Link looked around him with wide eyes. Where was he? It looked like some kind of temple ruins or something as there was stone floor and rocks everywhere, and no plant life in sight. Though if that was what it was, the ruins were absolutely huge; the view looked the same as far as his eyes could see, with the exception of a ridiculously tall wall a little bit ahead of him. The wall was so tall that Link couldn't see where it ended and the sky began. It was a little unnerving if he thought about it for too long, so he didn't.

He turned around to see if the desolation continued behind him as well, and his eyes caught a flash of red. Red, like Sidon. It was moving too. His heartbeat picked up, and he broke into a run towards it, not even letting himself consider the possibility of it being a plain red moblin instead of his friend.

To his huge relief he could soon see that it was, indeed, Sidon.

Sidon seemed to hear the approaching footsteps, too, as he instantly turned around, taking a fighting stance. Said stance dropped the moment he saw who was running towards him, and a smile and open arms replaced it.

"Link! I'm so glad you're here!" he said, and scooped the tiny Hylian up the moment he was close enough. Link hugged him back, beyond relieved to have found him this easily, and presumably unharmed too. At least one thing was going right about their current predicament.

Sidon pulled back to look at Link after a moment, most likely verifying that he was alright, then carefully set him down. Link let him, despite the urge to keep on clinging for the foreseeable future, just to make sure he didn't disappear on him again.

"Was… this supposed to happen?" Sidon asked, moving his arm in an arch to include all of their surroundings into 'this'. From the look on his face, he seemed to already know the answer; regardless, Link shook his head.

'No, this hasn't happened to me before, and I've been to that shrine a few times', he signed, and took out his slate to take another look at the new addition that got them into this mess.

The green triangle-ish icon had gone gray and lifeless, which wasn't a very good sign. It still prompted him to "contact Slateri" underneath, but that wasn't very helpful either, as he didn't have a single clue who, or even what, this Slateri was.

Link looked up at Sidon to see that he, too, was looking at his own slate.

"Is your triangle icon gray too?" Sidon asked as soon as he noticed Link staring. At Link's nod, he continued, "I rather think it's a bad sign. Should we try tapping them anyway? See what happens?"

Link wasn't feeling too optimistic about it, but gave another nod. It was worth a shot, and hopefully wouldn't make things worse, at least.

Sidon counted to three out loud, and they tapped their icons simultaneously. Nothing happened, as expected. Wherever they were, they weren't getting back the same way. It would have been too easy, wouldn't it?

Thankfully that wasn't the only way. They could just warp back to the shrine, or if Sidon's slate somehow failed to register it thanks to whatever happened, they could just go back to Sheh Rata instead. They would only lose about four or five hours but still make it to the stable before nightfall. Sheh Rata was right next to the river, so Sidon could fish himself a meal there, too.

Link got the map screen open… and stared. According to the map they were still at Mirro Shaz shrine. He moved the map around a bit in disbelief, hoping against hope to fix the error by making a show of using the map, but nothing changed about their displayed location. The map insisted that they were at Mirro Shaz, by the Pico Pond.

Wordlessly he showed the map to Sidon, who checked his own, only to find it black. Of course, they hadn't visited the local tower yet. However, the map did label the shrine as Mirro Shaz, and the Lanayru region was where it was supposed to be in comparison.

"Well then", Sidon said after a moment of worried silence, "I suppose we'll just pick a direction and start walking? With any luck we might find someone who could tell us what is going on. Or we could warp elsewhere to see if it works?"

Link shrugged and then nodded towards a random direction. He was starting to feel adventurous now that they were somewhere he hadn't seen before, so he didn't want to lose the opportunity to explore by warping to safety just yet. After all, since the new icon wasn't working there was a good chance they wouldn't be able to return here if they left, wherever "here" was. They could have warping to another shrine as a back-up plan if they got more lost or tired. Who knew, maybe they'd find a new shrine or treasure here?

Sidon stared at the chosen direction, then looked at his slate again in contemplation. Finally he put it away and gave Link a smile.

"Fine with me. I do, for once, have unlimited time for exploring so I might as well capitalize on that. Lead on, my adventurous friend."

ooooo

Link estimated that it had taken them a little less than an hour to leave the stone floored area and climb down a wall to arrive to an extremely rocky terrain. Or pebble-y was more like it; all of the ground consisted of endless amount of pebbles that were strangely even in size. Link had never seen anything like it.

"Link?" Sidon asked, making Link stop examining the ground and look at his companion instead. "I didn't want to waste breath talking while we were climbing, but now is a good opportunity to speak up. I smell a large body water in the direction we're going to. I think that's a good sign, if for no other reason than the opportunity to fish. I must admit I'm starved."

Link smiled and nodded. Water was always a good find, both as a source of hydration and food, and as a potential place for meeting other people after the same things. Of course, it also often meant enemies, but they could handle that.

Link let Sidon lead the way from there, and very soon they could actually see vast amounts of blue ahead. They eagerly picked up the pace and soon enough reached the shore.

Sidon's phrase "a large body of water" didn't do this place justice; Link had been to the sea a few times, and this place rivaled it in sheer size. He couldn't see the opposite shore, or anything else beyond endless amounts of blue. Maybe this was the sea? In that case their maps were definitely lying. It didn't smell salty, though, and there were no seagulls...

"Aah, finally water!" Sidon said with a huge smile, then turned to Link. "Do you mind if I take a dip? I could catch us dinner."

Link gave a vague "go ahead" kind of gesture and watched Sidon dive with his usual theatrics, then took out his slate to check the map. Definitely still broken: according to the map they had only taken a short walk away from the shrine and reached the Pico Pond. That couldn't be right by any means, as it took a few minutes at most to walk from the shrine to the Pond, and the two of them had just wasted nearly an hour. Link shook his head and instead walked over to the nearby rock face and got the campfire started by its base. They might not be staying here for the night, but that was no reason to camp out in the open when there were other options.

ooooo

Eventually Link had a merry fire going and had dug out a few food items from his backpack to go with the fish, but there was no sign of Sidon. It was a little strange as usually Sidon caught fish right quick unless he specifically mentioned that he'd take a good soak too, which was necessary if they had been traveling on land under the glaring sun for a few hours. He hadn't said he would do that, though; Link distinctly remembered Sidon's words being "take a dip" and "catch dinner", which would imply a short trip, which this was not. It was starting to make Link anxious, but there was little he'd be able to do unless Sidon was above water, which he wasn't as far as Link could see. He squinted towards the water, eyes tracking the waves for any sign of a big red shark, but to no avail.

Then there was a sound on his right, somewhat behind him.

"Oh, I thought the smoke would be from a campfire! Hi there!"

Link shot up and turned around, just barely refraining from unsheathing his sword too out of habit; the words and tone were friendly, so the only hostile option was a Yiga, which he could sort out after greeting the stranger, if necessary. The Yiga always liked to try and make small talk or possibly sell him something before they attacked, and they even went as far as to tip him off to their hostility, too, by saying silly phrases like "After I have your head!" or something. They were very bad at assassination attempts, honestly.

However, it only took one glance to know that the person was definitely not a Yiga.

Link stared.

Before him was a person who looked unlike anyone Link had seen before. He… or she? …They had a pointy face, ears longer than even Link's own, large and dark eyes, and they were wearing strange clothes that looked like they were made out of enormous leaves. Well, the tunic or dress at least; the pointy red hat looked like cloth… And was that a huge feather decoration or a tail that was poking out behind them? They weren't wearing any shoes either.

The creature stared back at him with equal awe.

"Are you… a Hylian?" they asked.