Yunobo does best piloting Vah Rudania when he makes physical movements to guide her. To begin the beast marching forward, he holds up an arm and karate chops it down as if he's pointing her in the correct direction, as if he's giving her momentum. To stomp the beast's feet Yunobo slams a fist downward, as if he's punching an invisible table. To bow the beast's head, he presses his palms together as if praying, and slowly bows them forward. To keep the beast level as she walks on an incline, he holds both his arms out to the side, as if he's balancing on a tight rope, and then he bites his lip, stares at the horizon, and sweats. Zelda didn't know Gorons could sweat.
The movements are unnecessary, but they help Yunobo, and therefore they are a perfectly fine way to learn. Perhaps he'll ease away from them later when he gets more comfortable. Or perhaps he won't. The only problem is that a stray movement and a wild response to that movement is what sent Zelda falling into the lava, so it is something on which to keep an eye.
Well. That's not entirely true. She doesn't mention it, but there's a second problem: several of Yunobo's movements are so close to those that Fireblight Ganon used to implement to control the Divine Beast, that it's and absolute miracle she hasn't had a full-blown panic attack. Although she does avert her eyes quite a lot, and leaves several of the exercises to Link, and one time she did claim that she has to relieve herself and then emptied her stomach as soon as she was out of sight and then hugged her knees and shivered for a few minutes.
Yunobo does better with the exercises Link invents than the ones Zelda invents, probably because hers are more difficult maneuvers requiring greater focus and patience and precision, and Link's are more about making Vah Rudania look like she's dancing. Zelda further suspects (but won't voice) that Yunobo might do better with Link's exercises because Link calls them "games." Yunobo does best when the games have a point system and he can challenge himself to beat his high score.
For the past week, she's guided Yunobo in the evenings, standing by the beast's feet and shouting up instructions, or standing with Yunobo on the ground while he practices his movements without Vah Rudania. They talk about his successes and struggles. They brainstorm new exercises. She provides boundless encouragement.
But Yunobo does best when Zelda is able to be with him on Vah Rudania.
And that's where they are now. Finally. Finally! Yunobo takes them up the volcano to the last challenge location at the very rim. Zelda bounces with excitement to finally be back on the Divine Beast. The ferocity of her smile is hurting her face. Her glider is tucked away against her back, and she's latched to a wire tether that's latched to the main control unit.
Just as she is excited, Link is excited to get to the final challenge. With Zelda hooked to the control unit, he doesn't even get over-protective until they reach the summit, at which point he stiffens, and his eyes start darting around, watching for how she's most likely to slide away. But Zelda puts herself more clearly in Yunobo's sight line and beams at him, praising his progress so he won't notice Link doubting his capabilities. They carefully circle the rim of the volcano, so slowly that it would probably be faster to walk.
The glowing target comes into view—the electric blue color at odds with the dark reds and browns of the mountain. It feels alien, like a splinter, like it most definitely does not belong. Link is ready to charge off the Divine Beast and follow the target on its merry chase, but she holds him back and makes him participate in Yunobo's next exercise of lowering them to the ground. Link checks his arm bracers. Vah Rudania lowers her head, forming an awkward, but manageable staircase down her neck and cheek, with a rather large—yet still manageable—drop at the end. (Zelda's thinking maybe a portable ladder. It's only eight feet, so the paragliders make it a non-issue, but Link argues that if they need to use the paragliders anyway, then why bother?) Zelda has to unhook herself from her tether from the main control unit, and she over-exaggerates being careful as she walks down the beast's neck.
Link is too wound up to notice. He bounces on the balls of his feet to wait for her to catch up. He checks his arm bracers. He pats down all his pockets to make sure he has everything.
When they reach the target, she once more wants to study it. She snaps a picture as Link sizes up the situation. "Make sure Yunobo keeps the warp point on Rudania level," he says. "I'll come back for you once I've activated the shrine, and we can warp back to it and do it together, but I don't know how long it'll take. If I'm not back in two hours, get a ride back to town with Yunobo." He pauses then, second guessing if that's a good plan after all.
Instead of commenting on that (actually very reasonable and well explained) plan, Zelda pops open her paraglider, arches one eyebrow at him, and takes a running start toward the target.
Behind her Link swears, and a moment later, he's caught up with her. She grins at him. He frowns at her. Then she leaps off the summit just before passing through the circle. Her paraglider catches over her head, and a second later, Link breaches the first target and a light guides them towards another, further down the mountain. There's a deep ticking in the air, their time counting down. The heat pushes at her sail. It's harder to lower her altitude, as if she weighs less here. Link pulls ahead of her, swinging through the target, and leading them to the next.
She keeps up fairly well for a while, her laugh caught in the hot wind. For the first few targets, she has to actively avoid them, staying out of Link's way and not activating them herself lest she ruin his trial. But then she needs a breather and pauses to catch her breath and rub at a stitch in her side as Link charges on ahead, swinging through another target. She follows him leisurely after that, keeping him in sight, but circumventing some of his theatrics darting through tunnels and approaching the lava. Her feet hit the ground beside him a few moments after the shrine has finished rising from the ground.
"You can do all the challenges in Tabantha yourself. How about that?"
She shrugs, immensely pleased with herself and strokes her hands over her glider as if she's inspecting it. "Perhaps I will."
"I bet they're all wind challenges with gaping pits."
"That sounds perfect for my newfound capabilities." Then, "How deep do you think the pits go?"
He doesn't like that at all.
Speaking of gaping pits, there's one in their current shrine. Once inside, they stop to watch its workings. There's a kind of conveyer—a track from which dangle cubes with climbable sides. Apparently, Link is to hop onto one of them as it passes, then ride it to some unseen destination. It's unseen, because the conveyer wraps around a corner and vanishes behind a wall, but between them and where the block disappear from sight, there is a wall of flame. Link could only pass it if he's holding one specific side of the cube.
"You need to sit this one out," Link says.
"Agreed. I have no interest in this at all."
"Because who knows what happens next? Definitely fire coming from the other side. Probably a guardian. Probably I'll have to jump from one moving block to another."
"That sounds exhausting."
"I just don't think you have the arm strength. We don't know how long you'll have to hold onto the box, or how fast you'll have to climb around."
"Link," she says. "Are you listening to me? Because I'm agreeing with you."
"And I think—You're what?" He looks down at her in confusion.
"I'll stay here and study this conveyer belt. Do you think there's a pulley system inside? How is it powered?" She eases towards the edge and tries to get a look inside the conveyer through the gap at the bottom. She pulls out her journal and takes a seat on the cool floor.
"Okay," Link says slowly. "So I'll go on ahead and when I'm done I'll just...Wait are you sure?"
She looks up from the beginnings of a rough sketch. "Yes. Carry on. Have fun."
Instead of hopping onto the next box, he shifts his weight. "Because if this is some trick to get me to let my guard down so you can follow along behind me—"
"Link!"
"Fine. Okay. Stay safe. Please don't leave this platform."
"Please don't fall into the pit."
He frowns at her once, then takes a running jump onto the next cube. He maneuvers around so he's safe from the fire, then the block twists so he's out of sight, then it vanishes behind the wall.
It's entirely possible, she thinks as she lies down on her back to look up at the track, to put this kind of conveyor system to work outside. What if there had been one of these leading from the base of Death Mountain to Vah Rudania? If the cubes were like carriages she could have climbed into and then just been carted up the mountain. That would have saved so much walking and so much time. What if they could have put their equipment for the scaffolding inside one of the carriages instead of hauling them all in a cart? Perhaps something like this could go from Goron City to the base of the mountain. That would make it far easier for the Gorons to aid with reconstruction, as the qualm they kept returning to was the very valid concern that it was too far to haul everything they would need.
Could there be a use for this in Herba? Link said, no one really lived in Herba anymore, apparently. But maybe they could. Was there a use for this in the Gerudo Highlands? No. She was going about this the wrong way, looking for a problem to solve with a new invention instead of trying to find a solution to a problem that exists.
She counts the seconds that pass between cubes. She estimates the speed of the track. When Link defends the elevator from outside, he sits next to her with a sigh and watches her sketch as detailed a diagram as she can get.
#
There's only the final challenge left: to go to Vah Rudania and for Link to most likely battle Fireblight Ganon in his mind. While he was excited to see what the previous challenges had in store for him, his approach to this one feels more like resignation. Not only does he delay leaving the last shrine, but he is tight lipped and tense jawed when she finally packs up.
In her time holding back the Calamity, she was distanced from the world, following it only as blurred moments when the Blood Moon was highest or that ring like a bell that snatched her attention when Link rose from the Shrine of Resurrection. She was most attuned to the castle, to those fools sneaking in for treasure and dying in the courtyard. Calamity Ganon was most attuned to the abominations that had possessed the Divine Beasts. Ganon wanted her to see these. He used his connection to show her, to torment her.
It saddened her a bit, towards the end, when Link spent only a day or two in each Divine Beast, only a day or two in the places where she could see him.
The Calamity wanted her to watch as the phantoms kill Link, as her hope for the future was extinguished, and they watched those battles intently, their own battle easing so he could taunt her with every blow Link took, so he could mock her every time Link dove out of the way. At the moment it became clear that Link would win, the Calamity would howl and renew his struggle against her with a vengeance, and her attention would be pulled away, and then the Divine beast would fall from Gabon's control, and the beast would be as blurred to her as the rest of the outside world.
She's more familiar with Fireblight Ganon than she is with the state of Gerudo Town or the new leadership hierarchy of the Rito. But she's mostly familiar with him as he stomped Vah Rudania around Death Mountain, alone to rage, and constantly looking for a way to be cruel and vindictive. So divorced from any of the fallout outside Vah Rudania, it was a bit like watching an endless temper tantrum. She watched Link's battle, but it's hard to judge how frightening it would be to face the phantom.
She reaches for Link's hand as they ascend up the elevator, and she asks, "Is Firblight Ganon that distressing?" It's not a dig against his courage, but a genuine, hesitant curiosity. Link has never before dreaded facing a monster.
He shakes his head and waves off her concern. "No. He's not all that bad. I don't think I'll have any problem fighting him." He thinks for a moment, lines of blue light rolling down his body as they rise. "But I bet the monk isn't going to give me a maneuverable weapon. And I'll get worse armor. And I really hope I get arrows." He frowns.
"Well," she says. They're approaching the top of the tube now. "You'll probably have some time to prepare yourself emotionally. It's not like you have to face the final challenge right this second."
The ceiling opens above them and they rise out into the sunlight to the entrance of the shrine. And there, standing over them, is Vah Rudania.
Yunobo waves from the Divine Beast's back, then cups his hands around his mouth. "I FOLLOWED YOU DOWN THE MOUNTAIN!"
Link sucks in a breath, and when Zelda whips around to face him, he's already gone, his eyes glassy and unblinking, his face slack. Zelda blows out a measured breath, then adjusts herself to face him. She takes his elbows in her hands to catch him when he comes back to himself.
She counts in her head. One one thousand. Two one thousand. Three one thousand...Ten one thousand...Twenty one thousand...
"ARE YOU GUYS OKAY DOWN THERE?"
Thirty one thousand...Forty one thousand...Sixty one thousand...
"LITTLE BROTHER?"
Eighty one thousand...One hundred one thousand...
"SHOULD I COME DOWN OR SHOULD I LEAVE AND COME BACK LATER?"
One twenty one thousand...
Two hundred one thousand...
Two sixty one thousand...
"BECAUSE IT LOOKS LIKE YOU'RE HAVING A MOMENT, AND I DON'T WANT TO INTERRUPT, GORO."
Three hundred one thousand...
Link stumbles and Zelda catches him. He blinks again and again to clear his vision. "Shh. I've got you. You're back."
"I'm..." He's shaking. He sniffs. "Yeah, okay." When he swallows, it looks like it hurts. "I...I got him."
She smiles up at him, trying to be supportive, but he drops his eyes and looks away before pulling out of her hands entirely. She tries not to feel hurt.
He looks up at the Divine Beast, then cups his hands around his mouth and shouts, "YOU MADE IT DOWN THE MOUNTAIN."
"I DID! Wooohoo!" He pumps a fist into the air, and it's genuinely surprising that Vah Rudania doesn't move.
There's a shout from the west, and they lean to get a better look down the path. Yunobo turns and lifts a hand to shield his eyes from the sun. They watch as one of the Shiekah jogs up the path. When he gets closer, she recognizes him as Dorian from Hateno. He's winded, and he uses the moment he takes to bow to her to catch his breath. "Your Highness."
"Master Dorian. Is everything alright?"
He shakes his head and straightens from his bow. "The Yiga have made a demand."
Before she can ask what sort of demand, Link has slipped in front of her, his hand on the hilt of his sword. She gapes at him and parts her lips to ask what he thinks he's doing, but neither of them are looking at her anymore.
Dorian holds Link's stare for only a moment before his posture sags. "I need your help."
Link takes a very deep breath.