Histori gasped and her eyes widened comically. "You want me to recount an important piece of recent history for you? The story of the no-doubt-interesting-historical-figures-to-be, the Vaatians?"
Link already regretted everything, even though they needed this information. It was the same feeling from when he had had to put up with that lecherous Hylian guy's flirting near Gerudo Town to get his sweet, sweet boots. Necessary, but mentally taxing.
"Yes, please", Sidon answered, polite as ever. Link was glad to have a spokesperson who could keep things smooth between them and the people they interacted with. Actually, Link was glad to have a spokesperson, period.
Histori squealed, and ran to a bookshelf. She grabbed a rolled up parchment, glanced inside of it, and then bounded back to her previous seat with it in her grasp. She cleared her throat and rolled open the parchment.
"The story of the Vaatians is a strange one. It started not long after the shrines in the Lost Woods and near the Pico Pond suddenly activated after roughly a thousand years of silence", she said, and looked briefly at her parchment. "I'll tell you more about the shrines later, if you want. But I digress. The Slateri family let everyone important – such as the town leaders – know that the shrines activating might mean that we would soon receive big people visitors, and we should start getting ready for them. By getting ready, they meant everyone in high enough political position should learn Hylian, the Jabber Nuts needed to be grown in higher numbers again, and we should reinstate the kinstone production – more about that later, too. The Slateris are very highly regarded, so the leaders got started with everything they suggested right away."
Link wondered what this all had to do with the Vaatians, but a glance at Sidon's attentive look had him hold his tongue. Or rather, his fingers.
"After the kinstone production began and the word of the big people coming spread to the civilians, Vaatians made their first appearance", Histori said, and Link nodded. Now they were getting to the point.
"A young Minish, who had the audacity to call himself Vaati – more about Vaati later – came to the town square and held a speech." Histori glanced at her notes before continuing. "He said that the big people would be our doom and we should not welcome them into our midst. We should keep ourselves separate from them and stop worshiping the trash they drop like they're gifts from the heavens. The big people should not be granted our magic via the kinstones, and should, in fact, be repelled away from our dwellings completely so that we would not have to worry about being crushed by their feet. We should rid ourselves from the big people's influence and became our own people who don't live in the shadows of others. That was the gist of it."
Link bit his lower lip in troubled thought. This Vaati had something of a point, which made him trickier to deal with than the Yiga Clan had been. He was not an enemy in theory – because a different political agenda wasn't a crime – but was likely to become one in practice simply because Link and Sidon were big people.
"Minish, especially youngsters, started joining his cause, and soon enough they were calling themselves Vaatians. At first it was simply a little worrisome, but harmless enough; they were more or less a club where like-minded Minish complained about the big people. But a little while ago they started vandalizing and destroying big people objects, harassing officials who are openly positive about big people, and they have tried breaking into the Hero Museum a couple of times now. The latest news has been Slateri the First telling Gentari today that his Sheikah Slate indicated something was wrong with the shrines in the Lost Woods and he had to go there to fix it. He suspected the Vaatians had sabotaged one of the shrines to prevent big people from coming. Since you're here, obviously it didn't work."
Oh. That was actually bad. If the Vaatians had their way, Link and Sidon would be stuck here for the rest of their lives. Nobody would know where to look for them, and even if they suspected this general area, they would probably just try to comb the Lost Woods, which wouldn't be very helpful.
How long would it take before they were declared dead and King Dorephan would start mourning his son?
"It didn't stop us from coming, but it does stop us from leaving", Sidon said, looking serious but not at all panicked the way Link felt. Maybe he didn't see the bigger picture yet, or he was simply quicker than Link at pushing it aside. "We shrunk down by pressing an icon on our Sheikah Slates, but we cannot become big again the same manner. That's why we're looking for Slateri the First; we're hoping he can fix this."
Maybe now Sidon would understand why they had to leave right away. ...If it weren't for that little deaf girl that Link couldn't bear to leave unassisted. Damn it.
Damn Zelda and her accurate diagnosis of his hero complex. If they managed to become big again, he would have to bake her a fruit cake, tell her she was right, and then ask her to stop being right about such inconvenient things. Maybe she could go out of her way to be right about Link growing taller or something. That would be nice.
"Yes, you told me this already", Histori said, and rolled up her parchment. "Did you have any questions about the Vaatians? I don't have much more to tell since I'm not an initiate and don't have the inside information, but I can try."
'Do they have a base of operation?' Link asked instantly, thinking of the Yiga camp at Gerudo Desert. Sidon translated his question obediently.
"Two places are suspected but not confirmed", Histori said. "They seem to always be doing something in this city at random times, so they probably have a hideout here. It's also suspected that they have a larger camp in the Lost Woods, since many of the open Vaatians are Lost Woods Minish, and they do need to have a secure place to train their magic and convene safely. No clue where in there, however."
In short, the rest of their trip would be more dangerous than the first half had been. Link tried to feel properly apprehensive, but mostly he felt excited about the prospect of a real challenge; just like his grand adventure, but with admittedly lower stakes! Not to diminish King Dorephan's potential grief, but it was still less of a disaster than losing to Calamity Ganon and dooming all of Hyrule had been.
Damn, his priorities were all over the place and fluctuating, weren't they? Zelda would have a field day with this one.
"That's worrisome, since we're headed that way", Sidon said with a frown. "At least Chief Gentari is tightening the security here, so Link won't feel the urge to stay and protect everyone, as admirable as that would be."
Link could almost hear Zelda's triumphant 'Ha!' at that. He spelled out 'r-u-d-e' at Sidon, who simply shrugged at him with a half-apologetic smile.
'Ask about Vaati', Link signed to change the subject, and Sidon complied with poorly hidden amusement.
"Ooh, which one?" Histori asked, and stood up. "The current one or the historical figure? Well, to be fair, I don't know much about the current one, but I could talk for hours about the historical Vaati!"
'Cancelling my question', Link signed hurriedly, not wanting to waste their entire day here.
Sidon chuckled. "How about a very brief summary on the historical one?" The question seemed directed at both Histori and Link, so Link admitted his defeat and nodded.
"Aww, that's a shame. But okey-dokey, then!" Histori said, and sat back down. Link suspected she had been ready to fetch reference books, but didn't need them for the short version. That was promising. "Long story short, Vaati was a fledgling mage who was accepted as a pupil by our beloved Ezlo – the strongest mage in our recorded history. Vaati was highly gifted and had enormous potential, but Ezlo – being wise and experienced – saw that he needed to learn compassion, patience, and responsibility before he should be allowed to access truly powerful magic. He didn't want his pupil becoming corrupted by getting too much power at once, after all. So, Vaati's studies were kept slow and steady, with more emphasis on character growth than cultivating his magical powers, which felt underwhelming for someone like him. Vaati became dissatisfied with the pace Ezlo was allowing for his progress, believing he could easily skip ahead in his studies because of his intelligence and talent. That, and he had a secret ambition to exact revenge on big people for personal reasons as soon as he was strong enough, which was his main motive for learning magic. Eventually, in order to get to his goal faster, he stole Ezlo's experimental magical creation: the Minish Cap, which granted its wearer one wish. Any wish. In Vaati's case, the wish was to get magical powers strong enough to achieve his goals."
Link supposed he now understood why the current Vaati had named himself after this guy: they shared a dislike for big people, and taking a name like that would be a quick way to grab peoples' attention so he could achieve his goals faster.
"Ezlo caught him in the act and tried to stop him, but was turned into a living cap in order to make him harmless, and because Vaati was a fan of irony. Vaati was now powerful, but as Ezlo had feared, he lacked the qualities that a person with such vast power should have and was instantly corrupted. Now that he had had a taste of power, he wanted even more and he wanted it fast, and since he had actively been looking for an easy and quick way to have power, he already had a second target ready. He turned big people sized and went to the Hyrule Castle to look for a source of power that was rumoured to be there: the Light Force, which was sealed away in a chest with the sacred Picori Blade. That's a whole other story we're not getting into now. So, he successfully got into the castle and gained access to the chest. He broke the blade to open the chest, but instead of finding the Light Force, he released numerous monsters that had been sealed away in it. Disappointed, he turned the Hylian Princess into stone as revenge, and left to search elsewhere, not realizing that the Light Force was within the Princess the whole time."
"A young Hylian boy, later dubbed the Hero of the Minish, was sent to ask the Minish for help in order to restore the blade and to save the Princess. Thankfully, he ran into Ezlo, and they teamed up to fix the problems. Ezlo, you see, had one trick up his hat: he could turn big people sized and back to Minish size at will, no matter his form. He could also take anyone wearing him with him. I'll let Librari tell you a juicy detail about that later! But I digress again."
Gentari's weird farewell of tapping his hat and wishing them Ezlo's wisdom made a lot more sense now, given that Ezlo had apparently been a hat at some point of his life and was implied to have been worn by the Hero. Perhaps he had been a helpful well of wisdom while sitting on that poor guy's head. The notion gave Link a weird sense of déjà-vu and, even weirder, made him think of Ritos for some reason. How curious.
"Together, Ezlo and the Hero eventually restored the blade even beyond its former glory, sought out Vaati, and defeated him. The Princess was saved, Ezlo was turned back to normal, the evil was contained with a wish from the Minish Cap and re-sealed with the sword, and Vaati was returned to Ezlo's care to learn magic the right way and to let go of his grudges towards the big people. Well, half of him was returned anyway. It's said that when the magic he gained from the Minish Cap was taken from him, he split into two beings: the Minish he had been, and a corrupted shadow of a sorcerer that was sealed into the Picori Blade. There are accounts of said sorcerer causing trouble for the big people later down the line, but the details of that are irrelevant to this tale. As for Vaati, he took a while to come around, but eventually he grew to be a powerful mage who did a lot of good for the Minish. He never learned to tolerate big people, but he never attacked them again, either. He was also one of the founders of this city, and his statue, along with Ezlo's, greets our citizens and our visitors at the gate to the Old Town."
Link thought back to the giant statues he had seen. He assumed the old and wise looking Minish had to be Ezlo, so that made the oddly Hylian looking one Vaati. Maybe his appearance had been permanently altered by the Cap when he had been split into two?
As interesting as it was, Link was acutely aware of their one day in the city dwindling. They had so much to see and do, yet they had wasted hours chatting with Histori.
"That was a fascinating story", Sidon said, completely starry-eyed. "I would love to hear more about-"
Link tapped at Sidon's bicep to get his attention. 'We don't exactly have the time for more stories unless they're related to our current goals. We want to learn about the kinstones, see the Magic Academy, talk to Librari, and see more of the city. We may not even have the time for all of that anymore.'
Sidon pouted at him, and Link was this close to abandoning their Slateri chase and simply letting Sidon get what he wanted. However, he was not Zelda's appointed knight for nothing: when he had a duty, he committed to it and didn't let himself become distracted. ...Not too often, anyway. He pointedly didn't let himself think about the Koroks. Or the treasure chests. Or the dragons. Or the Bokoblin camps. He was occasionally very responsible, damn it!
Sidon sighed in defeat, and turned to look at Histori again. "Link just reminded me that we're on a schedule. I plan on coming back here one day, so perhaps we can have a good long chat then?"
Histori looked equally bummed, but nodded and stood up. "I would love that. Okay then, where are you off to next? I could take you there, since this place is a bit of a maze. And if me escorting you just so happens to buy us more time to talk, well, that's purely coincidental!"
Link snorted, and Sidon chuckled. He really liked Histori.
"We're interested in the Magic Academy and the kinstones, we have business with Librari, and you personally recommended we visit the Hero Museum", Sidon explained. "Which one should we set as our next goal?"
"Ooh, good picks!" Histori said enthusiastically and led them to her door. "I'll take you to the Magic Academy first; Mageri will be right quick with explaining whatever you need to know, while Librari is guaranteed to keep you forever. Better save her for the last! And I can tell you about the kinstones on the way there, if you like?"
"That would be most appreciated."