Chapter 19 an egg on legs


In the two months since my birthday, and I've never been happier! I had started a letter correspondences with all of my new friends, had officially started taking lesions with a royal tutor, had gotten permission from my mom to start helping Mr. Tommison sort through and catalog some of the ancient tomes on magic, was working on figuring out how to fix Terrako, and in a few days I would be leaving the castle and Castle Town. Additionally, I hadn't had an existential crisis since my birthday, so I'm pretty proud of myself!

Having an ever increasing social network to ground me was probably the reason behind my lack of breakdowns, honestly. I get letters from Revali and Urbosa at least once a month, and letters from Robbie and Purah far more frequently. Impa had started to commute to the castle every other weekend to shadow Granny for her new job as my future live-in bodyguard, advisor, Sheikah liaison, and handmaiden, and having her around so often ment Impa was fast becoming my best friend. Purah and Robbie are only lagging behind because I can't see them as often.

Until now, I hadn't realized how isolated I really was without friends my own age. Now that I've started to make new friends outside of the castle and the mini culture that exists inside of it, it's almost like a whole new world has opened up. I've been learning so much from my new friends and from the lessons I've started to take too!

My days have never been busier, but it's fulfilling and fascinating in a way I've never experienced before! We were mostly focusing on diplomacy and etiquette in preparation for the upcoming trip to Death Mountain, but I definitely didn't mind; high school certainly wasn't this interesting! Without dyslexia, which was a subject which I still have complicated feelings on, learning was so much easier! I was even learning a new language, which was something I could have never imagined doing in my last life! Gerudo is a fascinating language, and my tutor and Auntie Urbosa's letters do wonders in helping me learn! I now officially knew two languages (English and Hylian) and was working on a third! I'm multilingual! Me! Multilingual! My last parents would be shocked. The thought made me smile wistfully and shake my head. The hole in my heart my last life left was slowly beginning to heal.

I have an amazing mother, a father who loves me even if he doesn't really know how to interact with me, a super cool aunt who I want to be when I grow up, an adorably bratty baby brother who's letters (when I can read them) send me into fits of laughter, a big brother and sister in Jiro and Dottie, the stern sarcastic Granny, new budding friendships with the Sheikah kids, and even more family and friends beyond that!

They couldn't replace my old family and friends. Even now, so many years later, their eyes and laughter are never quite off my mind. They don't have to replace them, though. I love my old family, and I love my new world. It was bright and beautiful and I was going to appreciate what I have, while I have it.

I, of all people, know how quickly you can lose everything. But my world is only getting bigger the more I learn and explore! I can't wait to see more of it on this upcoming trip to death mountain!

Speaking of learning new things, I was currently doing my best to decipher the mystery that is Terrako. The games didn't quite elaborate on how smart Terrako was. I didn't know if they were fully sapient or only had the intelligence of a particularly smart animal, but I was determined to find out, as they (he? She? It? As a robot Terrako doesn't exactly have anatomy and I have no way of knowing if Terrako is smart enough to understand pronouns, and would Terrako even care about such a human concept as pronouns???) represent another solid viable plan to stop the G.A.N.N.O.N (gross antagonistic nope nope oh nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo-) beast.

As weary as I was of time travel, I wasn't just going to NOT try and fix a literal deus-ex-machina that ensures a happy alternate timeline. If I'm lucky, even if all my other plans fail, (which, I'm praying to the goddess I now know for certain exists that that never happens) I end up in the timeline where the end of the world is averted by an egg on legs.

So my latest project has been meticulously taking apart and documenting where everything goes in Terrako. Hopefully, the interior is just dusty or dirty and with a quick clean I can fix this puppy up and save the possible future!

I'm going to be honest, I have no idea what I'm doing. The original Zelda might have been a scholar of ancient tech who could easily find and fix whatever was wrong with the little bot, but I was hopelessly lost. I had no idea what the function of any of this was and was currently just taking them apart layer by layer, taking notes, and putting it back together enough times that I memorized it, cleaning it and then moving on to the next layer.

I was learning how it was put together but not why.

The good thing is that I'm getting a lot faster at drawing out, mapping, and figuring out how the pieces fit together. It's just like a weird puzzle! Each time I do it I can reconstruct it exactly as it was before more easily.

I've even started to get close to being able to take apart, clean, and inspect the innermost internal mechanisms! I need to wait until I'm sure that I'll be able to put it back together the way it's supposed to go before I touch it. I do not want to screw up the questionably sapient time travel robot.

I take a step back to analyze my work while wiping the grease off of my hands with an embroidered handkerchief that I kept nearby. Normally, I would never dream of touching the elegant, highly stainable artwork with dirty, oil-stained hands, but being a princess has sort of reorganized my views on how I treat things. At least, it let me see the views of those around me on how I was expected to treat things. The "messy play clothes" that I had been given felt and looked like they would fit right in a child's business casual magazine. I was even worried about getting dirt on the lovely embroidered apron that I had requested to protect them after I had first seen the clothes to work in.

I'm starting to get the feeling that the people around me don't understand 'simple' 'cheap' or even 'a reasonable budget'. Even now as a certified rich person I couldn't help but grumble about these goddamn rich people under my breath every so often to keep myself sane. I had reasoned to myself that it was like a sliding scale: would you rather get a small— albeit lovely— handkerchief dirty or your extensively embroidered apron. Would you rather get your apron dirty or your nice clothes? Would you rather get the clothes MADE FOR PLAY dirty or the silk dresses you mostly wore.

At least that's how I reasoned it to myself.

If it weren't for the fact that I knew that the royal family was independently wealthy and that Hyrule had an unprecedentedly fair, egalitarian tax system set into place by my very business savvy great great great great grandmother, I would seriously worry about where the country's tax revenue was going. Apparently, on top of the small portion of tax revenue that went to the royal family, we also had stock in several prominent businesses, a sponsorship and loan program, we also personally owned several choice pieces of land, most of which was set up by the same razor sharp grandmother and only improved upon in subsequent generations.

The more you know.

The reason I'm working so hard on Terrako today is that I'm trying to finish up memorizing this layer before I have to leave on my trip. Now that I'm officially old enough to be considered a child not a baby my parents finally feel safe enough to take me on the diplomatic trips that had mostly fallen to my father for the first five years of my life.

I'm honestly a little nervous. I'm going to be leaving the castle and its surrounding areas for the first time in my life. I'm going to be going on a diplomatic mission without the safety of the home field and the safety of assumed ignorance for the first time.

And what a first trip it was going to be!

Once again I was left questioning the parenting tactics of hyrule as for some reason my parents had decided the perfect first trip outside of the castle and it's surrounding areas for there five year old is DEATH FREAKING MOUNTAIN. The literal ACTIVE VOLCANO that was so hot that if you went up there without protection YOU WOULD SPONTANEOUSLY BURST INTO FLAMES!

Now reportedly death mountain hasn't gone off in at least 10 years and is currently cool enough that you only really need the same protective gear you would need in oh say the gerudo desert for most of it my point still stands. (I know for a fact that death mountain is going to erupt again at some point and knowing my luck I'm going to be there when it dose.)

I mean I understand the diplomatic reasons why we're going to death mountain. We just had diplomatic envoys from both the gerudo and rito and the zora are long lived enough that we could probably put of a visit to them till well into the next year without them getting grumpy, but still! It's literally called DEATH MOUNTAIN!

I don't think I'm being the ridiculous one here!

"Zelda start putting up your work your lessons are going to be starting soon." Dottie called breaking my train of thought.

"Yes Dottie" I replied hurriedly as I quickly reached to start reassembling terrico. But in my haist my hand hit terricos side and knocked them over. Heaving them back right side up I noticed the fall had knocked loose a broken screw.

"Zelda are you okay?" Dottie called her footsteps hitting a rapid ricoshay on the stone of the spiral starecase as she presumably rushed toward me from her position on the first floor of my room. (My room has multiple floors, I still can't get over how ridiculous that is.)

"I'm okay!" I called "I just knocked my project over." I inspected the screw. It didn't look like it broke from the fall but the edges seemed to be worn down and cracked, and the large blue top seemed dull and internally cracked. maybe this is why terrico isn't working?

"You've got to be more careful." Dottie scolded finally reaching me from her initial position working on some embroidery downstairs. "You nearly gave me a heart attack!"

"Sorry" I replied, tucking the screw into my korok special edition hammer space. "Come on let's get you cleaned up before you head to lessons" Dottie tutted, smoothing down some hair that had come free from my braid.

"Ok" I agreed amiably. I could see about getting a replacement for the broken screw after class.


"So what did you want to show me little song bird?" Mother asked after I had dragged her over to the crafting station I had set up where terrico's inert body rested.

"I think I figured out why they don't work." I gushed, reaching into my pocket I pulled out the broken screw I had found earlier.

"I finally got to the inner most layer of the little machine! And when I did I found this!" I triumphantly held up the broken screw which might just be the key to fixing my little freind.

"So far this is the only thing I've seen wrong with them! That I can tell at least." I muttered under my breath ignoring the amused chuckle coming from above me. "So I thought maybe if I replace it I can get it to work again! Do you know where I can find another?" I question hopefully.

"Can I see it little bird?" Mother asked holding her hand out. "Sure!" I plopped the little screw into her hand.

She hummed and inspected the little screw slowly turning it over in her fingers.

"I think I can fix this." Really? I was about to ask what she meant when she suddenly started glowing.

For a single moment I was held aloft basking in Hylia's reflected light before the glow faded and mother handed back a perfectly intact screw with a glowing blue top.

What.

"How did you do that?" I gaped inspecting the now perfect practically fresh screw.

"Sealing magic baby! I'll teach you how to fix things too when you're older, I have to use this little trick particularly often to fix all the quills I break."

Ok this ridiculous, I'm calling hacks. Since when have sealing powers had the ability to fix broken screws and quills?

I shook my head, focus Zelda. You can think about how ridiculously broken sealing magic is later.

Patting terrico on the head I pulled up the top to get to work.

"If I put this one here…" I screwed it in and pulled down to top again glee filling my veins, "it's done!" I cheered grinning, I'm certain this is what it's been missing this entire time!

A beep sounded and it's front eye flashed on, I pulled my hands back with a gasp. Terrico works! The two front legs of the little egg wiggled and resituated themselves and I couldn't help but let out another little gasp. Oh my hylia this was really happening! I shoved the tool sitting in front of it out of its way with riotous glee and carefully grabbed the little bot, turning and presenting my work with outstretched arms.

"Mother! Look, look!" I was giggling helplessly with joy and a beaming smile was on my face as I looked up into the surprised but supportive eyes of my mother.

I had just achieved, if not the impossible, the improbable. Terrico was awake.


I'm baaaaacccccckkkk!

Sorry this took so long strangely enough I'm less productive during the summer, but this chapter is finally finished! The release of the tears of the kingdom trailer helped too. Thanks to my beta changeling myth for helping me with this!

Dragonmaster150- good to see you too! I'm trying to make Zelda as real as possible and just the idea of time travel tends to break my brain, and on top of that Zelda has the brain of a five year old and all the undeveloped emotional pathways that that entails! Even if it's not going to be panic attacks there are definitely going to be nights where she spends stairing up at the ceiling pondering the implications of time travel in the future! Terrico says hi!

TheAntiAkuma- thanks for your review!my writing has gotten better as I write and Zelda wasn't exactly happy her first few years here. I completely understand your frustration with Zelda not doing enough to stop the calamity and I completely understand! But this is actually an intentional character flaw! Zelda right now for all her memories has the mind of a child, a child who believes her parents will be able to help her solve any problems she comes across. And on top of that when she died she was only seventeen, she in both lives has had loving parents she can trust and go to. She's never really had a problem that couldn't be solved without a little help. She also sees the calamity as years in the future, she thinks she has time. She's a child who wants to mess around and play and rely on her parents. Even if she should be doing more she's procrastinating, she's scared so she's not focusing on it. From her point of view what can she do? Tell her parents that calamity is coming? She dosnt want to be seen as crazy, train with a sword or bow? What that going to do against an evil god? There's already a dude with a magic sword for that. So she procrastinate and plays and learns what she can.

Sorry that was long I'm just kinda getting my thoughts on paper

EphemeralAva- thanks for reviewing! Small ravali is my baby and I'm really excited to write link even if we won't properly get to see him for a while!

Minty220- thanks for reviewing! I hope you enjoyed this chapter!

Floating Ash- good to see you again, I'm glad you liked it! I try and leave a reply to all my comments

SpicyArbiter- thanks for the review! Hope leaving you on a cliffhanger for so long didn't scare you off!

ThatBlueStrawberry- thanks for the review!