Link exhaled as soon as he closed the door behind him.
This is ridiculous, he figured, raising his fisted hand to knock on the door.
But once again, he changed his mind, heading down the stairs.
Groose was in the kitchen, head hung over the map on the table, hands braced along the edges. He looked up when Link silently stood across from him, studying the map, its empty holes.
"You okay?" Groose asked.
"No," Link said in reply.
"Yeah," Groose said solemnly as he looked down at the map, "yeah, me neither."
Link massaged the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes before they opened again. His hand moved to rub his forehead as he looked at the map.
"Well there's the area west of Death Mountain, and we could always look more into the beaches west of Faron, umm…"
"What about here?" Groose asked, his fingers trailing along. "What's this?"
Link placed his hand back down.
"That's the mountain we went to," Link said, pointing, "and that's the old village."
"We could investigate that more too," Groose suggested.
"Add it to the list," Link said with a sigh. "And then of course there's basically ALL of what's north of Lanayru."
Link started to shake his head.
"This could take months!" He exclaimed as he threw a his hands palm-first on the table. "We have absolutely no idea where they are! What if they do something with it before we find them?!"
"Don't worry, you'll find them, you want to know why?"
"Why?" Link asked dryly. Groose came around to Link's side of the table.
"Because you have your old buddy Groose," the burly knight said as he put his arm around him, moving him slightly back and forth.
Link sighed.
"I guess we scan from the skies and then meet up here to discuss what we found," Link said, pointing at the very top of the known Lanayru region. "If it's nothing, we continue North and, Hylia help us, find those damn Sheikah before they damn us all."
Groose hit Link on the back enthusiastically, Link nearly coughing his lunch up right on the table.
"That's the spirit," Groose said as Link recovered. "You all packed and ready to go?"
"Yeah," he said his voice strained. "Yeah, let's go."
Author's Note: Shortest chapter of the whole fic and last short chapter for a while.