Link wakes up to find her passed out over a notebook with ink staining her cheek so you can see part of the sketch she was working on and read a bit of her backward handwriting. Apparently, this is a bit much, so he makes her eat a big breakfast and then attaches himself to her side.

They spend the day making rafts. Once they show up with enough wood to construct the rafts, the villagers have no problem doing the brunt of the work. Zelda, Armes, and Mubs heave on the end of a rope lashed around two logs, looking for all the world as if they're playing tug-of-war while Numar locks the logs tight together with a complicated knot and Link shoves his weight against the logs to hold them down so they don't flip up and loosen all the knots. They relax, shift around to lash a third log into place, and repeat. When they break for water, she wipes sweat from her brow and asks someone to show her the knot they're using, while Link hands her a bottle filled with water.

Once they have the base rafts finished, Link makes them eat lunch. Mostly he makes her eat lunch, but there are other people around and he's not a monster. But she might be a little bit because she takes the opportunity to pull out her sketches and explain her plans in excruciating detail. She's not sure if Link makes desert because she's not done talking or as a silent apology to Armes, Mubs, and Numar or to try to tempt her to actual touch the food, which she so far hasn't done today.

They saw and carve and hammer together a set of wooden jaws, each as tall as Zelda, and she connects them with a set of hinges that are actually axles from a guardian. They string a set of ropes through a channel on the inside of the jaws, and the fishermen show her how to splice the two ropes together where they meet at the jaw's hinge into a single rope, which when pulled causes the jaws to shut. They run a second set of ropes through a channel on the outside. When pulled, these causes the jaws to open. She paints the two ropes different colors to keep them straight, and though the fishermen make fun of her for it, it's all lighthearted. Laying on their side in the sand, the jaws work shockingly well, if she does say so herself.

It's too late to do more on the rafts, but she suggests Link go off and fight his talus while she and a few of the villagers go clean up the spilled fuel. He simply blinks at her, then shouts over to Kiana, "Hey, do you have an empty barrel we can use?" She does, so they head out to Soka Point with an empty barrel and a bunch of deep shields which they use to scoop the fuel from the water. They all take off their boots and roll up their pants and try to stay clean as possible while ferrying shallow collections of fuel up the beach and pour them into the barrel. as soon as they clean a sizale portion, Link takes the opportunity to splash water at her, and she splutters at the cold and the salty taste. By the time they're done, her hands are dyed blue in a way that's achingly familiar, and Link has a distinct line across his shins from how far he waded into the water. Kiana and Garinin stretch their backs and approve the now clear water. They show Zelda how to seal the barrel closed, and Link takes over rolling it back to the village.

When Vah Medoh falls quiet around them, the last of the accordion music trailing away, Link shifts. She can feel him looking over at her even though it's dark.

"What?" she whispers.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes, of course."

"You've just been very...focused."

"We have to get those guardians out of the water, and we're on a deadline."

He's quiet a moment, during which she thinks he might believe her and go to sleep. Then he says, "I can almost hear all the gears in your brain going a hundred miles an hour."

She sighs. "I'm going to need to weigh down the jaws if they're to sink into the water. And since we didn't pick stones to act as weights today, we'll need to do that first thing tomorrow, because we'll need to carve out spots to wedge them into so they don't come loose, and I'm worried about time and if the wood of the jaws is thick enough to accommodate that, and there's always the possibility the wood will just split or this will weaken them. And then what if the added weight makes them too heavy for the scaffolding? I had to guess on the calc—"

"You know I like to hear you talk, right?"

"I...yes?"

"Good. Because I'm going to kiss you now to make you stop, but that doesn't change that I usually really like it. Clear?"

"...Okay."

When he leans in, his lips are off-center in the dark, hitting her chin more than her lips, but it's enough to make her giggle. The kiss is easily corrected.

When the sun rises, she opens her eyes to find strange, pale streaks of blue across Link's shirt. She squints at them, trying to place where she's seen the color before and whether or not they were there last night and—She gasps and jerks away from him, startling him into sitting bolt upright and fumbling for his sword. "What!" She has her mouth covered in horror, but rips her hands from her face when she realizes what she's doing.

"I'm sorry!"

"What?"

"Your shirt!"

"What?" He looks down at it and blinks a few times, just as confused as she was a few seconds ago. The answer doesn't come to him, and he looks up at her in bewilderment.

Bashfully, she holds out her hands for him to see. They're not as blue as they were yesterday. Probably because she rubbed them clean all over Link's chest.

He looks her straight in the eye for a moment, then snorts and tilts his head to the side. "Is it on my neck?"

She leans in to check. "A little bit? Oh Goddesses. I swear I tried to scrub them clean! I washed them four times!" She wants to hide her face in her hands, but that would be a bad idea, so she pitches forward and hides her face in their pillow.

He shifts beside her and leans down to whisper in her ear. "Zel."

"Mmf."

"It's...kinda hot." He bites her earlobe, and she jerks out of bed. He laughs at her and finds himself a fresh shirt.

#

They fit a pair of rocks easily into the jaws, and the next step is to make the scaffold between two of the rafts. The jaws will hang from the scaffolding, down between the rafts. By now most of the village has come out to watch or help. It's a full-town effort to haul the scaffold upright and hold it in place until they can get it secured. Zelda reuses the design for the pulley on the elevator from Vah Rudania, glad that she has the design to utilize, because the jaws are so heavy now, a pulley is a most definite necessity. The scaffolding creaks over their heads as the jaws lift from the sand, but the overhead beams don't snap or sag under the weight, and she breathes a sigh of relief that her estimated weight calculations were acceptable. Two of the three rafts get sails, which again requires the whole village to prop up the masts.

They set out like a small armada, Zelda and Link in one of several long canoes around the floating crane, the third raft toed along behind. A fair-sized crowd watches from the shore, cheering as the crane proves sea-worthy, though cumbersome. It takes an hour with two fishermen waving korok leaves to get over the reef and then over the guardian. The fishermen don't quite work in tandem, so the crane keeps listing to the side or spinning slowly. It's a bit of a mess that could do with some leadership, but Zelda doesn't feel like she ought to tell these men how to propel their rafts.

When they're finally in position, Zelda takes up the ropes to control the jaws. She pulls them open and holds them open as Armes dives into the water to guide the jaws down. Mubs unlocks the pulley and slowly lowers the jaws until they sink beneath the waves. Armes takes a series of huffing breaths to fill his lungs, then plunges down.

A sharp tug and they stop lowering the jaws. A second tug and Zelda releases the rope to open the jaws, handing it off to Link, then pulls as hard as she can on the closing rope. A wave hits them wrong and the crane starts to twist again, and it takes several minutes to get back in position. Then they're ready to lift, Zelda pulling the closing rope tight the whole way up. They have to heave the guardian out of the reef, the scaffolding creaking as three men haul on the raising rope. the guardian jerks free with a crunch she can feel in her chest, all the ropes for a horrifying second going slack. Link grabs onto the closing rope with her, his arms around her, catching the rope as it slips against her sweaty palms, catching it as the sudden force threatens to jerk her into the water, threatens to topple their canoe. But then they settle. The rafts are twisting again, but it no longer matters. The jaws splash their way from the surface, the wood darkened from the wet, seawater running in streams through the channels. Then the guardian appears, twisted on its side, cumbersome as if even the huge jaws aren't big enough to hold it. Even as the whole central body is lifted from the water, its arms still drag, trailing down into the depths. Even covered in water and dangling, it still looks like it might come to life at any second.

They lock the pulley in place, and Zelda ties off the closing rope, using one of the new knots she's learned and a cleat on the closest raft. They drag the third raft that they towed out with them, pushing it into place with oars and feet. It slides perfectly into the space between the two crane rafts. Zelda reaches out with an oar to lift one of the dangling arms and rearrange it out of the water. But the fishermen just step onto the raft, grab up the arms like bulky coils of rope and drop them aboard. With the raft in place and the guardian out of the water they lower the jaws, then open them. They tie the third raft into place and make their way back to land.

Link grins at her, then paddles them along after the guardian. The newly formed raft is even more cumbersome than before, and they decide to ride with the current rather than try to get back to the beach from which they launched. The crowd from the shore just shifts down the beach to greet them, to gather around the guardian. The moment they're beached onto the sand, Zelda stumbles out of the canoe and runs up to the guardian.

The outer shielding is intact, and she can tell the fuel hasn't leaked, like the one by Soka Point. But if she slips under a couple of arms to get a good look at its underbelly where its shielding is thinner, she can see the pockmarks where rocks or the reef have beaten against it and exposed some of the tube-like wires which are now frayed and tangled.

"The fish have nibbled on those," says Mubs from over her shoulder.

"The porgy?" Zelda asks.

Mubs nods. "Probably. The porgy grind their food. They like eating the crabs. Getting to the meat on the inside." She gestures to the wires inside the hard shell of the guardian.

Zelda sighs and sits back on her heels. "Well. The good news is that we seem to have solved your porgy problem. At least for now. The bad news, however, is that there are three more guardians in the water by Aris beach that will need to be removed if we don't want a repeat of this. And I don't know how many more will wash up if we don't find out where they're coming from."

They sit down with the slate and a set of charts and plot out the currents that could have washed the guardians in. They seem to be coming from somewhere to the north, along the edge of the continent. How far it's hard to say. Her eyes lock on Hateno beach, right in the current's path.

She doesn't want to think about it.

"You know," Link tells Rozel, "Vah Medoh could haul these guardians and the fuel away for you. And you could send along some fish to sell in Gerudo Town or Rito Village."

The elder shakes his head. "We just pulled a bunch of Sheikah tech out of the ocean and you want to bring more in? No, thank you. I don't care if that giant bird of yours is carrying free diamonds. I don't want it here."

Zelda's heart sinks. The sun is setting, and it's time for them to go.

But Link just shrugs and says, "Okay, but you're missing out on all the diamonds." He adjusts his arm guards and checks that he's got all his equipment, as Zelda checks hat she has all of hers. She stands and pats the side of the guardian, and he slips an arm around her shoulders and guides her away. He calls over his shoulder, "We'll see you around!"

"It was a pleasure meeting you," Zelda calls, threading her fingers through Link's and slipping and arm around his waist. He smells like salt water and too much sun. It's comforting against her disappointment.

"Hey! Wait!" Rozel shouts. "I don't want any part of your giant bird monster, so you're just going to leave?"

They pause enough to look back at him. They trade a look with each other. "Well, yeah, kinda."

"We've done all we can do for you for now," Zelda says. "We'll investigate the beaches to the north soon, and we'll be back in the next few months or so." She looks up at Link to check that that timeline is correct.

"I don't know," he says, and she catches a sparkle in his eye. "Lurelin's not really on our route."

"If you hear anything about who's dropping the guardians in the water, let us know. Oh." She bites her lip. "I'm not quite sure the best way to contact us. Perhaps if you sent a messenger up to Kakariko?"

"That's like a five day trip," Link says.

"Hmmm. I suppose the good news is that it's really not that dire a situation."

"Yeah, just some sick porgy."

"Hey!" Rozel shouts.

"Well, we'll be back in the next few months," Zelda says. She lifts her and Link's joined hands to wave. "See you soon."

They walk another six steps before Numar hisses something and Rozel cracks. "Fine! Bring in your damned bird and your damned mail! But take these guardians away while you're at it."

Zelda's sure that she and Link both look far too smug.

#

"You look tired," he says. They're walking out of the village to get some privacy before warping.

"I am tired." She leans heavily against his shoulder. "Carry me."

Of course, she's not serious. And she doesn't expect him to do anything other than nudge her into walking further or possibly warp them from here. But he ducks down and slips an arm around the back of her knees, and her heart swells until he braces his shoulder against her stomach and hefts her up, throwing her over his shoulder. She shrieks, and suddenly she's upside-down and Link is striding off again.

She tenses until she's sure of her balance, then relaxes and says, "This is not what I had in mind."

He laughs. "What? You wanted me to sweep you off your feet like a princess and romantically carry you off into the sunset?"

"Technically, yes, that is exactly what I asked you to do."

"And technically, that's exactly what I'm doing."

She wedges her elbows between them to prop her head on her arms and see something other than Link's back. "I'd hardly call this romantic."

"You wouldn't? You're tired, and I'm carrying you even though I'm tired too. I'm a catch."

"This is like you're going to drag me off to your cave and grunt at me."

He shifts the hand keeping her steady around her waist, moving it to her rear and squeezing slightly. He does it as if she'll think it's not on purpose, like the yawns the soldiers used to fake to get their arms around their girlfriends. She rolls her eyes ad grins and says nothing. She lets him walk.

And walk. And walk.

"Where are we going?! We don't need to walk this far to warp. We don't need to walk anywhere to warp."

"Just enjoying the scenery," he says. "You want to stop?"

She thinks for a moment, because it is kind of nice like this, then says, "Yes."

He sets her back on her feet, and when he stands once more, he takes a half step forward, drawing her in at the hip until they're pressed close. She shifts her stance so the inside of her leg presses against the outside of his and they're connected from calf to chest. He closes his eyes and breathes through his nose, and when she shifts closer to press a kiss to his neck, she can feel the vibration of his silent groan in every place they're connected.

She stretches up to whisper low in his ear, "I love you even though you felt the need to grab my butt."

He nips at her ear and she squeaks. "I like your butt," he whispers back, and the words rumble all the way down her spine.