Chapter 5: Threats

Week Five, Wednesday, 11:16am

Location: Room 503C, Intro to Mythology

It was the best luck she'd had the whole month. Tiv avoided Link if possible, and when she thought the blonde wasn't around or wasn't able to interfere, she was fast by Vaati's side. Despite keeping a close eye on the Yiga and even placing a bug on Vaati so she could listen in on their conversations, Link hadn't gained a single bit of useful information that could help her pinpoint why Tiv was targeting Vaati. It was near impossible to directly talk to her—she'd already made multiple unsuccessful attempts to do so. But today, in their Mythology class, Tiv finally dropped a huge clue.

"Today I want to discuss the themes of Light and Dark in Hylian myth." Paya wrote the two words on the whiteboard and divided them. She turned to face the class. "What are some things we've already read about or that you already know about that you think fit with either of these?"

A Rito student raised his feathery hand. "The Triforce is Light."

Paya nodded and wrote 'Triforce' in her round handwriting under that side. She continued writing as the students gave suggestions: 'Ganon' and 'Monsters' under Dark, 'Hylia,' 'the Hero,' and 'Master Sword' under Light.

The white-haired teacher paused as no more ideas came forth. "Well, that's a good list to start with!" she nodded, putting the marker down. "As you may have noticed, most of the myths focus on Ganon and his minions as the primary evil that Hyrule faces. There's also the Twilight King, Zant, and the Wind Sorcerer, Va—" She stumbled on the word, brown eyes straying to a particular purple haired man in the class.

"The Wind Sorcerer Vaati, also sometimes known as the Wind Mage," he confirmed calmly.

There was a snort from someone in the classroom, but most of the others just looked at him, some with pity, some with curiosity. Link had turned in her seat too, feeling somewhat anxious. Vaati was avoiding everyone's gaze.

Then, from right next to him: "Your parents named you after an evil sorcerer?!" Tiv blurted out the words everyone was thinking.

He didn't look at her. "Something along those lines. And if you want to know why, I don't know either. I never met them, so obviously I couldn't ask what possessed them to do so."

"A-anyways!" Paya squeaked, desperately trying to regain control of the classroom. "Light and Dark have always been major themes in every myth. So, let's think about the creation myth…"

Her lecture continued, but Link didn't pay any attention to her sister's words. Her ears were tuned in to the two students behind her. She could hear Tiv whispering intently to Vaati. "So, is that why you want to bring back magic? Because, like, he was so good at magic that some people even called him a god!"

"He abused magic," he hissed back. "I have no desire to be like an evil madman that was repeatedly sealed away and never learned his lesson. I'm not answering any more questions," Vaati almost snapped when Tiv tried to speak again. "Let's get this through this class already."


After class, Link lingered in the classroom doorway while Zelda neatly packed her bag. She blinked her blue eyes when she saw Link waiting for her.

"Hey, I was wondering if you'd like to grab lunch together?" Link asked with a friendly smile.

But the girl shook her head, not meeting her eyes. "I'm sorry, I have to study."

"We could eat in the hall where you usually study. And I can buy lunch for both of us, my treat."

Zelda knit her brows. "How do you know where I usually study…?"

Link chuckled and rubbed the back of her head, embarrassed. "Sorry, I've been sort of following you sometimes? I've just wanted to talk to you. You got me really curious about what you were trying to ask me the first day in the cafeteria." Seeing Zelda's eyes flicker uncertainly, she added, "But we don't have to talk about that, if you don't want." The goal, of course, was to find out Zelda's question, but for now it seemed that Link needed to build trust with her classmate. "Also, it's boring eating lunch with Vaati lately. All he does is glare at me when I talk."

Zelda hesitated, but finally nodded. "I don't mind," she conceded.

They grabbed lunch from the cafeteria and then headed to the lower hall that led out of the main building. It was generally unused and quiet, and Link could see why Zelda chose it as her study spot. They sat down across from each other at a table by an open window. Link promptly dug into her lunch, which was a steaming fresh meat pie, too impatient to wait for it to cool.

Zelda quietly ate her egg tart. She watched the trees outside as she ate. Link kept checking the girl's expression, but it seemed like she was determined not to give anything away. Her face was calm and blank.

She was the one to finally break the silence, however. "Are you friends with Vaati?" Zelda asked, at last moving her blue eyes away from the window to look at Link.

The blonde mulled over the question for a moment, then shrugged and sighed. "We're just roommates. I like hanging out with him, but I'm pretty sure he hates my guts. No, actually he's told me that. I'll get him to like me someday, though!" She laughed.

"Do you think he's serious about wanting to bring back magic?"

It wasn't a question Link was expecting, but she replied easily, "Yeah. That's all he ever focuses on. I think someday he might actually be able to do it."

At this, Zelda shook her head roughly, eyes wide and body tense. "That's dangerous!" she said. Link was taken aback by how loud and firm her voice was when she said those words. "Magic is dangerous. Why do you think it was sealed away? In all the myths, magic is what allowed evil to destroy Hyrule time and time again. Even the Triforce, which was meant for good, was the cause of so many calamities…" Suddenly, it was like she deflated, her shoulders sagging and eyes dropping to look at the table. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to shout," she apologized in a whisper.

"No worries," Link replied, giving her a friendly smile. "You do have a point, and I'm sure there's a reason you feel that way about it. Magic's something that could be used for good or evil. I have a question, though…" She paused to give Zelda a chance to turn her down if she wanted. When the girl said nothing, Link cautiously proposed her question.

"Do you think it's dangerous because Vaati is the one trying to bring it back?"

The way Zelda's eyes quickly flew to Link's face, and then away, suggested that she was right. Zelda gave no reply to the question. Instead, she stood, grabbing her bag and half-eaten lunch.

"I'm sorry, I have to go. Thank you for lunch, Link," she said apologetically. Then she was walking away.

Link made no move to follow. She crossed her arms and stared out at the trees while she thought carefully about the exchange she'd just had with Zelda. An inkling of an idea was beginning to form, but she knew to approach ideas cautiously. It seemed to her that the object of interest was not actually Vaati; or rather, he was just the means to the real object—that object being magic.

If her hunch was correct, the Yiga wanted Vaati to bring back magic for their own purposes. They might even go as far as to try to recruit him. Meanwhile, Zelda wished for the opposite, though Link wasn't sure why the girl distrusted Vaati. Zelda seemed to feel strongly about the myths behind magic, almost as though she believed they were fact.

While she was mulling this over, there was a sudden brisk breeze from the window that made Link's bangs sway, followed by a thunk in the wall. Link quickly turned her head to see an arrow embedded in the wall. She shot to her feet and moved back from the open window, scanning the yard for any movement, though she knew it was futile. Yiga were notoriously skilled at vanishing. No one else would randomly try to shoot her with an arrow.

Cautiously Link walked over to the arrow. The arrowhead had pierced deep into the plaster wall, so that it wasn't even visible anymore. A paper was tied to the metal shaft.

Keep your nose out of business you don't belong in, or the next arrow won't miss.

Link furrowed her brow. Apparently, someone was watching her just as closely as she'd been watching them, and they didn't like the questions she'd been asking. But why go about threatening her in such a dramatic way? If she were a regular student, that might work to scare her away from Zelda, but they should know it would only make an agent even more determined to find out just what they were trying to hide. She tugged the arrow out of the wall. Looked like she was on the right path. What was it that one of her mentors had said? "If you find yourself with more and more enemies, you know you're going the right way."

She twirled the arrow in her hand as she walked out of the hall, back to the dorm. When she got to her room, she greeted Vaati with a cheerful smile. "Look what I found stuck in a wall!" she said, sticking it in front of his face, ignoring that he was obviously typing on his computer and making him scowl.

Link hid her lingering uneasiness under a smile and continued to bug her roommate. Whatever was going on, Link didn't plan to let Vaati know anything about it.