentally prep myself for what was coming. The water felt much colder than it had the last time, though I wasn't sure if it was because it was actually colder or because I wasn't wearing the wetsuit. Either way, it was miserable, but not having to go through the temple alone was worth the price of freezing my ass off.

Holding my breath, I fully submerged myself in the water, and I encountered something I hadn't considered. I had no idea how to stop water from going up my nose, other than to hold it with my fingers, and that would make it even harder for me to swim than it already was. I knew that swimmers were somehow capable of doing it, but it was something I never learned how to do as a someone who always avoided going completely underwater. While contemplating about it, a thought crossed my mind. If I had fake lungs that didn't truly need oxygen, it wouldn't matter if they filled with water either, right?

I let go of my nose and let the water flood inside to test my idea. An uncomfortable feeling of fullness built up in my chest, but I didn't feel like I was dying, at least—it was almost more uncomfortable mentally, just like it was when it hit me that I didn't need air in the first place. Such a perk should have made me happy, but it only made me be filled with an overwhelming sense of dreadfulness because it reminded me that I wasn't the human I longed to be.

I saw something from the bottom of the lake that looked to be swimming closer to me, and I realized it was a Zora. I surfaced so I'd be able to talk better and coughed all of the water out. The Zora's head popped up out of the water not long after mine. I couldn't tell right away if it was one of the ones I'd seen the previous week or not.

"Oh! Hero! Is it really you?!" she said. Apparently, it was one of the ones I had seen. Now that we were above water and I could both see and hear the Zora better, I was reasonably confident that it was female.

I glanced over to the tunnel that Link still hadn't come out of. "Yeah, it's me. The Hero."

"I thought those were your eyes! You're no longer wearing the Zora armor, so I had to ask to be sure." She tilted her head. "You're female?"

'You're one to talk,' I thought. "Surprise?"

She smiled, giving me a good look at her pointy teeth. "It is a bit of a surprise! The Hero was described as a Hylian male in our legends, and... You're not even Hylian, are you? Ah, but, it's no matter—legends don't always play out how they're told. What matters is that you made it out of the temple alive! We didn't see you come out, so we assumed the worst. How was it?"

"I didn't see as many monsters as I expected, but I'm still not done in there. I'm going back and finishing up."

Just then, Link walked out of the tunnel fully geared up. The armor fit him much better than it had fit me, so he was able to wear the pieces I couldn't. Looking at him, I realized that if the thigh armor had fit me, the lizard thing wouldn't have been able to cut my leg and send my life into an intense downward spiral. I couldn't help but wonder how different things would have turned out if I only had been able to wear that one piece of armor.

"Who is this wearing your garb?" the Zora asked.

"That's my friend that I'm taking with me inside the temple. I'm allowing him to wear the outfit," I said.

"But what about you, Hero? You're not a Zora, you can't survive underwater without it!"

I reached up above the water and dismissively waved my hand. "I'll be fine. Hero powers, you know..."

She didn't look like she believed me. "I hope so. I will be praying for your safety."

"Thanks," I muttered. Those prayers were going to do nothing to help us.

The Zora bowed her head and went back underwater, and I looked over to Link.

"I kind of already lied to them when I first came here and said I was the Hero so they'd let me in," I explained. "Sorry for stealing your thunder."

"It's all good, Hero," Link said, grinning. He got in the water and swam over to me. "Guess you can lead me to the temple, since I'm your sidekick for today."

I swam farther out into the lake with Link beside me until we were above the entrance to the temple to minimize the amount of time I'd have to spend underwater, and then I pulled out the iron boots from my pouch. Once they were on my feet, I started sinking faster than Link could swim downward. I came to a stop at the bottom of the lake, and I had already taken the boots off and put them away before Link caught up with me.

Since the opening of the tunnel leading inside the temple was so small, Link had to swim in first, and I followed the light that shone from the pendant he wore. As we got to the part where the tunnel went upward toward the end, I realized that perhaps it was for the better that we couldn't get that second metal shield from Malo. I hadn't been thinking about the giant jellyfish swimming near the end of the tunnel. If my bones were made of metal and I had a metal sword on me, then I already had to be highly conductive; it was bad enough that Link already had his own metal shield and sword, and adding yet another a metal shield to the mix would have made things even worse. It made me worry for his sake. From experience, I knew that I could handle being shocked by the jellyfish, but I didn't know how bad it could be for Link.

Link swam up by himself, not even noticing that I stayed behind at the bottom until he was already practically out of the tunnel. I waved my arm to urge him to go ahead out, and I didn't start to swim up until he got the message. I remembered getting shocked the last time I went through the tunnel, and how it had been because I was looking down at the jellyfish lower in the tunnel as I continued to swim upward, so I decided that this time I wouldn't look back at all. I passed the first one with no problem, and as I swam closer to the side of the tunnel opposite the jellyfish that had stung me before, I thought that I was in the clear—until it suddenly decided to propel itself closer to me and started generating electricity before I had time to react.

I could just barely hear Link yell from above the water. I wanted so badly to scream for him to pull me out, but I couldn't speak, and I knew that realistically things would have been worse if he touched me anyway. What felt like an eternity later, the jellyfish let up, and I started swimming again as fast as I could. Link reached into the water and helped get me out, and I coughed out as much water as I could.

"Are you okay?!" Link asked.

"I'm fine," I said, voice high. I turned my head away from him and wiped at my eyes. Since I got to Hyrule I'd been crying more often than I ever did before, and it made me feel like such a loser—and crying in front of him made it even worse. "It—it already happened before..."

Link was silent for minutes while I sat there crying from the pain, and all I could think of was how little he had to think of me.

"...Do you want to go to sleep?" he gently asked. "It always makes me feel better..."

"What about—what about monsters?" I said.

"There are none in this room, and even if some end up coming in here, I'll kill 'em. And you said yourself Zi probably can't get in here... But I'll take care of him too if he does. You're completely safe. You can finally get some sleep."

I heard shuffling from his direction, and when I peeked over, he was going through his pouch. He pulled out his green tunic and walked farther back from the water, and then folded his tunic up and laid it on the ground. He looked at me and patted it.

"Not much of a pillow... But it's better than the hard floor," he said.

Out of pure stubbornness, I initially wanted to decline his offer, but just imagining myself going to sleep made it so tempting. I walked over and lay down with my head on the makeshift pillow, and I closed my eyes.

"Goodnight, Vanna."

This chapter didn't wanna get done x.x Good news is now that it's over with, we're getting closer to stuff I'm really looking forward to!

So, I'm going through with adding more settlements, notably Gerudo Town and one up in Snowpeak. I'm having trouble deciding on a name for that one, and I'd rather do something you guys think sounds best instead of me just choosing randomly. I've been thinking that since BotW is like the only Zelda game that has good location names that would work for Snowpeak I could just borrow something like Tabantha Village, or Coldsnap/Pikida/Kopeeki/Icefall Village. Basically anything but Snowpeak Village because I think that's kinda boring. Edit: Going with Tabantha!

Jack54311: I've never really thought of what you suggested, actually. They're separate worlds, albeit with some overlap in a way. It would be pretty cool to see someone use the idea that Hyrule's world and ours are completely one and the same though, and having characters find lost relics from our time, like a totally busted up laptop or something. I really love these types of stories so if I ever did another one once I'm done with this I might just have to do that lol.

Knifeninja55: Thanks :)

ObviousHUN: Thank you! I don't have enough room to add anything else to the summary, though... The character limit is 384, and mine is at 383, but I'm not actually sure how much an 'OC insert' tag would help the story gain followers regardless. Only 3 Zelda stories show up when you search 'OC insert' and none of them even have 10 followers, so I don't think it'd help much. I was hoping that just having the story properly tagged as having an OC would help those looking for these stories to find this easier. Anyways, maybe my story doesn't have as many followers as some other OC inserts do, but 70 is still a lot to me!