"This," Rauru said, indicating the flickering Memory of Lake Hylia several dozen feet below with a stately sweep of his arm, "was Lake Hylia two days ago." Floating in a surprisingly dignified way, the Sage of Light and his agent studied a happy, healthy looking recording of Lake Hylia, the latter munching on a meatloaf sandwich. Sheik nodded absently, trying to bribe his upset stomach with the best meatloaf either of them had ever had. It was working, although only grudgingly on the stomach's part.

It wasn't the fact that he was high in the air that was eliciting protest from Sheik's internal organs. Rather, it was the manner in which he'd come to be in that state. While Rauru couldn't teleport (and WOULD not teleport), he could think, and move, at the speed of light. True, a person could go places very quickly at the speed of light, but the question was, did they really want to? [Oi...] One of the drawbacks of moving at light-speed was the tiny detail that one's body had a tendency to pull apart and stretch into a thin line spanning several miles. Sheik had more or less caught up with himself (though he wasn't quite sure his inner ear was completely accounted for), but he was recovering from the motion sickness to end all motion sickness.

Rauru, on the other hand, was unfazed and ready to get down to business. "Sheik!" he barked sharply.

Sheik nearly dropped his sandwich, but caught it out of the air in the very skin of the nick of time. [Phew...] "Huh?"

"Pay attention!"

"I am," Sheik replied through a mouthful of food (which, of course, meant that it sounded a lot more along the lines of 'Iumf.')

"Now," Rauru said, with another pass of his hand. "What strikes you about the lake today?" The Memory fell away, and Sheik nearly choked as he found himself looking at a sizable rain puddle.

This time, Sheik really did drop the remains of his sandwich. "Wha... Where did all the water go?!" Literally thousands of gallons were missing.

Rauru nodded. "That's exactly what the zoras said. The River Zora has all but run dry."

"But, how?" Sheik stared down at Sump Hylia. "Rivers don't just dry up!"

"No, no, they don't." Rauru lowered them to the ground. "However, there is an explanation, as you will likely find." He handed Sheik a pair of mittens. They were powder blue with little pink roses and white bunnies.

Sheik held the...knit items at arm's length. "What are these for, might I ask?" [My eyes...they burn...]

Rauru shrugged. "They were the only pair I could find. I want you to go to Zoras' Domain. I have an uneasy premonition concerning Princess Ruto. You'll know her when you see her; make sure she's safe."

All of this was straining Sheik's brain cells. Out of mercy, he decided not to tax them; it wouldn't make a difference anyway. "All right..." He got ready to teleport to the nearest place he'd been to the domain. Rauru halted him.

"You may want to take some antifire with you."

Sheik sighed and nodded.

Rauru rolled his eyes, pulled a few rupees out of his endless pocket, and tossed it into Sheik's hands. "Stop making that face. There, that's enough for one candle's worth. Don't waste it."

"I know," Sheik answered, and left. [Like I'm going to just pour it out on the ground...Jeez...] Reappearing in a convenient alleyway in Kakariko, Sheik nonchalantly breezed into the potion shop...

And dashed out again very quickly, trembling like a leaf in a stiff wind. [Of all the lousy timing...!] Victor was in there. Good Goddesses, couldn't Zelda keep her adolescent hormone weirdness to herself? Taking several deep breaths, Sheik steeled himself for what was going to be yet another foray into the depths of madness... [Okay, so Victor's in there. It's just Victor. He's just a person. I'm almost a grown man; I can handle this.] The pep talk continued for some minutes... [...That's right, Sheik; just assert yourself. Mind over...other mind. It'll all be over in a couple minutes. What am I nervous about? I am mighty sheikan warrior...apprentice...type...person. Yes! I am mighty! I am the MAN! And away I go!] And away he went.

Inside the potion shop, Victor, the clerk, was having a very good day. It was quiet, there hadn't been too many customers, but there had been enough to keep things relatively interesting. And there was a good chance that his employer would give him a half-holiday tomorrow. He was leaning against the counter, daydreaming about sleeping in, catching up on his reading, not having to be at the shop until the afternoon, when he was jarred out of these happy visions by someone walking through the door. Upon recognizing who this latest customer was, our poor clerk stifled a groan of sheer agony and plastered a pained smile on his face. "Can I...help...you?"

Sheik half-opened his mouth to speak, but seemed to have misplaced the nerves that controlled his tongue. [Perfect. So much for asserting myself. This is so embarrassing...] "Ah..." [Yes! It's a start! Pull yourself together, doofus!] "Um..." Sheik was by this time blushing right out to his ear-tips. For reasons unknown, he also uttered a sound that could only have been described as a titter. [D'oh!]

Victor raised one eyebrow and sighed a despondent sort of sigh. "Do you need something?"

Sheik's efforts to suppress Zelda's...emotions must have only made the nuisance worse; he felt a little swimmy now. [Isn't there any other place that sells this cursed... What was it I was buying? Mittens? I have those... Candles? Antifire!] "I need...some antifire..." [Go, me!] Sheik managed to stammer out the required words, and than added a nervous giggle, quite by accident. His eyes were watering.

Victor watched this display with a sort of calm, resigned horror. To be perfectly honest with himself, it WAS a little bit flattering that at least one person in the world became a gibbering wreck with knees the consistency of pudding on seeing him. It just would have been a lot more flattering if said person was of a more...busty persuasion. Victor had heard a lot of things about sheikahs, and this odd little man had proved about half of them true. The sheikah looked up at him expectantly, like a dog that doesn't know whether it's going to be scritched behind the ears or smacked with the proverbial rolled up parchment paper. He just couldn't bring himself to be sharp with the little weirdo, it would be like kicking a blind kitten. Victor sighed again; he had a feeling he was going to be doing that a lot today. "Is that all?"

Sheik nodded and offered a shaky grin.

"I think there's some in the back, just a moment." With that, Victor made good his temporary escape, leaving Sheik to flop down onto the floor out of sheer mental exhaustion.

[Okay...Okay, nearly done. Just pay the man, take the candle, and leave.] Much to his consternation, Sheik was still blushing as red as his eyes, and his heart was racing. He pressed his palms against his temples and took a few deep breaths. "Get out of my head..." he muttered absently, fervently cursing the day Zelda laid eyes on the clerk, or any other one of her little crushes, for that matter. He was nearly frightened out of whatever wits he had left when Victor leaned over the counter, candle in hand, with a vaguely concerned look on his face.

"Am I interrupting something important?" he asked, not really expecting or wanting an answer.

"............Um..." said Sheik, in not quite a flash of sudden eloquence.

Victor realized that he could have the entire conversation done with on his own before Sheik could get lungs, vocal chords, tongue, and lips all lined up and in agreement on a suitable reply, and decided to keep going. "Here's the candle. Sixty rupees." As an afterthought, he tried to mask the reluctance in his voice as he offered, "Do you need help getting up...off the floor?"

Something seemed to click into place in the sheikah's addled brain. "No, no that's all right. I'm fine. It's good," he stuttered hurriedly, and jumped up.

Or gave standing up the old college try. In his rush to get up, that part of Sheik's brain that coordinated his skeletal muscle system momentarily forgot about his right ankle. He leapt up very quickly, gave a shocked sort of yelp, and sat down very quickly. And so he sat there, giggling uncontrollably and shedding a few accidental tears of utter teenage-Zelda-esque humiliation. He also caught himself 'Wishing that he could just, Oh, Farore, crawl into a hole, and just, like, totally die, for sure...'

Victor wasn't quite sure what to think about all this. Some small part of his subconscious found it amusing, in it's own tragic, deranged sort of way. "Are you sure you're all right?"

Sheik nodded, and fished sixty rupees out of...well, you should know where by now, and set it down on the floorboards beside him. "...Yeah. Fine...Just.........Just hand the candle down here, would you?" He hoped he didn't sound as near-hysterical as he thought he did.

Victor gazed bemusedly at the outstretched hand, then to the money on the floor, and set the candle very carefully onto the sheikah's palm. "Is that all?" he said, out of habit.

Sheik occupied himself with finding a deku nut and not looking in Victor's general direction. "...Yes. Yeah, that's...that's it. ...Thanks," he said, as finding a suitable nut, he threw it down to the floorboards. [Ha! There, that wasn't so bad now, was it? Oi...]

When the little spots stopped dancing in front of Victor's eyes, he looked down to where the sheikah had been. After a minute or so he sighed and walked around the counter to pick up the money.

Once Sheik had regained some semblance of normalcy, he looked about himself. The river Zora had slowed to a turgid, muddy trickle, and there was a strange bite in the air. [It feels like autumn here...] He sat watching the river (though it was really more of a creek now) for a while, recovering from the unwelcome shock of all those...emotional...whatsitscalleds. He counted his blessings in that he couldn't feel them on his own; he didn't know how hylians dealt with it. All that coming-of-age garbage was beyond him. [I suppose I'd better get going, then...] He passed a few sickly-looking octoroks, but they only watched him go by with lethargic complacency, too dried out and lazy to bother defending their feeding grounds. As if there was much to defend these days.

After about an hour's journey, Sheik clambered up onto the tree trunk that led to the entrance of the zoras' home. The waterfall wasn't even worth stopping: it wasn't even flowing in front of the doorway, and if it had been, it was too small to pose much of a deterrent. Now that Sheik held still for a bit, he noticed a cold breeze wafting out at him. [Now, that's weird.] He'd only been to the domain once before, years ago, but he was pretty certain that the caverns, if not warm, were only mildly cool. He was looking forward to seeing it again. [I wonder what Rauru is so worried about... I guess I'll have to ask someone when I get there.]

Having gotten his breath back, Sheik steeled himself for the jump to the doorway. Now that the river was so low, jumping short would have serious consequences. Crunchy, splattery consequences. He took a deep breath, kicked off the tree as hard as he could, and landed more or less on his feet inside the entrance. The air was definitely colder here... Sheik continued through the tunnel-like entrance hallway and emerged into the main cavern.

For a moment, his mind couldn't register just what the significance of everything being frozen was, but he knew why the breeze had been so chilly. Very carefully, he took out his mittens and slipped them on. "Great Golden Goddesses..." he whispered, not realizing that he had used an adorably cheesy alliteration. There were no zoras to be seen, which, Sheik decided, was better than seeing, say, zoras frozen under the ice, still wearing expressions of bewilderment and horror. Sheik heaved a sigh, and watched the steam billow into the air. [Even the waterfall is frozen...]

When the initial shock had worn off (which took the better part of an hour), Sheik stopped milling around and gawking at the ice, and began to pick his way carefully up the many ramps that would eventually lead to the zoran throne room. Now and then, he stepped in a patch of black ice, and skidded down a few feet until he could regain his footing. He was fully expecting the throne room to be empty as well, so one can imagine his surprise when he walked through the door and saw King Zora himself, in all his corpulent and slightly tuna-scented glory, just as Sheik remembered.

Well, not quite as Sheik remembered. The red ice that encased His Ineffably Damp Majesty was a new addition. [He must still be alive in there...] Sheik was a fairly pathetic student in magical lore, but he did remember antiice. It was red, just as antifire was blue, and it was also warm to the touch, but excruciatingly cold on the inside, and therefore able to keep a living creature in a sort of suspended animation. It was actually pretty nifty, but Sheik doubted that the king shared this sentiment. [Is he who I bought the antifire for? I only have one candle...] Thinking it over, Sheik decided to find Princess Ruto first; Rauru had clearly said not to waste the antifire, and besides, it wasn't as though the king was going anywhere. He'd been sedentary enough when he wasn't frozen in an icy prison...

Cautiously edging around the king, Sheik set off toward Jabu Jabu's spring, assuming that that was as good a place to start looking for the princess as any.

Outside, it was snowing. It wasn't a windblown, wet, determined snow. It was very light, just a sprinkling, but Sheik found himself annoyed with it, for some reason. It seemed smug. It was the kind of snow that said 'It's bloody freezing out here, you know that, I know that, so I'm just going to take my time here and savor it. You should have worn a sweater.' Pulling his mask closer about his face, Sheik shivered, sneezed once or twice, and set off near the bank of the spring, watching the ice floes drift along in the water and wondering where he'd be if he was a zoran royal.

As it happened, where he'd be was right where he was currently walking, so he didn't have very far to look. Princess Ruto wasn't so much right under Sheik's nose as she was right under his feet, a fact that sent our hero sprawling onto the ground. Twisting around and sitting up to see what dastardly piece of the landscape had tripped him up, he smiled sheepishly. [That didn't take long.] Apparently, if Sheik had been a zora royal, he'd be frozen in antiice while kneeling down to look into the water where Jabu Jabu, the zoras' shiftless sacred whale...ish...creature used to reside.

It had to be Princess Ruto. For one thing, the shape of her face was somewhat similar to that of King Zora's, or would have been if any of the king's facial bones were visible. She also had a deeper hue in her scales than any of the other zoras Sheik was familiar with, had shorter cephalocautals*, and much more elaborate fins. [That'll be her, than, I guess...]

Taking out his anitfire candle, Sheik carefully held it to the red ice, keeping it far enough away from the zora's scales so that they wouldn't be frostbitten or singed when the ice melted away. It took a good half hour, but finally the majority of the ice was gone. Sheik was working on the last of it when Ruto woke up enough to realize that a strange, fuzzy creature was fussing with her left pelvic fin. With a panicked screech, she lashed out with the spiny fins on her arms. Hearing this, Sheik had the presence of mind to duck down before his face was given an introduction to fish bone. "Eek!"

Ruto stood a few paces away. She had been about to run, but stopped when she remembered the shrill scream of her big, scary attacker. Her eyes drifted to the now-snuffed antifire candle, to the dribble of melting red ice on her fin, to the shivering mammal crouched in the snow, and back to the candle.

Meanwhile, Sheik was shielding his face with his hands and had his eyes squeezed shut. [Ohhhhhh, dear...] He hadn't much liked the zora's idea of a greeting. That fin was pretty hefty, and he'd felt the wind off of it. It had also whistled.

"Did you get me out of that ice?"

Sheik warily looked up. The zora stood with her arms crossed, and a stern look on her face that suggested that she'd like and answer right now, if you please. "Um...Yes?" He thought for a moment. "You don't mind, do you?" he added.

The zora's face softened. "Then you...you really did save me? You went to all that trouble?"

Sheik didn't see how holding a candle under some ice was going to a lot of trouble. Although, getting the candle had been a walk through all thirty-nine exquisite hells of the Fierce One... "Well, yeah. That's sort of what I do; lately, at least..." He stood slowly.

The zora caught sight of the insignia on Sheik's clothing. "Oh, you're a sheikah, aren't you." She smiled. "Of course, I'm not surprised. I am a princess, after all." She extended a scaly hand.

Not entirely sure what was expected of him, Sheik shook her hand politely. "Pleased to make your acquaintance, Ruto. Ma'am. Your Highness."

Rather than being offended, Ruto laughed. It wasn't exactly a ladylike giggle, either; it was more of a chortle. "I think I like you. I'd always thought that sheikahs were more...serious. I also thought they were taller, but..." She shrugged. "One can't have everything."

Sheik made a little 'hmph' sound in the back of his throat. [What a thankless job this is...] "I was told to make sure you were safe. Is there anywhere you could go that isn't..." he gestured, "stinking cold?"

She screwed up her face for a minute. "Well... Now that you mention it, it is chilly..." She thought for a little while. Sheik stood there shivering and wishing she'd think faster. "If anything has caused this, then like as not it's started from the temple. Perhaps we've angered the gods somehow. Yes, that sounds likely. ...Especially since that little incident with the bass and the bucket of mustard seed..."

Sheik decided that he didn't want to know. Some things aren't meant for mammalian comprehension. "Shall I take you to Lake Hylia, then?"

Princess Ruto stood up straight. "I should think not! I'm perfectly capable of swimming there myself, you know. I'm not a child!"

Sheik tried to be diplomatic, more for the sake of his own health than anything. "Actually, Your Highness, I don't think you'll get there with any amount of expediency without a set of ice-skates. No offence meant." He offered his hand. "I swear, this will be a lot faster."

Ruto stared at the bemittened hand for a long while as though it was diseased. With all the bunnies and roses, it might as well have been. But in the end, she took it, with a sigh. "I don't know what you expect to accomplish by holding my hand. You'd better not be getting fresh, mammal," she warned. A second later, she uttered a startled squeak, which was abruptly cut off as sheikah and zora took their leave of the domain. It was a very unorthodox way to travel...

Sheik had used the latest memory of Lake Hylia that he had had. This was, Sheik thought to himself, rather lamentable, seeing as his latest memory was a bit of a bird's eye view.

Dozens of feet above the surface of the wasted lake, a guay was innocently flying along, when a puzzled-looking sheikah and an equally befuddled zora woman somehow appeared in the air right in front of it. Cawing loudly, the bird swerved to miss them, looking back at the spectacle over its wing. Guays were intelligent birds, and this one in particular knew that the big, gangly, four-limbed things that crawled around on the ground and swam in the water most definitely didn't fly, and certainly didn't just appear out of nothingness! It was still looking over its wing when it smacked into the roof of the Lakeside Laboratory...

Meanwhile, gravity, which had also been put off by the sudden appearance of the pair, gathered its wits and started working again. As Sheik and Ruto plummeted screaming toward the lake, either of them would have sworn up and down that gravity was overcompensating.

*ker-SPLOOSH!*

Sheik bobbed up to the surface (thought 'clawed and fought and flailed wildly' would be more accurate than 'bobbing'), sputtering and choking. He threw in a few choice words spoken very loudly for good measure. Water looked a lot softer than it was when hitting it at high velocity. It was like falling onto a mattress stuffed with bricks. Headfirst. [@#$%!*^%$............@#$%!!!]

Ruto, who had had the forethought to hit the water in a dive, rose to the surface in comparative calm. "Well, that was..." she caught the look on Sheik's face and changed her choice of words slightly, "...exhilarating. You dive like this a lot, do you?"

"No."

She glanced around and whistled a bit. "Hmmm... The lake's quite low, isn't it? I suppose it's no surprise, what with home being frozen and all..." There was an awkward silence. "Oh, look! I can see the temple entrance from here! Well, thank you so much, I really must be going; goodbye!" She dove and sped away.

Sheik floated on the water for a while, waiting for the stinging sensation and the ringing in his ears to go away.