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With that, on with the chapter!

~ Chapter 14 ~

When the smoke cleared, Zelda had only enough time to blink before she was suddenly grabbed, bound with a length of rope, and then shoved to the ground. She yelped slightly as the side of her face hit the freezing cold surface of...whatever she now lay on. Though her eyes still burned from the smoke, she forced herself to look around, taking in her surroundings as best she could from her position.

Snow. That was one thing she knew for certain. The floor of wherever she had ended up was dusted with a layer of snow, thus accounting for the sudden change of temperature. Quite a far cry from the Hateno sunshine she had just been standing beneath, she thought bitterly.

Then, under the snow, there was stone. Imperfect stone, jagged in some places and smooth in others. Certainly not carved by any person's hand, that was certain.

A cave, then. A natural cave in a frigid, snowy area.

And of course, judging by the fact that the Yiga Clan's teleportation powers were, while impressive, still fairly limited, it wasn't exactly much of a challenge for Zelda to guess where her captor had taken her. Taking into account the surrounding topography of Hateno Village, there was only one place they could realistically be.

Mount Lanayru. The last place Zelda had visited before her world had been destroyed.

How ironic, then, that one of the servants of its destructor would take her here now. It would've been almost poetic, if she hadn't been distracted by her anger.

"Where have you taken me!?" the princess shouted, figuring it was better to let her assailant believe that she was clueless. As Link had taught her, underestimation was an advantage in and of itself. "Who are you!? And what have you done to Paya!?"

The Yiga scoffed, having shed Paya's visage in favor of the traditional Yiga uniform and mask. Her voice was still feminine, yet it was markedly different from that of the young Sheikah woman. The Yiga's tones were more confident, as well as laced with an edge of scorn.

"Don't worry about the girl," she sneered. "I'm sure that bump on her head won't keep her out for too long. As for the rest, you don't need to know any of that."

Though her face was covered entirely by the inverted-eye mask, Zelda got the distinct sense that the Yiga member was grinning cruelly at her.

"Besides, you'll have bigger things to worry about, I'm sure. Hypothermia, starvation...oh, and of course, your boyfriend destroying your little village."

Though she mostly tried to ignore the Yiga's taunts, the tips of Zelda's pointed ears shot up in surprise at the last statement. "W-Wait!" she called out, struggling her way into a sitting position. "What do you me - !?"

She was cut off by another puff of smoke, sending her into a sudden coughing fit. When the cave cleared yet again, the Yiga footsoldier was gone, leaving only her ominous, echoing words in her wake.

"The plan was always to give him back to you. Beware the eye of Yiga…"

Zelda took a long shuddering breath, ignoring the way the cold air stung at her lungs, as well as the Yiga's unsettling words. "Alright…" she muttered to herself, looking down at the ropes binding her. "First things first...get rid of these."

The slick, wet surface of the cave floor wasn't exactly the best ground for finding traction, but by leaning against the wall and pushing up with her legs, she was able to stand up without too much trouble. "Good thing I asked Link to start giving me fighting lessons," she mumbled as she got to her feet. "Looks like all those exercises paid off after all."

Then, she winced, as Link's name only brought to mind what the Yiga had told her. Your boyfriend destroying your little village. And, The plan was always to give him back to you. What exactly was that supposed to mean? Normally, Zelda might have written it off as a baseless threat meant to rile her up, but she couldn't shake the feeling that it was more than that. Perhaps…?

Grimacing, the princess shook her head to clear it. "No," she told herself firmly. "Ropes first, speculating later. Priorities, Zelda, priorities…"

She edged her way across the frozen ground, carefully maneuvering towards one of the more jagged sections of the cave wall. Without the need for much searching, she located a piece of stone that jutted out just enough for her to hook the rope that pinned her arms to her sides around it. If she shifted up and down just right, the jagged stone would act similarly to a saw.

The circumstances weren't exactly ideal, given Zelda's restricted range of motion, but to her benefit, the rope the Yiga member had used did not take to the cold very well. It frayed and weakened at the mercy of the temperature and the jagged wall, until finally, the entire length fell away from Zelda's torso, collecting on the ground in a useless heap.

"Well, that was easy," Zelda commented, if only to fill the muted silence of the snow-covered cave. "Though…"

She frowned and glanced towards the entrance, where, even in the middle of the day, the landscape was still and shadowed. Despite the sunshine in Hateno Village below, it appeared that clouds were building amongst the Lanayru Range. It would surely snow soon.

"I suppose the ropes were just a trivial distraction…" the princess murmured to herself. "The real challenge will be surviving long enough to escape this mountain…"

In truth, the frigid temperatures didn't bother her all that much. The air stung a bit, but it would take more than minor stinging to faze a girl who had spent a decade of her life standing in freezing springs, wearing nothing but a sleeveless prayer dress and some sandals. Comparatively, even her regular travel clothing may as well have been a winter cloak. If nothing else, at least she had boots and long pants this time.

Still, it would be a fool's errand to try to hike down the mountain without supplies, especially in what seemed to be an approaching snowstorm. She was beginning to wish she hadn't left the Sheikah Slate with Link. Teleportation notwithstanding, the device's strange storage system could have provided her with food, flint and wood for fire, and elixirs to keep warm - not to mention the alarmingly extensive closet Link had ended up building up in there.

"At the very least, there's plenty of water," Zelda noted as she eyed the snow-covered floor. "And perhaps I can find some wildberries outside once the snow passes...not that I intend to be trapped here for very long, of course."

Her voice reverberated off of the walls back to her own ears, and for a moment, she felt somewhat foolish. This habit of talking to herself was nothing new - for a young child forced to spend countless hours in isolated prayer, it was practically essential to keep sane - but it felt emptier, somehow, without a certain blue-eyed knight standing just behind her, quietly listening, and perhaps occasionally adding a quip of his own.

A lump rose in her throat as she recalled Riju's three frantic thunderbolts. As much as Zelda wished she could pretend that everything was alright, she knew that the triple signal meant that something was very clearly amiss. Why else would Riju have been so desperate to get her attention? It had to have been the case that Zelda had stepped out of range, leaving Link to suffer the effects of his Malice sickness - and perhaps whatever else that Yiga had meant that would cause him to "destroy the village."

And now, she realized, her hands curling into tense fists, she had ended up far, far out of range. Even with all of her meditating, all of her pleading with her power to rebuild itself faster, the magic would never reach all the way down the mountain and into Hateno Village in its current state.

For a brief moment, Zelda felt the crushing weight of helplessness she was all too familiar with bearing down on her.

Then, she scowled, shaking her head to clear it. "No...I'm not about to just lie down and give up when Link needs my help," she vowed, glaring at the entrance of the cave, where a few soft snowflakes were just beginning to fall. "I've harnessed this power once, and I can do it again. The Yiga Clan clearly believes that I'm completely out of the picture...tch. As if I'd ever sit idly by and be their proper damsel in distress! Let's see...if I can just summon forth enough energy to warp myself, I can get back to him…" She sighed slightly. "We may have to start from scratch after that, but...it can't be helped."

The princess went to the very back of the cave, where she couldn't feel the wind picking up outside, and sat down in the corner. She curled up as best as she could, tucking her hands carefully between her stomach and her legs to keep them warm.

"Stay strong for just a bit longer, Link…" she whispered, praying that the Malice hadn't already consumed him. "I can take care of myself just fine...and I promise, I'll be coming home to you soon."

With that, she closed her eyes and began to meditate.