It was a long road to Hateno Village. 100 years ago, Zelda would have loved to have the chance to spend so much time with Link, to talk to him, but given that he had slipped back into almost complete silence, even with her, it was just boring.
Why is he so silent again? After what seemed like hours pondering the question, she finally arrived at the conclusion that, like before, he didn't enjoy talking with those he didn't know - or trust, and, as he said, he - well, this version of him - didn't know her. Yes. That's it. The only logical reason.
They came to a halt when Link noticed a distant rumbling. Zelda didn't notice anything, so it caught her by surprise when Link dismounted his horse and tensed up. Well, she was, until she saw a blue one-eyed giant emerge from a nearby forest.
That was hard to miss.
As terrible as the situation seemed, Link was seemingly prepared for everything. Pulling out a gold-plated bow, he sniped the Hinox's eye from a large distance. And the Hinox looked right at them
"Link! What are you doing? You've exposed our location!" All Link did to respond to that was raise his index finger to his mouth and unsheathe his sword. "You're not going to face it head-on, are you?" Despite the reassuring look on his face, something told her that was exactly what he was about to do. And it was exactly what he did.
Running into the woods, Link shot what appeared to be beams of light out of his sword, a few directly hitting the Hinox's eye. With his enemy now temporarily incapacitated, he took the chance to grab the weapons on it's necklace before obliterating it's eye with a barrage of perfectly aimed arrows.
As Link came running out of the woods, Zelda feared for the worst, until she saw the Hinox disappear in a large cloud of malice. She took a moment to collect her thoughts, and every single corner of her mind collectively went insane when she realized that Link - her silent, calm, composed knight - had just destroyed a Hinox in little over a minute.
The situation didn't seem so terrible anymore. It may have been lonely, travelling such a long distance with nobody to talk to, but at least she was safe.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
For all Zelda knew, hours had passed by the time they finally arrived at Hateno. She had lost track of time, being out on the road for so long with very little human interaction.
From the entrance to the village, seemingly everyone wanted to talk to her, not even knowing she's the princess. It made her feel warm inside, knowing there was still kindness and humanity in what remained of Hyrule.
She truly enjoyed the conversations she had; it was a stark contrast to what the rest of her journey had been like. The town was bursting with life, joy, and emotion. Link practically needed to drag her away from the locals to get back on track to the tech lab. Any other time she would have loved the opportunity to meet with Purah again and discuss Sheikah tech, but right now she was completely taken aback - in a good way - by the village.
Upon arriving at the tech lab, Zelda was expecting to be greeted by a short old woman, looking something like Impa. To her surprise, she was greeted by - a child?
"Hello… would you happen to know where director Purah is?" both Link and the child shot an intense glare in her direction. The stares were broken when the child broke out into laughter, and Zelda noticed that even Link was suppressing a smile. "Am I missing something?"
The child chuckled, "I am Purah!"
Is this some sort of joke? Zelda asked herself. Surely this wasn't Impa's elder sister. She looked to be around 6 years of age, but her perfectly white hair allowed Zelda to at least identify her as a Sheikah. "Link?"
Link still refused to look directly at her, but, strangely, he responded. "Yes, princess. T-this is Purah."
"It can't be-"
"Linky's right, princess!" The girl giggled.
"So you're Purah? Impa's intelligent elder sister?" Zelda had a look of disbelief on her face.
"The one and only!" Purah said, her lips curled into a massive smile. "It's great to see you again, Zellie! It's been, like, what, 100 years? You haven't gotten bigger at all!"
"I… could say the same about you?" Zelda replied. She seemed to be getting very uncomfortable.
"So, Linky, what brings you here?" Purah inquired, her voice filled with excitement even over a seemingly trivial interaction.
"I need to show you." Link was quiet, but almost sounded stressed. "It's- it's on-" Link scrambled through his bag to find the Sheikah Slate. "It's on here. Th-this Guardian. I shot it with one of Robbie's arrows, and it disappeared into this- these strange green lines. They seemed to be forming some kinds of… symbols."
Purah looked at the image, and pointed at one particular spiraled formation. "This one, it's the ones used by the really old Zonai people."
"I've seen it before in the Faron province," Link noted.
"Exactly, that's where their homes used to be. There aren't any other recognizable designs here, so it might all be in Zonai," Purah said.
"That would make sense. But I need to know what the symbols mean." Link added.
"That's the big problem, Linky. Nobody can read Zonai. It's, like, really old."
"I… might have an idea." Zelda broke her silence. "Hyrule castle contains a vast amount of historical texts. There's bound to be something on the Zonai"
"Well then we shall-" Link stopped for a second, when he looked at Zelda. "We shall head to Hyrule Castle." Link finished, quietly.
Zelda noted how she had essentially killed his enthusiasm. He was happily talking freely with Purah, until she interjected. That was something she'd need to talk to him about, eventually. But for now, there was a much more pressing issue.
"Yes. That's where we shall go," Zelda said, definitively. She hastefully walked out the door, back to her horse.
Link raised the Sheikah Slate and looked at Purah. "So, can we use the-"
"Yes Linky," Purah rolled her eyes. "If you're really that lazy, you can teleport together." She opened her mouth to talk, but stopped herself for a moment. "Well, you should be fine."
"What-"
"Don't worry about it, just try it! It can't hurt!"
"I highly doubt-" Link was cut off by Purah pushing him out the door, closing and locking it behind him. Children, he thought. So immature.
"Link!" Zelda yelled from down the path. "Where's your horse?"
After spending a good minute loudly whistling to call his horse, he realized that he hadn't properly tamed it yet, and he had boarded his trusty steed at a stable.
He ran up to Zelda, to try to explain to her that he didn't have a horse.
"You clearly haven't taught it to wait for you yet." Zelda spoke softly, but with an excited look in her eyes. "We still need to go to the castle, however. Would you like to ride with me?"
She thought that maybe it was for the best; that maybe her trip would help him warm up to her, but deep down inside, even she knew the chance of that actually being the case as infinitesimal at best.
Silence fell upon them again, and this time wasn't broken until they had almost made it to the castle
"Princess…" Link trailed off before even starting his thought.
"Yes?" Zelda pushed. This was it; exactly what she wanted. He was going to talk.
"If- if I may ask, how exactly did you tame the horse so quickly?" Link inquired. He spoke up more than he normally did this time, which Zelda assumed must have been a good sign.
"It's just always… been natural. Since I had mounted my first horse, it had always been tame. Naturally. Sadly, I can't say the same about my ability to actually .ride a horse. It was practically abysmal until I started taking lessons." Zelda stopped, before pushing further. "How about you?"
"I've always been good with horses. Never had a problem with them. But I can't quite tame them as fast as you…" he trailed off as he looked at her.
The princess sighed. "Link, go on, finish your thought."
She got no response.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Given their less leisurely pace this time around, they arrived at Hyrule Castle by nightfall. Knowing the area better than his companion, Link took control of the horse and brought them to the back of the castle. Zelda noticed Link taking out the Sheikah Slate for a moment, and then putting it on her belt. Before she could even respond she felt her mind go blank for a moment, waking up the next in some sort of cave, next to a shrine.
When Link landed on the shrine, Zelda had half a mind to slap him and yell, but went with her better judgement and decided against it.
"Link? What was that?" She could barely conceal her frustration.
"Teleportation." Link quickly took the slate from Zelda's hip and used the runes to look around. He had explored almost everywhere he could go through the obvious entrance to the castle, so he needed to find another one. While scouting with stasis, he saw something peculiar underwater. It was some sort of plug, about a meter in diameter, which was blocking a drainage pipe. If he could get rid of that, he'd be able to look for another entrance underwater. Already, a plan started forming in his mind.
He wolfed down some hearty simmered fruit to get back to full strength, and then started changing into his Zora armour.
"What are you doing?" Zelda questioned, seeing him stripping down to his underwear.
"Oh, crap!" Link stopped and covered his mouth, realizing who he was talking to. "Sorry, I'm- I'm just used to being alone out here." He finished changing, put the plug in stasis, and slipped into the water, the cold numbing his body to the suspended sand and dirt particles rubbing against him.
Knowing he couldn't dive down or directly throw anything, he repeatedly charged up blasts from the Master Sword, hitting the plug with each one. When the lock finally wore out, it went flying-
Right towards Zelda.
Reacting immediately, Link managed to take out and throw an old claymore at the rock, altering it's path such that it just barely missed the princess. The water was finally draining into the pipe..
But now he had a different problem. The water was falling towards the pipe - pulling him with it. At first, it was slow, giving him time to grab onto the same ledge he used to fall in. It really became a problem when it started to speed up,
"Princess!" Link yelled, the water drowning his voice out. "Princess!" He still wasn't loud enough. "ZELDA!"
That caught her attention. She ran towards him, just barely stopping herself from falling.
"Hold on!" Zelda scrambled to find anything that she could use to help him.
"Take this..." Link grunted, as it became harder to hold on to the ledge. "Just point it at me… tap… screen…" He was clearly on the verge of passing out.
Zelda did as she was told and watched as Link was enveloped in a yellow-ish, shiny coating. She noticed that he was no longer moving or blinking, and the water just moved around him and started sinking. Seconds later, the coating around his body started flashing, before completely disappearing. In the moment after it disappeared, he went flying directly into a wall on the other side of the room, only to then fall into the newly opened pit.
"AAGH" Link grunted, his body spread out on the ground. He failed to find enough strength in himself to do as little as reach into his pack. He could no longer rely on Mipha's Grace to save him, as all the champions' abilities had gone away after he faced Ganon. So here he was, dying, with his only hope in a princess that had no reason to care.
"Link!" Zelda jumped into the pit, ignoring the pain of her botched fall, running up to him.
"Pack… potion…" was all Link could get out as his grip on consciousness began to fade.
"I- here, some fairy tonic." Zelda took it out of his pack and held his back up, so he could easily drink the liquid. It got to work instantly, with Link back on his feet in seconds.
"Thank you," he said, looking for any way to get in. Zelda noticed him examine a particular area of wall for a moment, before taking the slate from her once again and bombing it. In doing so, he had opened up a new entrance to the underground portion of the castle.
"The caverns… I remember once reading that many ancient texts were stored down there. I've never dreamed that I'd ever actually see them myself." Zelda looked at Link. "Are you sure you want to go in now, after all that?
She got a silent not back from him.
"I suppose there's no time like the present." Zelda motioned for Link to lead into the tunnels.
Post-chapter A/N: WOW that took way longer for me to write than I thought. Yeah, I'll admit the quality is a bit all over the place, but now that I have a ton of free time, the next few chapters should be higher quality. And yes, while I am writing chapter by chapter, I do have a general story outline, so Secrets of the Wild should be a proper coherent story in the end. 'Til next time!P.S. Please review, I'd love to know what people think about my writing, story, and general take on the characters.