The Gerudo whispered as they rode across the desert, carried in the belly of the Divine Beast with their captive Yiga.
They whispered warily about what the girl had done. Did you see it? they asked, shooting queasy looks at the charred body on the floor. It was still smoking. What was that? She'd controlled lightning. Like Urbosa. Vah Naboris must grant lightning powers to her pilot. Or maybe the girl already had lightning powers and that's why Naboris chose her. Either way, it was a bad idea to get on the girl's bad side.
They whispered reverently that Vah Naboris had chosen her. Out of everyone in the room it had chosen her. It had flown over and past so many great candidates to get to her. There must be something special about her. Something worthy. And she wielded the machine with such power that the Divine Beast must have known what it was doing in picking her.
They whispered angrily about the girl who'd stolen their Divine Beast. Vah Naboris belonged to the Gerudo. They wouldn't stand for this. Riju wouldn't stand for this. Some said she was a Divine Beast expert, but now it seemed more like this was her plan all along. What was the point of the tournament if she was just going to swoop in at the last minute? No, this wouldn't stand. Naboris had been stopped before. It could be stopped again. Even if they had to go to war, they would do so gladly.
Who was she? She'd been so quiet those weeks she'd been in the desert. Always in the background. Always to the side. But always there. Always honored.
What were they going to do? Would she just walk off with their Divine Beast? Would Riju be forced to make her an honorary Gerudo?
She could speak Gerudo, they said. She knew their customs. She knew their dances.
Did they see her Hylian voe at the end of the battle? It was almost like he'd tried to take Vah Naboris too. Maybe the girl had manipulated him into thinking it would be him, when her plan all along was that it would be her.
Now Gerudo Town was drawing every closer. It was hard to feel grateful that the girl was taking them home, that she was taking mercy on them and not electrocuting them all. Now that they stood on such shaky ground, it was even hard to even be glad they'd had won the battle.
#
Once she stops glowing and crackling, once the remaining Yiga have been restrained, she sequesters herself away in one of the upper domes. She sits on the floor, closes her eyes, and leans back against the wall. Now that their pressing work is done, Naboris excitedly shows her the hydraulic system, tugging at her attention. She happily follows. She sees the reservoir of blue fluid, the simple but massive pump in Naboris' chest, the relief valve and the directional control valves. They move their way through the system, flowing along with the liquid as it chugs through the pipes, each new component stamping itself into Zelda's memory. It tickles, almost as if it's rewiring her brain. Naboris shows her the actuator and the massive pistons, chugging, chugging as Naboris walks. They're working their way into Naboris' legs, the force of the pistons dispersed into smaller, more flexible parts when she notices that someone is patting her cheek.
"Zelda. Come on, Zelda, talk to me. You need to open your eyes. Open your eyes right now."
What's he on about? She and Naboris are both annoyed to be interrupted, but she brings her attention back to her body and opens her eyes.
Link heaves a sigh of relief and scrapes his fingers through his hair. "Can you speak?"
"Of course, I can."
He runs his hands over her face, her shoulders, her arms, checking her for injury. "Are you hurt?"
"No."
Little bird? Naboris pulls at her consciousness again. The Divine Beast has been alone for so long. She's so glad that Zelda's with her. She wants to wrap Zelda up in love and hold her warm and close. Naboris can see all the pain, all the failures, and just wants to soothe them all away. Naboris would never think Zelda's research was a waste of time. Naboris could help. Come see.
"Naboris wants to show me the pistons," she says. She closes her eyes again.
"Wait. Zelda. You didn't answer my question."
What question? It doesn't matter. It really doesn't. He can see that she's fine. She's just researching and needs to not be interrupted for a while. This is the discovery of a lifetime! She's been waiting for this moment for a century! Link surely understands.
A sliver of her concentration watches him with Naboris' senses. He leans back. He pulls his Sheikah face mask off, then unwinds his scarf. He looks up when feet pound through the door and Barta skids to a stop beside him.
"Oh shit. Is she—" Then she looks up, out the windows. "She can't be. We're still moving."
Link shakes his head as if he doesn't understand. "Pilots see through their Divine Beast's eyes, and it's hard at first to get used to the double vision. Amali would get some really bad headaches. I think she just needs to have all her attention on walking us to Gerudo Town."
Naboris cuts off her explanation of the jointed series that makes up each leg to share in Zelda's afront and confusion. That's not it at all!
Barta nods, frowning, not understanding and not liking what she does understand.
Zelda's so irritated with the both of them that she tunes them out, and snuggles deeper into Naboris' wisdom. Naboris' feet are badly damaged, and the specs of thick glass and wiring flash through her mind.
Something brushes her foot and it's ticklish enough to draw her attention once again. Link has hooked her slipper back onto her bare foot. He's changed into his Champion's tunic, and he's sitting on the floor beside her, facing the door, watching over her.
Zelda gets back to work.
#
As Amali got the hang of things and settled her family into a nice routine, Medoh started showing bits and pieces of her personality. At first it was simply offering up suggestions rather than blindly following Amali's orders. That was a welcome turn of events. And then Medoh started showing a bit of a stubborn streak. Not flat out disobeying, but more a feeling of grumpiness when Amali told her to do something she didn't want to do. Amali assumed that anything she raised just ended up that way, whether it be a flock of daughters or a hulking, ancient machine.
She knew how to handle stubbornness. "Oh, you don't feel like turning south? I'm sorry. That's very sad for you, dear, because we're turning south now."
They were at a comfortable point in their relationship. And when her daughters kept itching to leave the shelter of the Divine Best and venture out into Eldin, where the air was literally on fire, Amali made the call and left as soon as the shipments were packed and she was done speaking to Yunobo. They left in the evening and would land in Terry Town just after sunrise. She allowed Medoh the honor of flying unsupervised while she slept. At two in the morning she woke to her stomach dropping and a box of the girls' toys sliding across the floor. She reached for Medoh to find that the beast was spinning quick loops around Mount Lanayru, diving to terrorize the wildlife and scoop up stray lizalfos to toss them lazily back to the snow.
"Medoh!"
Then something truly shocking happened.
Medoh answered. With words.
Amali nearly had a heart attack. For a heart-stopping moment, she thought someone had snuck on board, was in the room. She'd heard it clear as a bell. But she saw no one. She checked Medoh's sensors, and it was true: she and her sleeping daughters were alone.
Had Medoh spoken?
She tried to ignore it. Tried to push it aside until she could ask Zelda about it. At the very least she tried to not let it affect her relationship with Medoh, but it was disquieting. It nagged at her even days later, when Link warped in unannounced, looking harried and sleepless.
She turned from the work going on in Medoh's lower level. "Link? What's wrong?"
"How soon can you make it to Gerudo Town?"
That didn't sound good. "We're in Lurelin, packing up now." She waved an arm to the floor below, where the fishermen were securing a huge haul of crabs. "I was planning to get there tomorrow afternoon. Why? What happened?"
"Vah Naboris picked Zelda as her pilot."
"What?"
"And now Zel is just lying there. I can't get her to snap out of it. Every now and then she grumbles at me that she's busy—that she's working and studying the—the circulatory system? She barely even opens her eyes before she goes back to sleep!"
Amali frowned. "That's...not right. She should be able to handle it, unless Naboris is broken somehow. Something's definitely wrong. Maybe they're...Goddess, I wouldn't even know where to start."
If anyone else was having this problem, her suggestion would be to ask Zelda. Without her...she had no idea what they should do.
Link sucked in a breath through his teeth, trying to keep his temper and his panic in check. "Think on it," he said. "And hurry." And with that he warped away.
Amali reached out to Medoh. "Any ideas?"
Medoh had no clue.
"She said she's studying? What does that mean? Is there—I don't know—" She was too out of her element, she was too... "Okay, if I were Zelda, and I wanted to know more about how you worked, what would you show me?"
Medoh seemed skeptical, before offering up that there was a diagnostic program.
"What's that like?"
Boring.
Amali huffed. "Well, show it to me anyway."
Medoh thought that was a useless idea, but if that's really what she wanted... Suddenly Amali was sucked from her body into the machinery of a single propeller on Medoh's left wing. The images, the stream of data, felt like a dull drone as Medoh explained all the parts, each flashing across Amali's vision, burning itself into her brain. She tried to shake it off, look away. She couldn't see from her own eyes, or even from Medoh's eyes. She couldn't feel her face or the tips of her wings. "Okay, okay! Let me back!"
She slammed back into her body with a gasp and a smug feeling from Medoh, that see? She'd warned her it was boring.
"Yes," Amali said, pressing a hand to her stomach, "but it's exactly the kind of thing Zelda would love. She would just live there if she had the...Oh. Oh no."
#
Zelda learns about the electromagnetic shielding Naboris has on select rooms inside the beast. She learns about the alloy from which the beast is made. She learns about the processors that control the flow of information. She learns about signal degradation in the blue liquid as it's transferred and how it is replicated in order to be replenished. She thinks she could make more of the blue liquid with Purah's help. She can see how she would program the liquid, what she would have to build, and what she would have to adjust on the guidance stone at the tech lab.
"Zelda? Zelda, wake up now."
Link used to be much better about giving her space and quiet to work. Perhaps his new development of begging her attention every five minutes is because he can't look over her shoulder the whole time and watch what she's doing. Maybe it's because she hasn't given him a way to help. She doesn't have him wielding a sledgehammer or gathering wood or killing monsters for parts. She does have a list of materials she'll need to repair Naboris' feet. She could give him that.
"Naboris, I need her help a moment. I'm having a problem with Vah Medoh."
Vah Medoh?
That's not Link's voice.
She opens her eyes. She's still up in the dome, but she's been moved. The plush rug is back, and she's lying on top of it with a bunch of pillows. She doesn't remember that happening.
Link must have moved her, so there's nothing to worry about.
He hovers over her and his shoulders loosen when she blinks at him. But then his face turns stony, and he lifts a cup to her face. "Drink this."
She pushes herself up on her elbows, and the room spins. Link braces her with a hand at the back of her neck and lifts the cup to her face again. "Drink."
The iron in his voice distracts from her sense of disorientation. "What is it?"
"Cucco broth."
She balks. "What? Why? I'm not sickly. I already told you, I'll eat in a little while."
"Sweetheart," a soft voice says, "You've been saying that for two days."
What? That can't be right. But then she recognizes the voice, the one that brought her out in the first place.
"Amali!" Zelda sits up too quickly, and spins on Amali as the Rito drops into a kneel beside her. Feathers flutter to stroke over her hair. She's so excited to explain everything she's discovered to the other pilot. "We've been working on it, and we know how to repair the shielding on Medoh. We also think we can make an oil that will work well in those last few stiff joints. I need paper. I'll write the recipe." She reaches for her pouches where she keeps her journals, but it looks like Link has removed her belt. "And what's happening with Medoh?" She lifts a few pillows and looks over the rim of her sleeping area. "Link, what did you do with my journals?"
Amali speaks as Zelda searches. "Medoh spoke. With words. I thought I was hearing them, but maybe they were just in my mind. I don't know, the girls were asleep, so I can't be sure."
Zelda hums, still searching for paper. "Link, where is my belt?"
"I'll give it back after you eat." He plops a tray onto the pillow next to her. It's arranged with a neat rows of vegetarian rice triangles. She blinks at them.
Amali says, "I need your help figuring out what happened."
There's not really anything to investigate. And Zelda needs her journals. She snatches up one of the rice triangles, looks Link in the eye and takes a pointed bite, holding out her free hand for him to return her belongings. She tries to hide it, but as soon as the rice hits her tongue she starts to salivate, and her stomach gives an unpleasant squeeze. Somehow they're right: it's been far too long since she's eaten. How did she let so much time get away from her? Well, it was worth it, and no harm done, so it hardly matters. Link rolls his eyes and slips her belt from under one of the pillows near her feet. She holds the triangle in one hand, while she digs out her journal and a pencil with the other. It takes her a while for her mouth to be clear enough to explain to Amali. "It's nothing to worry about. Naboris speaks to me all the time. She primarily uses images or emotions, but for small, specific phrases she'll use words. Perhaps Medoh is just slower to trust than Naboris. But then again, Naboris already knows me."
Amali frowns. Clearly, this does not put her mind at ease. It must be hard knowing that she doesn't have as strong a bond as Zelda has with her beast. "Perhaps."
"What did Medoh say?" Link asks. He's softened a bit now that Zelda's eating.
Amali's frown drops to make room for an exasperated eye-roll. "She said, 'Impressive, I know.'"
Link snorts. "Very Rito."
"Yes. But...The thing that startled me most was that it—it was a man's voice."
Link's thinks on that. "Weird."
Zelda shakes her head and reaches for her second triangle, still writing her supply list. "Not really. It's just Revali. It's the part of him that imprinted onto the Divine Beast. When Medoh uses words, it's in his voice. It's his phrasing."
They let her work for a moment in silence while they process that everything is fine and the small mystery is now simply interesting.
At least, that's what she assumes until Link's spine stiffens so fast it's as if he's rearing away from her. "Oh hell!" he shouts.
Zelda's pencil jumps, leaving a stray line across the page. She looks up to scowl. Amali has both wingtips folded over her beak to contain her horror. But Link isn't holding any of his horror in.
"What is it?"
Link shakes his head slowly. His eyes dart up and down her body, then to the exits. He swallows hard. "You're saying that you've spent the last two days absorbed in ancient technology and talking to Urbosa?"
"...Yes?" Obviously.
He stares at her.
"Is there a problem?" she asks.
"The problem is that I couldn't make a better Zelda trap if I tried."
She huffs. "It's a Divine Beast, not a trap."
"It's a Divine Beast that belongs to the Gerudo, and it's making it impossible to disconnect you."
"Disconn—" She freezes. Naboris latches onto her so possessively that she chokes, her eyes roll, and she sways. Link shouts something and Amali grabs for her. No, she needs to stay here. She needs to talk to them. She has to explain. She can make them understand. Just one moment, she reassures Naboris. She promises, she'll be right back.
Naboris curls possessively around her but lets her float back into her body.
When her vision clears, both Link and Amali look terrified. Zelda speaks as soothingly and rationally as she can, which is difficult given that she's leaning pretty far to the right, bracing herself on one arm. "You can't disconnect us. We're doing good work. I'll be able to make solid repairs now that I know how things function. I understand now. And we'll be able to use the towers the way we've planned all along. And I think I'm close to understanding how the slate works. I could make you your own. I just need more time."
Amali says, "You need to eat and sleep and leave this room."
"Alright. I'll stop for meals. We were just excited to get started." And to be together. Come back now. "We'll do a better job of paying attention. Just let us keep going."
Amali frowns. Her eyes tighten at the edges. "Sweetheart—"
"No," Link says. "We're getting you out now." He shoves up onto his feet, as if he's ready to—to what? What is his plan?
Naboris' tendrils tighten around her chest.
"No," she says.
"The longer you wait, the more painful it will be to let go."
"Let g—I don't—"
"You have to. You said so yourself. The only thing keeping the Gerudo from demanding at spear point that you hand over Naboris is that until five minutes ago you were basically catatonic. We've been waiting for Amali to come help shake you out of it."
"Well, now that you understand, you can just explain to them that I'm doing important work."
"You're not acting like yourself. You care too much about rebuilding Hyrule to throw it away for this."
She narrows her eyes at him. "That's the way it always is, isn't it? Hyrule or what I want, what I've wanted this my whole life! What I've put aside time and time and time again."
"This is what you want? To abandon all your friends—people who are here, now. People who need you to make the right call—for a memory of someone you lost? You spent a hundred years locked away, and now you want to do it more?"
"You don't understand!"
"I understand that if Yunobo were knocked out on the floor, you'd have pulled the plug immediately. I understand that if Naboris chose me as her pilot, you'd be saying the exact same thing I'm telling you right now."
"But she didn't choose you. She chose me! She knows me! She loves me! All the other potential champions were there, and she rejected them for me. She doesn't want them. The transfer won't work."
"Then you have to convince her to let go, because I'm not losing you to a Gerudo guard who sneaks in and kills you, and I'm not losing you to some machine that goes in and messes with your head!"
"And I'm not losing her! I've already lost her once!"
Arms reach for her. Suddenly, she's surrounded by feathers, by a warm embrace that cradles her in such a tactile way that it's shocking. For a second her mind is completely blank.
It feels so different from how Naboris has held her these past few days. She's being cradled and rocked. She's being mothered as she hasn't been since Urbosa. I mother you. Yes. Zelda wants Amali to let her go. She twitches and tugs, Naboris trying to get a grip on her heart and pull her back, but the phantom in her head doesn't have the same strength as the power in Amali's wings.
Tears are falling from her eyes. Zelda moves slowly, lifting her arms, until she returns the embrace. Then her fists clamp in Amali's wing feathers. She's shaking. Her chest heaves.
Amali whispers, "I'm so sorry, my darling. You've lost so much."
Zelda can't stop shaking.
Naboris reaches out to touch her, to soothe and tempt her. It's alright. But it feels cold.
Naboris quiets, her voice dampened as if it can't quite reach Zelda through Amali's feathers. Shielded by wings and motherly love, the clarity of her situation hits her like a brick.
Something is wrong with her. What on earth has she done?
"This won't bring her back," Amali says. "If you stay here, you can never move on."
Move on. That's what this has been about since the beginning.
She's yet to be successful.
Zelda gasps with panic. She grips Amali harder. "I don't know how to leave her. I don't think she'll let me. I don't want to abandon her again."
"You won't," Link says softly. One of his hands squeezes her ankle. The other rubs soothing circles on her lower back. Those are the only parts of her he can reach. The rest of her is shrouded in Amali's wings. "You're just helping Naboris move on too."
"You'll always be a part of her," Amali says, and Zelda doesn't know if she's talking about Naboris or Urbosa.
She can feel Naboris prodding, trying to get back in, whining in distress.
As quietly as she can, she murmurs, "I feel strange."
Amali whispers into her hair, "That's because Naboris is broken."
Zelda nods. She can tell that now. It's murky, as if she can almost make out the shape of the problem through a fog.
Amali holds her until the shaking eases, although it never goes away.
"Come. Get dressed," Amali says. "We're going to make this right."