Link spends the rest of the day with the Tarrey Town builders, given that preparations back in Kakariko won't be complete for a few days yet. Bolson is positively delighted by the news of Link's discovery, and makes clearing the fairy grove a priority.
"Who am I to spurn such a propitious omen?" he asks. "We shall become beasts of gardening, for a day!"
By the end everyone is sweaty and filthy, and covered in scratches from the brambles that grew thick over the clearing floor. But the pond is free of the choking vegetation, with a clear approach through the wood and sunlight breaking through the canopy.
"Hard work," Karson pants, slumping down against a tree. "You sure there's a spirit here?"
Hudson passes Link a waterskin, and he uses a little of the water to clean some of the grime off his hands and face, where he'd rubbed sweat off his forehead. Then he sets some of the dried plums from his satchel on the side of the pond.
"I'm sure," he says simply. Then he calls to the empty air. "If you're listening, we've brought you an offering."
This time the wind is little more than a lazy murmur, gently rustling the trees. Autumn had descended all at once while Link slept off his near-drowning, and their leaves are a riot of red, orange and brown. The surface of the pond ripples slightly, and the great fairy hoists herself half out of the water onto her elbows. Her hair and eyes are the rich purple of wild blackberries, and the vines curling over every inch of her skin are deep green tinged with brown at the edges. She blinks at them, then yawns, stretches, and rests her face on the muddy ground. After a second there's the unmistakeable sound of snoring.
"Um - miss?" Karson asks, and she jolts back awake.
"Yes! What? Oh! New people, hiiiii~" she trills, waving. Her gaze scans over the crowd, and she frowns slightly when she spots Link. "Mostly new people," she amends. "Man, how long has it been? It feels like I slept for-ev-er."
"We couldn't say, I'm afraid," Bolson says. "My compatriots and I are building a new town just down the slope from here, and Link here discovered your grove quite by accident. Obviously, it must have been fate that guided us to this spot! I am Bolson, and this is Karson, Hudson, Swanson, and Sason. To whom do we have the pleasure of speaking?"
The fairy gives a purring sort of laugh. "Oh, aren't you just delightful. You can call me Mija, if you like. I think we're going to get along just swimmingly."
The builders don't have much in the way of luxuries, but they roast up fresh-caught fish and break out a cask of dark, malty beer to toast their new guardian. Swanson teaches everyone some traditional Hebran drinking songs, which all seem to be either about how cold and terrible living in Hebra is, or about how love is fleeting and life is suffering. Karson, in a surprising display of talent, accompanies him with a wooden flute. Link joins in the singing for the most part, but during one especially poignant song he closes his eyes to let the music wash over him, fingertips twitching in the movements for an ocarina.
In the morning he warps to the Akkala tech lab, where Jerrin answers the door.
"Link! It's good to see you again," she smiles. "You're looking better."
"I feel better, thanks," he says, stepping inside.
"Are you here for the prototype? We just finished production yesterday," Robbie calls over from the workbench.
"I'm glad to hear that, but no. There was a yiga attack on Kakariko a few days ago," Link tells them, pulling the belt from his pack. "No one was hurt, but it's put the wind up Impa, so we're going to head to the desert; try to neutralise the threat before they can make a real strike. She wants some duplicates of this made, if you have the parts. Purah's put some more information on the slate from her investigation of it."
Jerrin peruses Purah's notes, nodding along. "The ancient oven should be able to handle this," she confirms. "Though I'm not sure how many we have the materials for right now."
Robbie pulls a crate of assorted Guardian bits and pieces out from under the workbench, and dumps the contents out onto the already overflowing surface. The three of them scour through the pile for the necessary components, resulting in a paltry selection of parts arranged on a clear bit of tabletop.
"Hm. I might be able to get two belts out of this, if I'm careful," Jerrin says, poking through the much smaller pile. "I'll load up the blueprint anyway, and see how we go. We can do some more targeted scavenging after you've left, if Impa wants more."
"I'm sure even one would be useful," Link reassures her. "Any advantage we can gain is helpful, if we're going in blind."
Robbie nudges Link with his elbow while she works. "Want to go test the prototype out while we wait?"
Link grins back at him. "What kind of question is that? I thought you'd met me before."
Around the back of the lighthouse-cum-laboratory, Robbie hands Link a flat disc about the size of a saucer, with a handle on one side. Then he goes to fiddle with a rusty Guardian head, broken down the middle and half-embedded in the dirt.
"What exactly am I meant to be doing with this?" Link calls out to him.
Robbie sticks his head out, goggles down over his eyes. "Just stand where you are, and hold the shield as you usually would!"
"... shield?" This thing is tiny.
There's a pulse of light over the surface of the Guardian, and the tell-tale wave of static washes over Link, sending all the hairs on his arm to attention. It's as if time itself slows. He reacts on instinct, dropping to one knee and bringing the pathetically small disc up in the hope of reflecting the beam. A fraction of a heartbeat later, the laser beam hits. An ethereal shield shimmers into existence, stretching wide and high enough to cover Link's entire body. Crackles of red light course over it like lightning, and then fizzle out. The shield fades with it, the central disc merely a piece of metal once more. Link clenches his fist to avoid rubbing it against his suddenly-aching breastbone; breathes out through his nose to quell the shaking he can feel coming on. He inhales deeply. At least this time he hadn't completely lost himself to the sense-memory of the ash swamp.
"Robbie, what the hell!" he yells, gesticulating wildly with the disc.
Robbie sticks his head back out of the Guardian husk, goggles back on top of his head. "What? I already tested it, it's perfectly safe. Besides, I once saw you deflect a Guardian's beam with a pot lid not much bigger than that."
That's... not a memory Link has recovered, and he stops for a second to consider the insanity of that statement. Why had he been deflecting lasers with pot lids? He'll have to ask for that story... Wait. He was in the middle of a perfectly good rant.
"That's not the point! Warn me before you shoot lasers at me!"
"Fine, next time I'll warn you," Robbie says with a scoff, heading back inside.
"Good, thank you. Wait - next time? Robbie!"
They come back inside just in time to see the Ancient Oven whirr to life with a pulse of blue light - and then belch out a cloud of dark smoke with a loud bang.
"Oh dear," Jerrin says, hand to her mouth.
Robbie pushes his goggles over his eyes again and dives in to peer at the fabricator's innards, muttering to himself as he goes. "No permanent damage, but I'll need to swap the fuses out," he declares. "And we'll need to go get another pilot light. Link, if you wouldn't mind...?"
Robbie marks the location of the blue flame on the slate's map, and Link heads out into the early afternoon sun with a specially-designed lantern hanging from his belt to carry it back. This close to the cliffs it's always windy; right now it's coming from the north, bringing in a light spray from the sea crashing against the rocks so far below. He can see lizalfos prowling the sands below the high tide line, looking for crabs to skewer on their spears.
As the crow flies the flame isn't far from the tech lab, but there's only one bridge over the gorge and it's at the end of a long, winding detour. Link picks his way down the paths, eyes and ears open for trouble. So far, all he's come across is grazing deer that bound away spring-light at his approach. He plucks late season plums off the trees as he goes, their sweet juice running sticky down his chin as he bites into the soft flesh.
Across the bridge, he starts to see signs of monster activity. Splay-toed prints in the mud, branches torn from the trees at shoulder height. Moblins, then. A few minutes later, he hears them. At least two, and a chorus of higher-pitched bokoblins too. They're crowded around a campfire, tearing strips of meat from what looks to be a wild horse, roasting in large chunks on skewers around the edge. Link rolls a bomb down into their midst, and follows it up with an explosive arrow that sends several of the bokos flying.
The remaining bokos scramble to their feet, and the two moblins look around for the source of the attack. One lobs a spear at Link, which he dodges; the other picks up a bokoblin and flings it towards Link. It misses, but the furry little missile bounds to its feet apparently unharmed and rushes towards him. Link blocks its flailing strikes, slashing diagonally into its throat, and it drops to the dirt. The more fortunate bokoblins at the ruined campfire have found bows, and send a volley of crude arrows Link's way. He raises his shield to catch one with a dull tock, and winces as the other clips his bicep on its way past.
The two moblins have closed the gap now, one armed with a spear and one a club. He weaves between them, dodging a spear thrust that lands deep in the other moblin's thigh. It roars its annoyance, and Link leaves them to squabble while he goes to deal with the archers. Another rolled bomb has them diving for cover, and Link runs in its wake to stab down into one's back. The other is back on its feet, but Link's ready with a lateral slash across the throat.
The moblins have remembered he's the actual problem here and are chasing him down again, but Link sends a bomb arrow right into one's face, and it topples to the ground in a mess of blood and bone. The other looks a bit horrified at that but it's too late to run by now, Link's got a second arrow headed its way and that too finds its mark. When the smoke has cleared, Link looks down at his filthy clothes, and the chaos surrounding him like the petals of a flower stretching outward from its centre. He wipes the sword off on the edge of the moblin's kilt. He can see a flicker of blue light over the crest of the hill, and trudges up towards it.
Back at the lab again he scrubs off as best he can with a bucket of water outside, hurrying before it goes from 'lukewarm' to 'chilly'. Then he sips tea and strips apart more scrap while Robbie and Jerrin see to the fabricator. The two of them seem happy enough to work in companionable silence, and Link hums softly to himself. Perhaps after a certain number of years of marriage, you just... run out of things to say. It's very different to the frosty silence he'd initially endured with Zelda. Now he knows that his old self had finally opened up to her, he can't imagine wasting any opportunity to talk to her and to hear her voice. The next time he sees her, he's going to be more prepared.
He's trying to prise a particularly difficult stubborn component out of a Guardian Scout claw when he feels the slate on his hip buzzing. There's a message emblazoned across its screen.
[WHAT'S UP, LOSERS? GUESS WHO WORKED OUT HOW TO DO DEVICE-TO-DEVICE COMMS? YOU ARE EXTREMELY WELCOME.]
Robbie, who had presumably received the same message, barks out a laugh. "What would we do without Purah? I don't think it would even have occurred to me to check whether the slates were linked to one another in some way. Here, let me see if I can send a reply."
There's a pleasant ding and a new message appears below the first on Link's slate.
[THIS WIL B V USEFUL PURAH GD WORK ROBBIE]
After a brief pause Purah responds again.
[YOU'RE A DISGRACE TO THE NAME OF SCIENCE, OLD MAN! USE PROPER PUNCTUATION! ⋆ PURAH ⋆]
Jerrin smiles into her hand. "You know, the Director puts up a very convincing front, but once you get to know her she's actually very sweet."
Back in Kakariko, Link sits down with Dorian, Impa and Paya to discuss the mission over bowls of rice topped with grilled meat and vegetables. Granté's there too, since he's staying with Impa while he's in Kakariko.
"Purah's discovery of the message-sending facilities in the slate is certainly a welcome boon," Impa says. "It would set my heart at ease to know how you're all getting on without having to wait weeks or months for your return."
"We'll keep you updated," Paya promises.
"My main concern is how we approach without tipping the Yiga off," Link says, looking at the map spread between them on the table. "There aren't many ways into the desert; it wouldn't be hard to watch them all."
There are only two main routes into the desert, in fact, and Link traversed both in his previous life. Agaat pass, the major link between Hebra and Gerudo, snakes over the mountains to the north to spill out into the Karusa valley at the southern end. It's a treacherous route at certain times of year, but nonetheless well-used by trade caravans. And then Koukot canyon cuts through the mesas to the east; a dried-up riverbed that, if Zelda is to be believed, once fed into the sea which covered the entire Gerudo region at the time. There are other, less obvious ways in, of course - a tough hike over Mount Granaj to the south, for instance - but none you could bring an army through, which has certainly played a major part in the Gerudo desert being unconquered since time immemorial.
"Where is the Yiga hideout?" Paya asks, peering at the dense contour lines of the Gerudo highlands.
Dorian runs a finger over them, tracing a line not marked on the map. "I left the clan as a young man on goat-tracks through the North-Eastern extent of the mountains, but that was over a decade ago. To be honest, I'm not sure whether I could find the entrance again. The mountains are vast, and not rife with landmarks."
Impa frowns. "We'll have to cross that bridge when we come to it. You can always try hunt them out the old fashioned way."
"If it's not a rude question, Dorian, what made you leave?" Link asks, scooping up another blob of rice with his chopsticks.
"I was born into the Yiga," Dorian replies. "Both of my parents were clansmen. I was sent on a mission - they wished to place an inside man with the Sheikah in Kakariko. I travelled here, claiming to be the son of two Sheikah that had escaped the Calamity, who had recently died. The village should by all rights have been suspicious, but they welcomed me with open arms. Impa especially."
Impa smiles at him, and Dorian continues. "For a long time I told myself I was carrying out my mission. I squirrelled away information into a notebook I kept hidden - the key players of the village, their strengths and weaknesses. The most well-concealed and most well-defended approaches. But eventually I realised that the Sheikah had become my real family. I burned the notebook, and hoped that I could simply leave the past behind me.
"For some years I thought I had gotten away with it. I had a job as a guard, and I spent every day working to protect this place I'd come to call home. I fell in love with Risa, and we had two beautiful children. I should have known it couldn't last."
"What happened?" Granté asks. He's leaning forward slightly, engrossed in Dorian's story.
"The Yiga noticed that my updates, which had never been especially timely or thorough, had stopped entirely. They do not tolerate deserters - they sent assassins for Risa, to remind me that as much as I might wish to forget them, they had not forgotten me." He's quiet for a long time, and Link thinks he's done talking about it, but eventually he continues. "I wish they had just killed me instead. I suspect they only let me live because they thought I could be leaned on in future. It would have been hard for them to plant a new mole once my identity had been revealed to Impa, as well."
Paya puts a hand on Dorian's arm. "That's all in the past, now. We have an opportunity to level the scales."
Dorian nods, and returns his attention to the maps. "I think we would be best served to go via Koukot Canyon... We can stop over in Kara Kara to see whether there are any contacts to be made there, and a cover story of travelling merchants would be more believable from that direction. See here, where the road splits..."
In the morning, Link finds three Sheikah tacking up in the village's modest stable, rather than the two he expected.
"I'm coming with you," Granté says, a hint of defensiveness in his tone. Link shrugs one-shouldered; as far as he's concerned, one more body can only be a help. He's learned his lesson from the Castle; doing everything alone is neither advisable nor fun. Granté, clearly expecting more opposition, deflates slightly. Link wonders whether it was Impa or Dorian he had to fight to convince. Or Paya, perhaps? Out of the corner of his eye, he can see her surreptitiously watching.
In the square, Koko and Cottla are waiting to say goodbye, wrangled by Lasli and Nanna. The girls nearly bowl Link over, flinging themselves into his arms as they beg him to come back and play and cook with them again soon. He hugs them in close, and realizes that this is the first embrace he can remember in this lifetime. All too soon they pull back, running first to Paya and then to Dorian, leaving Link feeling slightly bereft.
Once they're mounted up, Link surveys his little squad. Granté sits eagerly on his black gelding, still not quite settled down from being given permission to come. Dorian has a firm seat on a sturdy-looking roan, his expression grim. Paya sits astride a sweet-looking dapple grey mare, and is exuding determination. This is, technically, Dorian's mission, but all three Sheikah look to Link. He's happy enough to take point for now; he can talk to Dorian about chain of command later. With a nod at the trio, he wheels Epona round to take the north road at a trot.
The air is still heavy with moisture from last night's rainstorm, the rich scent of loam all round as they make their way through the wooded back slopes. Wet branches drag across Link's cheeks and their horses' hooves kick up the leaf litter until they emerge into the long wet grass. It sparkles in the bright sunlight cutting through the lingering clouds. Link nudges Epona to a ground-eating gallop down the slope, the dull thud of hooves behind telling him the others are keeping pace. So long as he doesn't turn to look, it's almost like being back in the army, surrounded by the sounds and smells of horses and people.
Whatever waits for them in the desert, he's glad to have a capable group at his back to face it with.
Notes: I swear, we will actually get to the desert eventually...!