Disclaimer: I do not own the Legend of Zelda series or Breath of the Wild; it belongs to Nintendo.
Also: Inspired by the Ancient Sheikah Heirloom animatic on youtube. I did not create that, either. :P
Takes place post-defeat of Calamity Ganon.
Sheikah Heirlooms Aren't Always One Of A Kind
Impa was certainly no fool. However, unlike her sister, she'd never taken much interest in the particulars of Sheikah tech. She was content with her position as a member of the Sheikah-and later on, leader of the village-and saw no real need to learn about he ancient technologies.
Unfortunately, there were times when her lack of knowledge occasionally led to certain...misunderstandings.
For instance, when the Ancient Heirloom of her family had been stolen, and Link returned after he was sent to retrieve it...
Impa was understandably upset.
"That heirloom has been guarded by my family for generations! And you say that instead of bringing it back, you... dropped it in a hole, only for the heirloom to disappear?!"
"It was part of a shrine quest! I needed the heirloom to enter the shrine!"
"A shrine quest?! As I always understood it, the shrines are meant to respond to the Sheikah Slate! What could the heirloom possibly have to do with entering a shrine?"
"It's not just a-eeeeurgh!" Link threw up his hands and spun around to face the wall. "Fine, maybe I should have asked first, but you wouldn't even let me touch the damn thing! I knew there was a shrine pedestal above the village, and I'd tried it with other orbs before but it didn't work, so I figured-"
"Another orb? You mean there are more of them?"
Link groaned and put his face into his hands. Really, this whole "heirloom" business was really rather ridiculous. He was half-tempted to just snatch Impa off her pedestal and drag her to a shrine so he could just show her-
He froze. Now there's an idea...
Without giving himself a chance to think too much and talk himself out of it, he pulled out his Slate, opening the map and hovering over the different shrines.
Not that one... no... nope, battle shrine...that one carries too much of a risk of falling...hmm, Keo Ruug might be good, that one had quite a few Sheikah Orbs in it to match the constellations... He hovered his finger over the button, then paused, remembering something important: Keo Ruug was inside Korok Forest.
Scratch that. I'd have to pop in and ask, first; wouldn't want to just bring a stranger in there without any prior warning.
He continued flipping through shrines until he finally came across one that matched what he needed.
Shee Vaneer. Perfect. It was on top of Dueling Peaks, which was fairly close by, so it's not like he'd be taking her that far away... and there were Sheikah Orbs within both that shrine and its partner in abundance. If we're lucky, maybe she can even bring one back with her to replace the one I lost.
Link tapped on the shrine icon, then turned back to Impa and grabbed her hand. "Here, hold onto me."
The elderly woman only had time for a startled "Wha-?" before the two of them had dissolved into blue strands of light.
They were deposited atop the shrine transport point. Link landed lightly on his feet, and made sure to keep a firm but gentle hold on Impa to make sure she didn't fall. He remembered the first time he'd teleported; it wasn't horrible, but it had certainly been a bit disorienting.
(He was never planning on sharing with anyone just how many teleports it took to get him to the smooth landings he has now)
Impa stared up at him, wide-eyed. Suddenly, Link wasn't so sure this had been such a good idea.
Is she alright? Did the teleportation hurt her? I've been using the Slate for a long time, but does it affect other people differently? Will we have to walk back if she doesn't think she can handle teleporting again? Oh, great, what have I done-
His increasingly panicky internal monologue was interrupted by a soft "Wow." Impa was staring off the side of the mountain, gazing out at the countryside. She turned back to look up at him once more. "Where are we?"
He cleared his throat nervously. "This is the Shee Vaneer shrine, one of a pair of shrines set on top of the Dueling Peaks."
"The Dueling Peaks? We've gone from Kakariko Village to the Dueling Peaks in less than an instant?"
Link grinned. "I could take you a lot further than that if you wanted." Then he sobered. "But that's not why I brought you here. You're mad at me because I lost your family's heirloom, right?"
Her face pinched a bit in remembrance. "That's right."
He nodded. "That's what I thought. Well...what if I told you that Sheikah Orbs- that's what your family heirloom was, by the way- are actually a lot more common than you think?"
She blinked. "They are?"
"Yes. That's why we're here. This shrine in particular has a great number of them." He moved away from the transport point and was nearly to the elevator pad when he noticed he wasn't being followed. He turned back to Impa. "You coming? This thing will automatically start moving downwards once I step into the middle and activate the Slate, so you're going to need to be on here with me."
Shaking herself, Impa moved slowly towards the glowing blue circle. "I suppose I may as well, since you've brought me all this way." She hesitated, a bit wary of this odd contraption she'd never seen before, then firmed her resolve and stepped onto the pad. "Let's go."
Impa stared. And stared. And stared.
It's not as though she'd expected the shrine to be small, certainly not. However, she certainly hadn't expected it to be quite so big, either. The entirety of her village could probably sleep inside this shrine comfortably and still have plenty of room to spare!
Nor had she expected the apparent function of the shrine to be so...seemingly useless in regards to anything she'd ever thought a shrine was intended for. In fact, this looked to be more along the lines of...a game.
Link, apparently reading her mind, commented, "It's a puzzle shrine. The positions of the orbs resets every time you exit and reenter the shrine. This one took me a good while to figure out, because I had to find the other shrine before I could complete this one, and I didn't have the camera rune at the time, so I had to figure out the solution by memory. And, well..." he scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "It was early days, and I wasn't the best with memory stuff at that point."
She nodded "I see." And I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, but I wish I did. "Are there a lot of...puzzle shrines, you said?"
His eyes lit up. "Oh, dozens! There's wind puzzles and bomb puzzles and orb puzzles and puzzles to get into the shrine, which has always been strange to me because if these things were built ten-thousand years ago, then how did they know the conditions for activation were still the same? Not to mention those shrines which have been dependent on people instead of objects, which is always a nice surprise but still confusing-"
Impa tuned Link out as he devolved into incoherent rambling. She moved forward to the edge of one of the circles on the floor, studying the glowing orange light which surrounded the perimeter. I see. There's a hole in each circle, sized for the Orbs to fit inside. She looked over to another circle, this one a bright blue, with a blue-colored orb inside. The same color the shrine at Kakariko Village became once Link finished his task inside.
Interesting. So, orange was used to show that there was a task that had yet to be done, and blue indicated a task had been completed.
She carefully slid her way inside one of the blue circles, and reached down to touch the orb inside.
The Family Heirloom was orange. I wonder if it turned blue when Link placed it on the pedestal?
She tuned back in as Link continued babbling. "I'm not sure if they can be taken out of the shrine or not-most shrines that use them require that the ball stays in a specific pocket in order to get around the shrine, and most of the time I was in a pretty big hurry when I did these, so I've never really tried to remove one..."
Impa frowned. "Why would you remove a Sheikah Orb from its shrine in the first place? If they're meant to play a part in the completion of the shrine, then that is where they ought to stay."
Link blinked. "Oh. Well, I had thought that maybe you'd want one of them, to replace the one that got lost? I mean, It's not like I meant to destroy your family's heirloom. I just knew that there was a shrine up there and I was on my last nerve trying to figure out how to get it to open, you know? And, well..."
Impa kicked him in the shin to shut him up. "I'd already gathered as much. I do have a brain, you know, even if I don't use it in the same way as my sister."
She looked out at all the orbs in the shrine. "That Sheikah Orb wasn't doing anyone any good just sitting there on its pedestal like that. It was meant to be used. It was made to be used." She glanced at him. "It was made to be used by you." She took a deep breath and added, "and if you need to hear me say it, after I blew up at you earlier, well...I forgive you for disappearing my family heirloom."
Link stared at her in surprise. "I, uh. Thanks."
She gave him a prim nod, then turned around and began walking towards the elevator pad. "Now, this has all been very exciting, but... I'm afraid these old bones don't handle excitement as well as they used to. We should be heading back."
"Oh!" Link jogged up to her. "Actually, if you want to get back home faster, we can teleport from inside the shrine."
"Really? That is convenient. Very well, let's do that."
Link nodded. "It really is." He pulled out his Slate and slid the map over to the Ta'loh Naeg shrine.
"Oh, and Link?"
He turned to look at her.
"Take me to see another shrine soon, won't you?" Impa smiled wryly. "I admit, I found our little expedition today to be quite...fascinating."
Link grinned brightly. "Will do." He pushed a button on his Slate, and the two of them dissolved into ribbons of light once more.
Just wait until Purah hears about this!
Bonus scene:
Kakariko Village was in an uproar. Impa was missing! She'd been kidnapped! She was being held for ransom! She'd gotten tired of leading the village and had run off to see the world! She was-
She was...
She was appearing in the middle of the circle in front of the village shrine?
Author's Note:
The bunny hit me and the bunny said "write it."
This may eventually become part of a larger au I have in mind; I've always thought it might be cool to have people settle within the shrines once they've all been used by the Hero. :P
