***Link continues to explore, building his strength, finding a sense of companionship with Kass, obtaining the Master Sword, and finding all the memories that are in the photo album and some that are not.***
Chapter Five - Lost Woods, Central Hyrule, and the castle
After recovering that first memory and getting my Champion's tunic, my life for a while became mostly a flurry of running around looking for memories and shrines, and activating towers so I could have access to the full map of Hyrule.
I got very familiar with the staff at all the stables, and learned as much as I could about the people in the few remaining villages. I was kind of thankful that I couldn't remember how many people there had been before; sifting through so many ruins was heartbreaking. Here were the remains of so many people's lives, reduced to broken dishes and furniture, bits and pieces of pictures and mementos that now no one remembered.
Along my travels, I ran into Kass the Rito bard over and over. On top of a strange tree on Washa's Bluff, I found his journal regarding ancient songs, and committed the locations mentioned therein to memory, as I had learned after our first meeting that his songs were clues to discovering shrines I would not have found otherwise. Many were the times I felt lonely because I was the only human being for miles, and then I would hear that familiar accordion and home in on it. Kass was always friendly yet cordial, and I found it… interesting… that he often spoke of wanting to sing the ancient songs to help the hero when he returned, but never seemed to realize or acknowledge that I was the hero, no matter how many times I showed up in places no other Hylian would have or could have shown up. And even though we never spoke of anything other than the ancient songs, I somehow felt like he was a friend to me, probably because he relieved my loneliness, however inadvertently. It helped that I met his wife and daughters when I went to Rito Village; I could see that his musical gift had been passed on to those adorable girls, and it tugged at my heartstrings when they spoke of how they missed him.
I met up with Hestu again at the Woodland Stable and we exchanged seeds for gear stash expansions. He told me that Korok Forest was not far from the stable, and invited me to visit him there. People I spoke to around the stable mentioned that scary things happened in the woods for which the stable was named, although no one had been known to actually get hurt. People got lost in the woods, hence the nickname for the Great Hyrule Forest, "Lost Woods," but they always magically found themselves back at the entrance to the forest, no worse for the wear except possibly for some soiled underwear.
This seemed suspicious to me. What force would seemingly contrive to frighten people without harming them? Why did people lost in the woods find themselves safely returned to their starting point with no knowledge of how they got there? Ashe, one of the stable hands, said something about cold, changing winds in the woods, which seemed extra weird because such a dense forest would presumably be mostly devoid of wind.
I set out for the forest at once, and soon discovered the truth behind the mystery: the Koroks, children of the forest, had created a clever and effective way to prevent anyone but me from getting to the Master Sword. Yes, the Master Sword, the sword of legend, the sword that seals the darkness, was the first thing to meet my eyes when I entered the glade at the center of the forest. It stood in a shaft of sunlight, almost ethereal in its silent majesty, ensconced in a pedestal before the biggest tree I had ever seen. The Great Deku Tree, as he introduced himself, chastised me a bit for taking so long to come for the sword, but hey, I couldn't control how long I slept in that shrine. He invited me to try and pull the sword, but even though I had built up my strength considerably since leaving the Great Plateau, I was still not strong enough to draw the Sword, and the Deku Tree stayed my hand before I went too far and lost my life. I would have to come back later, and fortunately there was a shrine right there in Korok Forest that I could travel back to when I felt I was ready.
I found that the children of the forest had created my own personal oasis there, inside of the Great Deku Tree. I had a bed to sleep in for free any time I wanted, and they had accumulated all sorts of supplies to sell to me. They even had a little Hylia statue where I could pray for increased health and stamina. They were so eager to help, it was endearing, especially when they called me "Mr. Hero." I undertook the Koroks' three trials and found the three shrines hidden within the Lost Woods. The shrines' locations were also home to various supplies I would need to make meals and elixirs and to allow the Great Fairies to enhance my clothing, such as the elusive stealthfin trout.
I worked diligently to find enough shrines to recover my strength enough to retrieve the Master Sword from its resting place in Korok Forest. Upon my return, the Great Deku Tree was pleased and shared a vision of the princess bringing the sword to Korok Forest for safekeeping one hundred years ago.
One of my first missions after reuniting with the Sword was to visit Outskirt Stable and find out what Aliza had wanted to give me. I thought for sure she would be thrilled and try to seduce me, and I was so anxious to tell her no, but to my surprise she said that although it was a wish come true to finally meet me, I just wasn't really her type. The gift she had been holding was a star fragment, and even though I disappointed her, she still gave it to me.
My wounded pride wanted to tell her off, let her know that she wasn't my type, either, and tell her about the incredible woman I was already in love with, but I managed to hold my tongue and simply thank her for the gift. It was for the best, anyway; just thinking about getting intimate with that girl now made me feel almost sick with guilt.
When I finally decided I had the strength and stamina to venture into central Hyrule and take on the walking Guardians there, I discovered the ruins of garrisons, an exchange, and a few towns. Surprisingly, in spite of treasure hunters braving the place over the decades, there was still plenty to be found there, especially in the places the Guardians patrolled most closely. The garrisons felt familiar to me, and I assumed that as a soldier I had spent some time there, but I didn't understand why the ruins of a town my Sheikah Slate identified as Mabe Village seemed familiar. It was not far from the ruins of an old ranch that bore rotted old targets all around the track as if it had been used for a mounted archery course. The town itself was only vaguely familiar; I may have traveled through there a few times if I'd ever trained at that mounted archery course. But there was a destroyed cabin set a little apart from the town proper, and I got the strangest mixture of joy and sorrow when I saw the place. Try as I might, the memories – if there really were any – just wouldn't come to me. My heart seemed to remember something, even if my mind did not. Had I lived here before my father became a royal guardsman and we moved to the castle? That seemed the most logical explanation.
I found my second-to-last memory at the sacred ground ruins; my appointment had been an awkward situation, but Zelda had done her best to rise to the occasion. I made her feel badly about herself without even trying, just by virtue of the things I'd already done in my life, and there was nothing I could do about it. She still very much resented me at that point in time, but she was already exhibiting the grace and diplomacy of a queen.
The ruins of Castle Town were crawling with Guardians, and all-in-all just horrifically sad to see. Practically all that was left were the foundations of the buildings, the half-decimated streets, and the big crumbling central fountain. It took a while to gather my courage and get into the castle, but I'd found all my memories except that one that was obviously somewhere at the castle – I'd even retrieved a few bonus memories in the process of regaining the Divine Beasts – and I was anxious to get back to Impa and find out what came next. I wasn't prepared for the onslaught of emotions I would feel within the monster-infested castle. Not only did I find the location of the last picture on the Slate, but I found both Zelda's diary and the king's journal within the castle. Both were very revealing.
The final memory was the most telling memory as far as Zelda's deepest struggle and her difficult relationship with her father. I relived the moment where she endured a humiliating chastisement from the king, and all I could do was kneel there behind her, listening and feeling her pain. It tore me up to bear witness to that, because I knew that she was acutely aware of my presence. I'm sure she would have preferred to receive that browbeating in private, with no witnesses. And of all the people to witness it, I was probably the last one she wanted to be there, even though by that point we had started to become rather friendly.
That memory sparked another memory that had nothing to do with the photos on the Slate: this was the same afternoon that Zelda had revealed her feelings to me, and with that said, knowing now that she already harbored affection for me, I hoped that my presence on the battlement that day had been at least a little comforting to her.
I had caught up with her in the stables as she had been confiding her troubles to her horse – Cavalier, I remembered – and grooming him, and I couldn't help but smile at that, because it was the same thing I did when the weight of the world felt like too much to bear. She caught me in a rare moment – I had trained myself diligently to appear neutral and impassive in the presence of the royal family, regardless of what was said or done before me. When she asked if I was enjoying the show, I was pretty embarrassed that she had seen me expressing my fondness for both her and her horse.
But to make matters more difficult for me, she actually flirted with me! I don't believe I have ever struggled so hard to remain impassive, especially when she pressed my sweating hand to her breast and asked if she could kiss me. I was filled with both the fear of being caught and the intense longing I had been feeling since I had first laid eyes on her. This couldn't be happening. Despite my better judgment, and hoping against hope that this moment would last long enough without interruption to see my dearest wish fulfilled, I looked around quickly and leaned toward her, and then she was pressing her lips to mine. Lost in joy, amazement, and painful arousal, I forgot myself for just a quick moment and touched her soft downy cheek, but quickly forced myself to return my hand to my side.
She was offended by this, and I couldn't blame her, but I just couldn't risk my position. I was finally able to be near her – almost TOO often – and I would be utterly despondent if the king found out I had betrayed his trust with his only daughter and sacked me.
Then she delivered the straw that broke the camel's back: she suggested that I sneak up to her bedchamber late that night. I knew that SHE knew I could do it. I was a good climber, and I knew the watch schedules and the locations of the guards. Din take it all, that offer was going to be my undoing if I wasn't careful. If anyone could break down my discipline, it was this beautiful and naïve temptress who didn't know the fire with which she was playing. With aching heart, I stuck to my guns, remaining silent and not engaging in the argument even when she tried to plead her case. I knew she felt spurned when she lost her temper with me and ordered me away. I looked to the floor so she couldn't see the misery in my eyes, struggling mightily to keep my neutral face on, then turned and left, following her order.
Her proposition tormented me for the rest of the day. There were so many cons, but the only pro was that I would be doing something both for myself and for the girl I loved and wanted. After seeing her so devastated by her father's harsh words, I knew she just needed someone to be loving and understanding with her, and why couldn't that someone be me? Was it so wrong? Everything I had done since the Master Sword had called to me had been done with the final objective of serving the greater good. I had trained hard and well, prepared my body and mind to the best of my ability. While a vanquished enemy and a peaceful Hyrule were the expected end reward for my toils, the reward of Zelda's loving touch was the PERSONAL reward I wanted most for myself, if even for a precious few stolen moments. I didn't know if there was a legitimate path to winning her hand, but if there was, no one would work harder than I to obtain that prize. In the meantime, I had the ability to at least be a friend and confidante to her, and a hug or a kiss here and there would be icing on the cake. In all honesty, my mind was made up before I could even argue with myself about it – it had been made up before I even left the stable that afternoon.
Still, even through my elation at having won her love, I felt a nagging guilt I could not explain, and it had nothing to do with my patriotic sense of honor and duty.
I snapped out of my reverie and focused myself once again on the task at hand: exploring the castle and finding anything useful that was still left. Zelda's room was the closest; I had climbed the tower to her study and entered through the study window to access that memory on the battlement, and her room was just a bit further beyond said battlement. I had to take out the moblin who had taken up residence in her room before I could fully explore.
Some of the windows in her bedchamber were broken. Half the round enclosure was broken away where her spiral staircase leading up to the battlement and her tower study had once been. The chimney flue was still open, and the wind made a whistling sound as it traveled down to the fireplace. I found her diary still on her writing table, closed and remarkably intact. The pages were a bit crumbly around the edges from being exposed to the air and moisture from outdoors, and I had to turn the pages with great care, unsticking some of them from each other, but what she had written there confirmed that she had eventually come to have feelings for me as I had for her.
At the beginning of her diary, she only referred to me as "him," but by the end, she was using my name. It was the incident near Kara Kara Bazaar, when she had slipped away from me and I had rescued her from nearly being killed by the Yiga Clan, that had finally made her realize what I would do to protect her, and that was what had finally made her start to fall in love with me. If only she had known how angry I was with her that day. She was always chafing at my presence, at being "babysat," she called it, and always trying to slip away and do things without an escort even though the kingdom was teeming with more and more monsters on a daily basis – to say nothing of the damned Yiga Clan. She thought she could take care of herself, but she was much too sheltered. Eventually, I might have to teach her a few things about self-defense. On that day, I was seething at both her for running away and at myself for letting her out of my sight, and I found her at the last possible moment. The Yigas took the brunt of my anger, paying with their own lives for trying to take hers, and I refused to speak to Zelda unless absolutely necessary for the rest of that day.
Reading of her newly-realized love for me brought the unexpected and heartwarming memory of the one night I had spent with her in this very bedchamber. We had confessed our love and desire for one another, and explored our physical arousal, baring ourselves to each other both physically and emotionally. I had had the previously unimaginable pleasure of giving her what I was certain was her first orgasm, and she had been curious and courageous enough to return the favor. She had fallen asleep in my arms, and I had wanted with all my heart to be able to stay and sleep with her warm, soft curves against me and my face in her sweet-smelling hair, but being discovered like that would not have ended well for either of us.
Once again, I had to shake myself out of dreamland and continue with my mission. Some of the choicest weapons were there in the castle, just as Botrick had told me, and there were still plenty of treasure chests that hadn't been looted by brave adventurers. I acquired the Hylian shield and a royal guard uniform – piece by piece in various locations – that fit me quite well. I accessed the shrine in the cavernous dock area below the castle. I discovered a stone talus beneath the castle, as well. There were so many things to explore. There was even a hot spring that I took advantage of, soaking my perpetually sore body and slow-cooking a few eggs in their shells.
In the library I found a couple of recipes, including one for fruitcake – I had never known it was Zelda's favorite, and I hoped to one day make it for her. I also discovered the king's journal; it had been well preserved in a sealed secret study off the library. I was amazed to find that the king had understood Zelda's frustration over her struggles to teach herself how to use her sealing power. He missed the queen and wished that she had lived long enough to teach Zelda how to access her power. He understood and was even proud of Zelda's zeal for science and technology, and wished he could let her follow her heart. He lamented that he had to put his duty to his kingdom and his need to be a king before a father topmost on his list. His desire to be a loving father to his daughter ate at him, but he felt he had to sacrifice the relationship he wanted to have with her in order to keep them both focused on preparing for the impending doom facing Hyrule. It was gratifying to me to know that Rhoam really had loved and cared about his daughter, but poor Zelda never knew. When I saw her again – IF I lived to see her again – I wanted her to know this. I pocketed the journal to take home for safekeeping, and teleported back to Myahm Agana shrine. I was pretty wrung out from this first trip to the castle, and it was comforting to have a place to call my own in Hateno.