Author's Note: Hey folks! Bit of a shorter chapter this week, after the last long one (...I say, of a chapter that's over 6k).
This chapter is also the end of the first arc, and with that I've got an announcement. Real life caught up to me, and I have two chapters left to finish in the next arc, and then edits before posting, so you should expect a good 6-8 weeks before I can update again.
Eyelids were weighty things sometimes, Link thought. Especially when you'd spent your entire night in an underground temple. His certainly were, anyway, and crusted and bleary besides when he finally forced them open. He rubbed the heel of his hand to clear the rime away, blinking sleepily at the vaguely-familiar stone wall across from him as the events of the previous night filtered back.
No, not quite 'the previous night', judging by the angle of the light slanting through the shutters and painting afternoon-golden stripes across the floor. That morning. Early that morning, after moonset but before the first grey light of dawn. He and Zelda had come stumbling up the stairs in the dark, shedding clothes and collapsing into the bed nearest to the door, too weary to bother with any sort of decorum or decency.
The warm weight of her body was gone, he noted, and a bolt of anxiety shot through him, jolting him upright to look around.
He regretted it instantly as his back and side screamed in protest where he'd struck the ground when the gatekeeper threw him aside. Dark bruises had bloomed overnight when he stretched to inspect himself, and he hissed quietly and prodded at the large violet one spanning his ribcage. Not broken, but certainly painful. He'd be taking a swig of one of his healing elixirs before he left the room, that was for sure. He sat up again, more carefully this time, and scanned the room.
Zelda was gone. The other bed was unoccupied, her discarded clothing from the night before folded neatly on the foot of the bed, her boots missing. Link racked his brain for an answer— surely she wouldn't have gone for breakfast without him?
No, he'd forgotten Dragmire. They still had treaty negotiations— the Gerudo King would have been waiting for Zelda when she woke, nevermind how exhausted he'd been when they reached the walls of Gerudo Town.
Link pushed himself to his feet, stretching languorously and wincing at the pull on his bruised side, then scanned the room again, this time for a note or an explanation of some sort. Zelda would have left one for him, she always did when she woke earlier than him. His eyes fell on a pile of cloth atop the chest-of-drawers, beside the wash basin— it hadn't been there the night before, and, sure enough, was topped with a note. As he'd expected, it bore Zelda's distinctive, untidy scrawl, the ink smudged where her hand had smeared it in her haste.
Link— meeting with Dragmire. Wrapping treaty negotiations this afternoon. Come meet us as soon as you get up; ask Aveil about directions to the stateroom.
The clothing is from Dragmire, says it's to replace what we ruined in the temple. Wash, dress, and don't dawdle.
—Zelda
While the ink had been damp when Zelda set it aside, it was long dry now— hours ago, probably. She'd be deep in negotiations by now, and wouldn't notice if he took a little longer than necessary. He set the note aside, then dipped his fingers into the pitcher beside the washbasin. It had long gone cool, or as cool as water ever got in a pitcher in the afternoon, and he sighed and dipped a washcloth into it and washed carefully, hissing as every twist pulled at his bruised side. The water darkened with every dip of the cloth, dust and sand settling to the bottom of the wash basin, and was nearly black by the time he finished cleaning his body. He grimaced at it, then flipped his head upside down over it and carefully poured the remaining water over his head, rinsing the dust from his hair.
Then he turned his attention to the clothing. Kurta and sirwal, like the set he'd purchased at the bazaar, dyed a deep forest green. Yellow and blue embroidery chased itself in curving geometric patterns across the collar and cuffs, pairing nicely with the blue sash he found tucked under the kurta. A veil accompanied the ensemble, also blue, the cloth so fine as to be nearly see-through when he held it up to the light.
Dragmire, clearly, had been paying attention to his color preferences.
Link dressed quickly, then dug his sandals out from under his bed. The Slate clattered out as well— certainly not where he'd left it the night before, shoved hastily under his pack with his sword belt and the Sword. Inky fingerprints smudged the edges of the case, and when he powered it up, it loaded to the pictographs Zelda had taken the night before of the inscription on the murals.
She must have been up long before him, then. He could picture her in the morning light, her long dark hair spilling over her shoulder and pooling on the bed as she poured over the pictures and her notes to translate it. When he fumbled under the bed again for the Slate's carrying case, Zelda's pen rolled out with it, and he smiled fondly and tucked it into her pack.
Then he returned to the Slate, tapping away from the pictogram storage and back to what Zelda referred to as the 'supply' screens to select the mostly-empty bottle of the healing elixir, then drained the bottle and returned the empty to the Slate's storage, ignoring the ache and itching as it went to work on his bruised side. The Slate went back into its storage pouch, and he shoved it back under the bed to bump up against the Sword, out of sight.
Then he stood, pulling at the hem of the kurta to straighten it, and spun once, letting the loose fabric fall into place around his body. He wrapped his veil carefully, tucking and arranging the folds to better hide his face under the sheer fabric, pulled on his sandals, and hurried to the door.
The guard, Aveil, was waiting outside on the landing. She seemed almost like she'd been dozing in the midafternoon heat, but she jumped at the creak of the door, then shot him a dirty look. Her knuckles whitening on the haft of her spear. "I thought you were still sleeping," she said, eyes narrowed.
"Where's Chief Dragmire's stateroom?" he asked, instead of responding. "I'm supposed to meet him and Princess Zelda there."
Aveil scowled, then huffed, her breath puffing out her veil. "Take the stairs down to the first landing, then follow that hall all the way to the mural of Din— the red glass one with the earth-and-flame motif. Make a left-hand turn at that intersection. His stateroom is the one with the Tantari crest on the door."
The halls were warm, warmer than their quarters had been, but not enough to be stressful, and the slap of his sandals echoed on the walls as he made his way down the stairs to the first landing. He passed a handful of guards on the way, but none stopped them, even when he reached the mural of Din and turned left into what was clearly the royal family's wing of the palace. He counted three doors, and then the fourth was marked with a symbol— like a mask, he thought, symmetrical down the middle with two circles like eyes gazing at him. He paused there a moment, studying the polished wood.
Then he rapped on the door, right between the eyes of the crest.
There was a flurry of movement— paper shuffling on wood, cloth on cloth—from the other side of the door, and then Dragmire's voice called, "You may enter."
Link pushed the door open.
Dragmire's stateroom was cool and dim, the only sources of light a pair of topaz sconces high on the wall. There was no desk, as he had anticipated— both Zelda and her father had them in their offices— only a long, low table with rugs and heaps of pillows on either side. There were three people waiting for him— Zelda, her eyes wide and startled at the intrusion, Dragmire, leaning against the table and still pointing at the map, and a second Gerudo in the white-and-red kurta of the royal guard, who Link eventually recognized as Nabooru, the guard who had stopped by to flirt with him during Zelda's first meeting with Dragmire.
"Kind of you to join us right at the end of our meeting," Zelda huffed, but there was no real heat in her tone. She patted the pillows beside her with an ink-smudged hand, and he took the invitation, settling beside her immediately.
"Did you sleep well?" Dragmire asked, pushing aside a sheaf of papers to lean forward as Link sat down.
Link couldn't help taking a moment to look him over. Dragmire's hair was loose about his shoulders, still heavy with water and darkened from fiery red to warm auburn. He'd evidently opted for his wrap skirt and nothing else, not even jewelry, and Link couldn't help the way his eyes roved across his shoulders, his chest. Even across the table, he could smell the amber and musk clinging to Dragmire's skin, his hair. He was, abruptly, quite grateful for the veil hiding his expression.
"—I slept just fine," Link said, and shook himself, redirecting his gaze up to Dragmire's luminous eyes instead.
Nabooru arched a brow, a knowing grin spreading across her face. Link blushed hotly and looked away, trying to ignore it.
"Good to hear," Dragmire said.
"He was still snoring when I left," Zelda said, nearly laughing, and Link shot her a dirty look out of the corner of his eye.
Dragmire had clearly paid attention to Zelda's color preferences as well— her new kurta was a deep burgundy, embroidered gold and violet at the hems, and her sirwal were white, true white, not cream like her last set had been. She was unveiled, her dark hair pulled up in a messy scholar's bun, and her fingers were still smudged with ink.
She looked more like herself, he thought, than she did in her court finery. More comfortable in her own skin. More beautiful.
She rolled her eyes at him in response to his scowl and turned back to Dragmire. "Link can have his veil off in here, right?"
"Oh, I don't know," Dragmire replied, slouching sideways until his bare shoulder bumped up against Nabooru's. "Nabs, will you be upset if it turns out a Hylian man has slipped past the guards and into the stateroom of the Gerudo King?"
"I might have to throw him out," Nabooru said, then winked at him.
Link snorted and pulled down his veil in response. Nabooru's grin widened, and she shot Dragmire a sidelong glance and elbowed him in the ribcage.
Dragmire elbowed her back, then leaned forward again, tapping at a spot on the map. "Now, Zelda, you were saying something about a second market at Koukot before Link decided to join us?"
"Yes, right!" Zelda said, leaning in as well. "It isn't quite what my father wanted, in terms of a trade deal, but it is more readily accessible than coming all the way to Gerudo Town, which should allow for more trade of perishable goods. He should be willing to acquiesce on that point, seeing as it works better for his excuse than opening the market at Gerudo Town to male merchants would."
"Then I'll send a message to Lady Sabura on the matter," Dragmire said. "...As I recall, she sent a requisition a week or so ago, asking a delegation of stoneworkers be sent to Koukot— if I remember correctly, she wanted to expand the ground-level halls near the Desert Gateway to accommodate more travellers and their entourages. She should be amenable to overseeing a market there as well, I'm certain the highland tribes would appreciate an opportunity for trade that doesn't demand a trip to the Ranel Bazaar or Parapa proper."
"And if Lady Sabura won't spring for it, I'm sure Konora will," Nabooru said. "She's been itching for a chance to prove herself a competent trader that doesn't require seeking Nayru's wisdom."
Dragmire snorted. "No, she'd rather be guarding the temple, wouldn't she? As I recall she doesn't enjoy the company of men."
Link squinted at the two of them, then glanced sideways at Zelda, who shrugged.
"Anyway," Dragmire said, gathering up more of the papers and beginning to return them to the folio, "I believe that covers all the additions we needed to make to the treaty?"
"It should," Zelda said. "I can't remember anything else, anyway."
"Excellent," Dragmire replied. He flipped through a few of the papers, brows furrowing slightly, then added, "Though it may be in our best interest to send your father a message with regards to the Yiga. Auru briefed me on the search for their stronghold, and as far as we can tell, they are no longer based in Gerudo territory— and we cannot breach Hyrule's borders, even to hunt the Yiga."
Zelda grimaced. "I'll notify him in my own message as well," she said. "Maybe he'll take it more seriously to hear it from his own daughter."
Dragmire sighed quietly, tucking away the last of his papers. "...Somehow I doubt he will, and I'm sorry to say it."
"If he doesn't, it's his eventual loss," Zelda said. "Odds are very good they'll strike at him next."
An awkward silence fell.
"...Right," Link said uncomfortably. "So, um...Zelda left me a note saying you wanted me here, and...I don't think it was to discuss the treaty."
"Yes," Dragmire said. "I thought it would be in our best interest to...discuss the events of last night before the pair of you leave Parapa."
"Agreed," Zelda said, lifting the weights holding down her end of the map so Dragmire could roll it up and put it away as well. "That was not like the last temple, in...a lot of ways."
Dragmire grimaced. "My apologies. I fear I may have...unnecessarily complicated your approach to the temple with my presence."
"We never would have gotten in without you," Link said, shaking his head in reply.
"You streamlined it, if anything," Zelda agreed. "I suspect the battle with the gatekeeper would have been much more difficult if you hadn't been there to corral the lightning."
"...About the gatekeeper," Dragmire said slowly. "There was...a component to its working that wasn't Malice-work exclusively, which I felt when I caught its lightning-work."
Link stiffened. The pillow shifted beneath him as Zelda sat up, and he heard her sharp intake of breath, saw the way her fingers had curled against the wood of the table. His own shoulders had gone tight.
"...Then what was it?" Zelda asked, her head tilting.
Dragmire exhaled. "It was...the same work as the circle on the floor, I believe. A school of Gerudo magecraft, one I am personally unfamiliar with— a binding of some sort. Meant to hold it. I've spoken with the Rova, and they believe it was evidence of that apocryphal descent into the Colossus by the Sage Nabooru. And...they think it may be evidence that other apocrypha of that era may have more truth to them than they seem."
"They're planning on looking further into it, and I'm supposed to help," Nabooru said, rolling her eyes. "Dusty tomes and old scrolls for me."
"I have to admit, I'm jealous," Zelda said, flashing her a smile. She paused, and her eyes widened, and she fumbled for something under the table, then pulled out her field journal and set it down with a triumphant thump. "Right! I suppose I should tell you what I deciphered from the inscription in the Chamber of the Flame."
Link's heart jumped in his chest. "You got it translated?"
"I think so," Zelda said. She flipped through the pages of the notebook, past diagrams and sketches of older temples, to the last written page in the book. She'd transcribed the inscription at the top, exactly as it had appeared in the mural, while the rest of the page— and the one across from it— were covered in dense notes. "This one was complicated— it's definitely ancient Sheikah, but the stylization of the lettering looks more like ancient Gerudo script, rather than purely ancient Sheikah or Hyllic-influenced Sheikah, like you find in some sites in Faron and Necluda— which made it a little more difficult to decipher, and this one is...vague. There are a couple of alternative translations."
"Do tell," Dragmire said, leaning forward. His golden eyes shone with interest.
"So, the simplest possible translation," Zelda said. "On high peaks where the great winds break, the wise their thirst for vision slake, in lost halls where the blue flame wakes. But this may be lacking in nuance— 'knowledge' and 'vision' are used interchangeably in texts of this age, so this may refer to a repository of knowledge or a sacred site once used for meditation, and…" She paused and looked up, her brows knitting. "...The word I've translated here as 'lost' may in fact read more accurately as 'dark', or 'shadowed'. It isn't a commonly used term in ancient Sheikah texts, they usually use a different word to signify things being lost, and I've never encountered this one outside of a dictionary before."
"...You said last night that these are typically clues as to the location of the next temple, right?" Dragmire asked.
"We did," Link said. "Sounds like this one's on a mountain."
"I've narrowed it down to two possible locations," Zelda said. "The Temple of Nayru's Flame will be located either on Mount Lanayru, potentially near the Spring of Wisdom, or it will be somewhere on the slopes of Mount Hebra."
"...Well, the one for Farore's Flame was near the Spring of Courage," Link said. "I wouldn't be surprised if Nayru's was near Wisdom."
"Potentially," Zelda said. "But ancient Sheikah is quite definitive when it comes to plurals, and the first line said peaks, specifically. Not 'peak', singular. And Mount Hebra has multiple peaks, while Lanayru is solitary— and we'll waste less time travelling north to Tabantha and then to Necluda if I'm wrong than we would travelling to Necluda first, and...we'll run less of a risk of my father sending someone to catch us out on the road if we're wrong."
"...That seems like an unreasonable measure to take," Dragmire said.
Zelda rolled her eyes. "He'll be angry we didn't get him a treaty that lets him invade your town with men, and he told me he'd have someone fetch me if I botched another diplomatic relationship."
Nabooru snorted. "Please. Botched? You led this besotted idiot into a haunted temple and brought him out alive again, I think you've strengthened them," she said, and pushed at Dragmire's shoulder.
"I'm not besotted," Dragmire muttered, and pushed her back. "But, to go back to the temple again, I spoke with the Rova about some of the things we saw in there, and...between that, and the supposed Marks of the Triune they claim the three of us bear, and— they think I should accompany you to the Temple of Nayru."
Link's jaw dropped. Zelda tensed beside him again, and Dragmire looked away from them, his cheeks reddening.
"Is that...something you're permitted to do?" Zelda asked. She leaned forward, as if she wanted to reach out, and Dragmire looked up again, brushing a heavy lock of hair out of his face.
"I've already spoken with Lady Isha— and with Nabooru, and they've agreed to watch over the people in my absence," Dragmire said.
"I am the Champion, after all," Nabooru said, almost smugly. "I'm pretty sure I can run things here while Mira goes off chasing visions."
"And since knowledge of my identity hasn't spread beyond our borders at this point, it's still safe for me to travel," Dragmire said. "And...Aunt Koume and Kotake both said that they've 'hidden me from my destiny' for long enough, and that if it's come to claim me, I'd be a fool to hide from it."
"...Unfortunately, they're right," Zelda said quietly. "When destiny comes for you, there's no choice but to face it." She paused a moment, then sighed and said, "Link and I had intended to leave as soon as this treaty business was concluded. Can you be ready to set out by this evening?"
"Certainly," Dragmire replied. "My remaining duties shouldn't take more than a few hours this afternoon. What time do you intend to leave?"
Zelda glanced sidelong at Link, one brow arched. Link hesitated a moment, then shrugged lightly.
"There was something I needed to do in town before we leave, but that shouldn't take long either," he said, and met Dragmire's gaze again. "How does sunset at the East Gate sound?"
"Like more than enough time," Dragmire said. "I'll let the pair of you attend to your affairs, then, and meet you at sunset."
He rose then, stretching neatly, and made his way around the table to help Zelda to her feet. Link sprang up as well, steadying himself on her arm— and felt a shock roll through him. Zelda stifled a gasp, and he saw Dragmire's grip tighten on her hand.
The shock faded a moment later, and Link let go of Zelda's arm— Dragmire released her hand just as hastily, his eyes wide. He stepped quickly back out of range, inclining his head, and hurried to the door, opening it to the hallway and waving them out. Zelda glanced sidelong at Link, her eyes wide with a question, and Link found himself without any answers but a shrug. He tugged her towards the door instead, and they went without a word, though he saw her brows crease as they passed Dragmire on the way out.
She waited until they left the royal wing of the palace to speak.
"What the fuck was that?" she hissed in Link's ear, grabbing his shoulder.
"I don't know," Link hissed back. He caught sight of movement at the other end of the hallway— one of the guards— and pulled his veil back up to hide his face again. "I don't think he did it on purpose."
"It wasn't electricity," Zelda said. She nodded to the guard as they went past, heading down the stairwell towards the servants' entrance on the south side of the palace. "He felt it too, and he wouldn't have if it was lightning. That was something else."
"...Then I don't know," Link said.
They reached the bottom of the staircase, and Link unlatched the door and let them out into the heat and light of Gerudo Town's streets. The sun had begun drifting westward, casting blissfully cool shadows across the street, and Link was tempted to cling to them even as he led them towards the main plaza.
"Where are we going, anyway?" Zelda asked.
"Thought I'd stop and talk to the archaeologists again before we leave," Link said. "I asked them if they knew anything about the Flame, before we were allowed into the Temple of the Triune, and they'd probably want to know about it."
Zelda's eyes lit up, and she grabbed his arm again, grinning. "Brilliant, Link," she said. "We might ask them to send a message ahead to the Tabantha chapter before we leave, too— oh, I'm trying to remember, the last head of their chapter was a Rito by the name Ilari, but I think he retired a few years back…"
They emerged into the main plaza, and the heat struck Link like an oven thrown open. He squinted in the brightness off the stone, shading his eyes with his hand. The space was nearly deserted, so soon after noon, and the only people visible were a couple of Gerudo shopkeepers lounging beneath their sunshades, clearly waiting for the traders and visitors to return. He tightened his grip on Zelda's arm a moment and led the way across the plaza, into the streets on the far side, eyes peeled for the sign of the inn, for the door beside it with the stack of books in the window.
When he rapped at the door it was the Gerudo— Shaima, he remembered— who answered. Her eyes darted from him to Zelda, then widened, a bright smile breaking out over her face.
"Oh, hi!" she said. "You're back! Is this that friend of yours, the one who wanted to see the ruins?"
"Yeah, this is Hilda," Link said. "Hilda, Shaima."
"It's a pleasure to meet you," Zelda said, offering her hand. Shaima clasped her forearm in response, and they shook. "I'm apprenticed to Aginah of the Royal Hyrulean chapter of the archaeologists' guild."
"Pleasure to meet you," Shaima replied. "It's always nice to see a Hyrulean scholar with an appreciation for Triune archaeology. Why don't you two come in, so we aren't talking in the street?"
She stepped aside, gesturing into the building, and Zelda nodded graciously and stepped over the threshold. Link followed her quickly, staying close behind her as Zelda paused inside to gawk at the book-covered walls. He'd been right, before— she was delighted with it.
"So, have you had any luck finding your ruins?" Shaima asked.
"Yes, actually," Zelda said. "We, ah, got permission from the chieftain to do an expedition into the deep desert—"
"Well that was a fast one, then," Ashei said, from the door into the other room, and Link and Zelda both jumped. "Your girlfriend was in here just the other day asking about ruins older than the Divine Beasts, and now you're saying you found them?"
"I— Link isn't my girlfriend," Zelda protested, though her cheeks had reddened.
"Your friend, then," Ashei said, bitingly, but she emerged to shake Zelda's hand anyway. "Ashei. And if you're telling the truth, you're the fastest digsite locator in the guild."
"We had help," Zelda said, looking at the floor. "And we didn't really...need to excavate, the ruins we were looking for were intact, and I only needed to confirm the presence of the flame mural and an accompanying inscription."
Ashei hummed in response.
"So why were you looking for that particular flame mural?" Shaima asked.
"My...mentor has a theory about past Calamities and the myth of the Trials of the Hero," Zelda said. "He's trying to reconstruct one of the oldest myths we have recorded via the presence of specific ritual sites from the supposed age this myth dates to. The piece of evidence he needs to confirm it is the presence of three sites dating to twelve thousand years ago— one for each of the Triune Goddesses, each ritually marked with the Divine Flame. Link and I have located the sites for Farore, and now Din, but we've yet to locate Nayru's."
"Pretty impressive, if sloppily done," Ashei said dryly. "You better have notes, girl, and your mentor better publish that theory when he's finished."
"We're planning to, trust me," Zelda said, and Link was again impressed by the ease of her lies.
"Any theories on the location of Nayru's temple?" Shaima asked.
"If my translation of the inscription at Din's is accurate, it should be somewhere in either Necluda or Hebra," Zelda said.
"That's why we're here, actually," Link said, speaking up for the first time. All eyes snapped to him immediately, and he hesitated a moment, then forged on. "Would you be willing to send a message to the Tabantha chapter of the guild for us, in case they have any information?"
Ashei scowled, but Shaima's smile brightened further.
"Absolutely," the Gerudo said. "We can send it this evening, actually, so it should arrive before you do even if you leave tomorrow morning."
Ashei sighed. "You're just asking if they know anything about a Triune temple with a flame mural, right?"
"Yes," Zelda said, nodding. "Tell them it's Hilda of the Royal Hyrulean chapter asking, and that I and my associate should be there within the week, if you please."
"Gotcha," Shaima said.
She ducked back into the other room, and Ashei sighed again, though her tone was fond rather than frustrated.
"You mind giving us the location of your site before you go? You might be done with it, but Shaima and I are gonna want to give her a look-through, see if we can't find anything relevant for our own studies," Ashei said.
"Of course," Zelda said.
"It's southwest of Gerudo Town, past the first three rock outcrops into the deep desert," Link said.
Ashei frowned. "That's the Arbiter's Grounds," she said thoughtfully. "Shaima and I went out there once, and she— she's got the sand-sense— said there might be a temple complex underground, but I thought those ruins were newer than twelve thousand years."
"The temple complex there seems to be a newer Gerudo construction on top of a much more ancient Sheikah one," Zelda said. "We found our mural below the sanctum."
"Just...let the Rova go out there first," Link said.
"Lemme guess, it's full of monsters," Ashei said. Link grimaced, and the Sheikah nodded. "Yeah, I thought so. We'll leave the Rova to it until it's safe for the likes of us."
Zelda nodded. "Thank you, again," she said, and bowed. "We'll need to go finish packing, but we appreciate your time."
"It's...no trouble," Ashei replied. "Good luck with your third temple."
Zelda waved a farewell and caught Link by the arm, leading him back out the door and into the streets. She turned back towards the palace, and Link went with her readily, quickly taking the lead through the maze of side streets.
"Well?" he asked, once they were out of earshot.
"It's a start, at least," Zelda said, tucking a lock of hair back behind her ear. "Hopefully the Tabantha chapter will have something for us— if not, we'll have a lot of ground to cover. Hebra is enormous, and unfortunately the Hyrulean chapter doesn't have much information on what ruins are present and where, thanks to the snow cover in the region— most of the sites will be buried. Same trouble with Mount Lanayru, really. The climate is just inhospitable for long expeditions to find and catalogue sites."
Link winced. "...Let's hope the Rito have something."
They'd reached the palace by that point, ducking back in from the north side's servants' entrance, and Link led the way back to their quarters from there, carefully evading the guards on the way. Zelda released his arm when they reached the door, as if suddenly self-conscious, and ducked inside. He followed her quietly, pausing a moment to watch her set her stained, filthy kurta and sirwal aside, then ducked under his bed to retrieve the Slate.
Their ruined clothing was packed away into the Slate, to keep from damaging anything else in their packs— or smelling them up, for the matter. The cloth was steeped in the pervasive odor of Malice, and Link knew from experience that it took forever to wash out of clothing.
His grooming kit he retrieved from the washstand, making sure it was all accounted for— washcloth, comb, tooth sticks, his own soap— before packing it back into the waxed canvas bag and tucking it into one of the side pockets in his main pack. He pulled out his green woolen travelling tunic and Akkalan-style trousers out and set them aside to pack back in at the top when he finished, then pulled out his cleaning kit and set to work on his mail hauberk, scrubbing the accumulated grime from between the links and inspecting it carefully for damage or ground-in filth.
Fabric rustled in the background as Zelda packed away her own clothing. She always took more time than he did on such things— maybe to give him enough time to clean his gear, he'd never asked.
He finished with the mail, then packed it and his gambeson back into his pack, tucking away his vambraces and gauntlets with the armor, then retrieved the Sword from its place beneath his bed and started to tuck it back into his bedroll, then paused, inspecting the hilt.
"...Hey, Zelda?" he said. "The gem in the hilt wasn't red before the Colossus, was it?"
"No?" Zelda said, glancing up at him from her packing. "It was yellow— and since Farore's temple, it's been green. Is it red now?"
"Yeah," Link said, tilting the sword to show her. The gem in the hilt seemed to wink at him, light from the fading sun reflecting off its facets.
It was silly to ascribe a personality to a sword, but it almost felt like it was teasing him, laughing at his ignorance.
"...Well, let's keep an eye on it," Zelda said. "We'll have to see if it changes again after Nayru's temple."
Link sighed quietly and rolled it up in his bedroll, hiding it away from the world.
Then he set his travelling clothes into the top of his pack, tucked his sandals into the pouch at the bottom, pulled his boots on, and stood. The Slate went back into its leather travelling pouch, strapped at his thigh and safely out of the way.
On the other side of the bed, Zelda straightened, rucking her pack up onto her back. She adjusted her straps one last time, then met his gaze and nodded.
The light had shifted while they worked, swinging westward and deepening to red-orange. Link met Zelda's eyes and held them, and the princess made her way around the beds to join him. She hesitated there, just close enough to touch, and he read the uncertainty in her body language.
"...You know, if you don't want Dragmire to come with us we can probably sneak out the South Gate now and he won't realize until after we're gone," he said.
Zelda shook her head. "I don't think it would be a good idea," she replied. "That feeling I mentioned I had about him— it's only grown stronger since the temple, and that shock we felt earlier...no, he needs to come with us."
"Then I suppose you're ready to go?" he asked, and his heart leapt when she nodded.
They made their way down the stairwell, out through the main halls of the palace and down the stairs out into the plaza, which had come to life while they'd been packing. Gerudo and Hylians, Sheikah and Rito, dozens and dozens of them milling about the wide thoroughfare. The scent of cooking meat and vegetables hung in the air alongside the hubbub of voices raised to speak over one another, and Link wove through it all with Zelda at his heels until they reached clear air at the East Gate.
For a moment, it seemed as if Dragmire had forgotten their appointment. The only people near the gate were the town guards, both of whom eyed Link and Zelda thoughtfully— at least, that was how it appeared at first. A shadow peeled off from the wall— an unfamiliar Gerudo vai in a dark cloak, the hood pulled up over her head, the straps of a pack visible over her shoulder for travelling. She pulled her hood down as she approached, and it took Link a moment to recognize Dragmire; with his hair pulled back in a bun, his eyes rimmed in khol and lips stained dark, his only jewelry the simple gold-and-topaz band he'd worn into the temple, he looked almost like any of the other Gerudo women milling around the plaza.
"I almost thought you weren't coming," he said by way of greeting.
"We almost didn't recognize you," Zelda replied, and Link nodded in agreement.
"That's the point," Dragmire replied. "We can make the oasis by nightfall if we go now— are you two ready?"
Link glanced sideways at Zelda, meeting her eyes. She tilted her head slightly, then nodded.
Her hand crept into his a moment later, and he squeezed her fingers gently.
"We're ready," Link said.
Dragmire nodded and turned towards the gate without another word. Link met Zelda's gaze again, and the pair of them hurried after him as he crossed the threshold, out into the darkening desert.