Welp, here we are. Another break chapter. I promise it's not just a whole load of nothing, though. Just trust me. Stuff happens.
Also, we are averaging 2.5 reviews per chapter as of right now. I couldn't be more thankful. Conveniently, it's also Thanksgiving in the United States… I swear I didn't choreograph this from the beginning so that the chapter named "Acceptance" is uploaded on this particular Thursday… No, really, I didn't. Thank you all so much for everything!
RRRP:
ChangelingRin (FF): It's going somewhere. I'm not at liberty to divulge that information, though. And if you think the Shadow Temple is the Chapter of Belated Insight, may I direct you to this chapter?
Anon (FF): First off, Majora's Mask and Ghirahim are the same character, so fighting both at the same time is kind of moot. That being said, the idea of Bellum or CG showing up would be hilarious, if a bit counterintuitive. I guess the one that would make the most sense would be Vaati, but I don't know enough about his character to include him in this fic.
That being said, this review did give me the glorious idea of TOM Link fighting Ghirahim- like, normal Ghirahim from Skyward Sword. The logical extreme of that would be meeting SS Link, which then deviated into Dimensional Links getting hijacked and being thrown into the Tears of Memory universe. That would be hilarious, because of course DL needs (read: doesn't need) a mentally unstable Hero with time travel issues, gratuitous amounts of dark magic, and a potty mouth. Especially considering he's a third version of the Hero of Time. Please don't make that happen.
A Decent Person (FF): I have long since come to terms with my status as a "horrible person". It doesn't faze me all that much, now that I've accepted and embraced it. But really, no worries! I love getting flames, because often times it tells me what's wrong in the most hilarious way possible. Guys, please flame me more!
KJynx (AO3): I can neither confirm nor deny.
Chapter XVIII: Minds to Mold
All things considered, Link hadn't been alone in a long time.
He had brought Ivan to the Great Fairy atop Death Mountain to recover from his ordeal in the Sadistic Temple. She had taken the little sprite from Link with a disturbingly practiced smile, but certainly didn't hesitate from making a few forward remarks to him, making the Hero particularly uncomfortable. Regardless, she had said it would probably take a few weeks for the lesser fairy to fully recover; she cited something about a board and energy drain.
Link had decided that he was going to hang out in Kakariko until Ivan was healed, and then swing by one of the Fairy Fountains located underneath a headstone in the Kakariko graveyard. Why was it there? He had no idea.
Epona nickered softly, cavorting through the cramped back streets of Kakariko Village towards New Lon Ranch. Fallen leaves crinkled under her hooves. The Hylian didn't even bother with steering, instead trusting the horse to get him to his destination. Oddly enough, everyone seemed to track his movements with their eyes. People stopped what they were doing just to stare at their Hero. Small children yelped and pointed their grubby fingers at him, speaking in hushed yips of excitedness. The adults tended to be a little more wary; a new face was often just as dangerous as it was rare in these times, but in Link's case, their gazes were not contemptible. It made Link feel anxious; he hated all of the attention he got from people, but it was always nice to see how much his actions had influenced those around him in a positive way.
Epona promenaded into New Lon Ranch itself, and Link dismounted soon after. Everyone seemed to be out in the fields, replanting the soil with the seeds they had gotten from the dilapidated Ranch out in Hyrule Field. They soon noticed that Link had returned and, just as they had after the Water Temple, begged for an elaborate retelling of Link's experience in the Shadow Temple. He promised a summary for later that night, and in the short silence that followed, offered to assist with their labors. The farmers welcomed him, albeit a bit grudgingly.
The relative lull in life-threatening activity gave Link plenty of time to think. His mind wandered over many subjects, namely the marked absence of knights he had seen guarding Kakariko. Had that many really died at Old Lon Ranch? He had known a good number of them had perished, but he hadn't thought it was enough to constitute the entire Knights' disappearance.
Then his brain drifted to the people he had met in his escapades. He wondered where Zelda was, although he wasn't worried for her safety; Sheik was far more powerful than he gave her credit for. Thinking of one Zelda forced Link to ponder the other, and soon he was reminiscing about the day he was sent back in time, to live his childhood again.
"Peace has returned to Hyrule," Sheik- no, Zelda- said. Link couldn't figure out where they were standing, as they appeared to be floating somewhere high above the clouds. Ganon was gone, finally, and the adrenaline coursing through Link's veins slowly began to fade. It was over, at last. He could return home and live out his days in peace, preferably with Zelda and Navi at his side. "Thanks to you, Ganondorf has been sealed within the Evil Realm."
"I couldn't have done any of it without you and the Sages," Link had tried to refute.
"Maybe, but you were the one who brought the Sages together in the first place," Zelda asserted. "It is thanks to you, in the end, that peace will once again reign in this world… for a time."
Link blinked. "What?"
Zelda, evidently, ignored him. "All the tragedy that has befallen Hyrule was my doing… I was so young, and I couldn't comprehend the consequences of trying to control the Sacred Realm. I dragged you into it, too… Now it is time for me to make up for my mistakes…"
"Zelda… what are you saying?"
"You must lay the Master Sword to rest and close the Door of Time. However, by doing this, the road between times will be shut."
Deep down, Link didn't want that. Being shoved back into the body of a child would be painful to his core, and after all the things he had seen and felt and done, he was beginning to doubt he could ever have a childhood again.
The princess put a gloved hand to her mouth as she eyed Link's left hand. "Link, give me the Ocarina of Time. As a Sage, I can return you to your original time with it."
"D… do I have to?" Link said, glancing at his hand which held the Ocarina. He never remembered procuring it.
"Don't you want your childhood back? That I stole from you?"
There was silence for quite some time.
"Yes… but I-"
"Then give me the Ocarina," Zelda insisted, a tiny bit of hardness coming into her voice.
Almost against his will, Link felt himself place the blue instrument in Zelda's outstretched hand. She looked at Link's calloused palms, fingering the Ocarina as a look of remorse crossed her eyes.
"When peace returns to Hyrule… it will be time for us to say goodbye…"
The Ocarina slipped out of Link's grasp, right hand falling uselessly to his side. Zelda held the Ocarina of Time to her breast, staring at it with a look of pained resignation etched into her features.
"Zelda, I-"
"Now, go home, Link!" Zelda said, sadness spiking into her voice. "Regain your lost time! Home… where you are supposed to be… the way you are supposed to be…"
"Wait…" Link managed to get out. "If you must do this, tell me: will we… remember any of this? Will anyone?"
"Of course. There is no reason why the Sages should not remember it," Zelda claimed.
So many questions danced on Link's lips at that critical instant. None of them had a voice, and it was only his cowardice that prevented them from speaking his concerns.
He didn't want this. He had tried so hard to tell her that he didn't want to go back. Going back in time was a punishment worse than death, but at the very least, he'd have Zelda, Saria, Darunia, Ruto, Impa, and Nabooru to talk to. Right?
Right?
The fleeting notes of the Song of Time echoed across the vast expanse, as Link was whisked away to the past. He tried to convince himself that everything would be okay, despite the growing horror in the pit of his gut. That fear quickly turned into animosity, at both himself and Zelda, for failing to stop him from leaving the time he belonged in.
He hadn't even noticed his own tears until one of the carpenters came up to him and asked what he was crying about, which Link vehemently denied. He then turned back to his work in an effort to fill his mind with other thoughts, only for memories of his first Zelda to clamor for attention even more. Eventually, Link gave up on fighting off the musings and thoroughly contemplated Zelda's decision. Hours later, the Hero of Time came to the conclusion that, given his own lack of communication, he simply didn't have it in him to blame Zelda for sending him back anymore. Although he had tried to say that he didn't want to be cast away, it was done in such a poorly orchestrated manner that he couldn't bring himself to condemn the princess.
At the same time, while he had forgiven her for her choice, he couldn't go back to feeling how he had once felt for her. He believed that he had loved Zelda, at some point, but that had swiftly turned sour after he realized that she had broken her promise and, by extension, she had betrayed his trust. He now gave Zelda the benefit of the doubt, and assumed that she just didn't know the full capabilities and limits of the Ocarina of Time, but if that was the case, then it meant that she was a liar due to her certainty that she would remember. Either way, he had simply lost the capacity to love Zelda. This applied to the other Zelda as well, because while they may as well be two somewhat separate people, they were practically identical in terms of appearance, mannerisms, and thought processes, and so Link would always be reminded of the other Zelda whenever he interacted with this Zelda. He could be friends with the princess, but nothing more.
That event had left a void in his heart, to be sure, but that gaping feeling of emptiness had been long since filled by other people. Almost everyone he had met factored into this, but the most notable had been the Sages- including this time's Zelda- and Malon.
Malon was an oddity. Link knew he wasn't just friends with her- how could he be, after everything they had gone through together? He often gave her less credit than she deserved, not to be confused with not giving her much credit, and she was the first person he had trusted with his experience in the other timeline. But he wasn't sure where their relationship stood. He doubted it was on the same level as he and his first Zelda had had, but to be fair, it was certainly at least on the cusp of that. And it was far better than how their relationship had been on his first adventure. Before, it had mostly boiled down to her thanking him for bringing Ingo back to his senses. It definitely didn't come close to… wherever he stood with her now.
He decided that he'd bounce it off of Ivan when he got back. A second opinion would be welcome when Link couldn't figure it out himself.
!0*0!
"So, where are you off to next, Link?" Malon asked.
"Actually, I was hoping to stay in Kakariko for a spell. See, Ivan almost got squeezed to death by a giant floating zombie hand, and I'm waiting for him to recover. The Great Fairy said it would take about a month. I'm hoping it's shorter. After that, though, I'm going to cleanse the last Temple, the Spirit Temple, and from there, it's a straight shot to fighting Ganondorf. Then this whole thing will be over. Everything will be back to the way it was before Ganondorf took over. And everything will be just fine."
"It won't go back, though," Malon stated wistfully. "You can't undo the past, Link. People will still have suffered for seven long years. No matter what happens after you kill Ganondorf, that pain and anguish will linger."
"It's better than letting more pain and anguish build up, though."
"True. Anyway, it's nice to see that you're taking a break, even if it's against your will," the farmer said, features lightening. "Just because you're my 'knight in shining armor' doesn't mean you have to be everyone's all the time."
"Honestly, I was going to take a break even if Ivan hadn't been injured," Link revealed. "The Shadow Temple was disturbing. Not to mention mentally taxing. I think some respite will be good for me, even if Ivan isn't here.
"That doesn't mean that I'm just going to kick back and do nothing. I'm probably going to scout out the Gerudo and see if I can get the identification I need to get through to the wastelands behind their fortress. But beyond that, I don't have any plans for the next month or so. But I definitely don't plan on doing nothing."
"Of course not," Malon said wryly. "Goddesses forbid you stop working, or- dare I say it- relax."
"Well, I have those planned out too, of course," Link chuckled. "I guess I haven't quite switched off of the Hero mindset yet. I'll get to that eventually. But for now, standing here and talking to you is really nice."
She smiled. "Yeah, it is."
They stayed like that for an indeterminate amount of time, wishing it didn't have to end.
!0*0!
The ruins of Khalonir rose from beneath the horizon as Link approached Lake Hylia. It had piqued the Hero of Time's interest, so much so that he desired to explore it further than what little he had seen from a distance. Fish were beginning to return to Lake Hylia now that the poison had been cleared. Technically, Link was only there to retrieve Nierak's body from the Water Temple, as some of the Sheikah had approached him back in Kakariko saying that they could use his corpse to reverse the freezing of Zora's Domain, but surely they wouldn't mind if he explored the remnants of the Unification War while he was in the area.
The place was abandoned, broken down and torn to bits by the struggles of nearly two decades ago. The plains outside of the city walls appeared to have been salted, so nothing could ever grow there again. It was empty and eerily silent. It was like all sound had been leached out of the place.
Link proceeded further into the destroyed capital. He appeared to be in what was once the merchant's quarter, given the shape and design of many of the buildings. Of course, most everything had been looted and ripped apart. There was nothing here worth salvaging anymore, save a single bronze circlet partially hidden under some rubble. Link took it, figuring that he could make a gift out of it at some point.
The Hylian approached the center of the Catalian city, Longshotting over the tall walls for the sake of convenience. The first room he came to was full of old, rusted armor and half-broken spears, which Link couldn't possibly fit into his pouch. Granted, much of it hadn't kept well over the last seventeen years, but Rusl probably would have appreciated it.
He'd have to come back at some point.
Finally, Link found himself at the center of the Catalian city, in the main castle courtyard. It consisted of a large plain filled with plants surrounding a dais with several seats situated on it. As someone who had been raised in a forest, Link could most certainly get behind that. He poked around the chairs more, noting the various names etched into them.
One of them read 'Arn'.
Link rubbed his eyes, making sure that he was reading it right. He double-checked his medallion, ensuring that it read the exact same name. If this chair was anything to go by, Link had been the son of someone important, and someone vital to the Catalian government. But if that was true, then how was Arn a Hylian knight? He must have betrayed Catalia for Hyrule and was then targeted by Catalian knights, the Hero of Time reasoned. Yes, that must be it.
Link spent a few more hours exploring the ruins, absorbing as much knowledge as he could about Catalian culture. It appeared to be very similar to that of Hyrule, even though Hyrule and Catalia had been bitter enemies. It saddened Link, that people so similar could be brought to each other's necks.
He left the dilapidated city, moving north towards Lake Hylia. He then sunk into the lake, retrieved the Zora dark mage's cadaver from the final chamber of the Water Temple, and then played the Nocturne of Shadow to return to Kakariko faster.
!0*0!
Ten days had passed, and reports showed that Zora's Domain was beginning to thaw once again. It would be some time before it would be back to its former glory, but it was on the road to recovery. The Hero of Time had been requested by Rusl to be present when the majority of the Zora were freed from their frozen prison. Link had accepted, figuring that it wouldn't happen until after he had toppled Ganondorf from the throne.
For now, though, the Kokiri-raised Hylian had bigger issues on his mind; namely, the Gerudo. The desert dwellers had all been brainwashed, if Anjou's father was to be believed. Therefore, Link wanted to scout it out before he was reunited with Ivan.
He knew he had formally entered Gerudo territory when he left the tall grasses of Hyrule Field behind in exchange for parched, tan earth. Nearly twisting his ankle on the rocky terrain, Link progressed further out of Hyrule proper and deeper into the west. He crossed a narrow stream over a precariously placed wooden beam, approaching the bridge that the carpenters had tried to rebuild.
It wasn't a sight at all.
The whole structure looked like it had been torched to the ground. The wood was charred and frail-looking, and the gorge was now too wide for Epona to jump across. Fortunately, the Longshot was still long enough to reach the other side, but Link didn't particularly want to go to the other side at all. Why would he, when two Iron Knuckles flanked either side of the bridge? And that was hardly taking into account the party of Gerudo situated right behind them. Even from a distance, Link could see the dead look in their eyes that came with having no will of their own. He had seen it a few times before; in Nabooru after fighting her in the heart of the Spirit Temple; in Anjou's brother, practically all the time; in the mirror, especially just after Zelda had sent him back all that time ago.
He needed to get into the Gerudo complex, though; how else was he to get identification? It was either stay here and never get to the Spirit Temple or go in and never leave the Gerudo Fortress.
Then he had an idea.
He grabbed the Ocarina of Time and played the Nocturne of Shadow, teleporting straight in front of the cavernous entrance to the Shadow Temple. He walked in and rummaged through his pouch, trying to find the thing he was looking for.
He never found it.
Then he realized that he had never received it in the first place.
Link sighed, procuring the Ocarina of Time once more and playing the Serenade of Water, only to remember that that song brought him to Lake Hylia and not Zora's Domain. Sighing exasperatedly to himself, Link played the Bolero of Fire to warp to the inside of Death Mountain, took the tunnel into Goron City, and then used the rapid transit to go directly to Zora's River through the Lost Woods. He played Zelda's Lullaby on the triforce plaque and, after the waterfall split, jumped across the gap into Zora's Domain.
It was practically raining in the place, as the dark magic keeping the ice frozen had faded. Now it was all melting, filling the Domain with cacophonous drips. Link ignored it all, summoning his Stalfos Shield to protect his hair as he traversed the Domain. Eventually, he found himself at his destination: behind Zora's Fountain, where Lord Jabu-Jabu had once sat.
He blew up an innocuous-looking wall and entered it, finding himself inside of a Great Fairy's Fountain. The Hylian then realized why he hadn't picked this one up; because he had just met the Death Mountain Great Fairy and couldn't have handled another one. Plus, he didn't honestly think he would need it.
Just his luck, then, that he would.
He stepped inside of the Fountain and was blessed with Farore's Wind, a powerful teleportation magic that ran on warp points. While taxing on magic power, it was hands-down the fastest form of travel.
Link then warped back to the Shadow Temple and set up a warp point right by the entrance with Farore's Wind before using the Ocarina of Time to instantly travel to Lake Hylia. Now, if things went south, he could easily warp out and come back to try again. From there, it was a much shorter trip back to the Gerudo Wastes.
He Longshotted across the gap, thoroughly wetted by the uncharacteristic raining of the place, and was instantly cornered by the Gerudo and Iron Knuckles. Behind him was the sheer drop of the cliff, so backing up was hardly an option.
"You will reveal your identification… you have five seconds to comply before you are forcibly apprehended…" one of the Gerudo droned in slightly accented Hylian, grayed eyes boring into him There was no lilt or tone in her voice whatsoever. She looked familiar, what with the gold eyeliner and bangles and all. It was the voice of someone with no free will. She said something else, but was drowned out by the sound of the storm.
Link knew he had no such Gerudo identification, but he had proven that the desert dwellers relied on the identification tokens to determine who was a Gerudo and who wasn't. This confirmed his theory that if he were to gain access to the Haunted Wastelands, all he needed was one of those dastardly little cards.
Now the question was how to get ahold of one. He doubted he could pickpocket a Gerudo, much less one of the Iron Knuckles, but he doubted he could get ahold of one any other way. During the last timeline, Link had earned the favor of the Gerudo by freeing the carpenters, but they had returned to Kakariko, and even if they hadn't, Link didn't believe the warriors would be so kind as to not slaughter them on sight.
"Ugh… where am I…"
The Hero of Time shook himself out of his doldrums to see the lead Gerudo that had initially questioned him clutching her head. Her eyes opened again, revealing that they were a striking gold and not the gray they had once been. Awareness suddenly clicked in his brain as he recognized her. All she was missing was a clothes change and a ponytail, but she was unmistakable.
"N… Nabooru?" Link asked incredulously. What was she doing here? Wasn't she supposed to be in the Spirit Temple?
"Hang on… is that you? Lonk, or whatever your stupid name was?"
"Link," Link corrected, trying to control his indignation at being called something so insulting. "What's the last thing you remember?"
"I was waiting for you… at the entrance to the Gerudo Training Grounds, like you told me to. You said you would come with the Silver Gauntlets… where were you?"
Link didn't have an answer to that. "I…"
The temperature around him suddenly plummeted before returning to normal, and Link could somehow sense the arrival of two new people in the area. Whirling around revealed Koume and Kotake, floating over the gorge on their broomsticks, watching with muted mirth at the scene in front of them.
"Looks like she's back to normal, Kotake…" the fire witch stated.
"And what a shame, Koume… She was such an obedient little slave. What should we do?"
"Maybe we should make her work for the Great Ganondorf a little longer, eh? Ho ho ho!"
"Then we can brainwash her again! Hee hee hee!"
"Nabooru," Link whispered. "Run."
She needed no second warning. The Gerudo was already on her feet and darting deeper into the Gerudo Fortress, given that there was no bridge to run across. Ganondorf's mothers, however, were expecting such a move, and with but a flick of their fingers, whisked Nabooru's body away somewhere else.
"And for the boy… Destroy him."
The witches then followed suit, disappearing in a flicker of red and blue. Link remained on the precipice of the gap, aghast. Had he… told Nabooru to go to the Fortress seven years ago, only for the entire population to be brainwashed? For that matter, where had the witches gone? Where had they taken her? Back to the Spirit Temple? How would he even get there in the first place?
He was rudely awakened from his reverie when something sharp collided with the bridge of his nose, and his vision faded to black as he was catapulted backwards off of the cliff. He tried to warp back to the Shadow Temple with Farore's Wind, but the blow knocked the magical conduit just out of his grasp. His last thoughts before hitting the turbulent water at the bottom of the ravine were of everyone that he'd be abandoning if he died here. Nabooru. Rusl. Darunia. Saria. Impa. Ruto. Zelda.
Malon.
!0*0!
When he woke up, he felt… strange. He had grown used to having a current of dark energy flowing from his Stalos hand, but it seemed to be absent. He expected there to be more pain, what with the fact that he was dead and all. He took a long look at the place he'd probably stay for the rest of time. It was surprisingly dismal for an afterlife. The ceiling was made of stone and old-looking wood, which was quite the letdown. Honestly, Link had always privately assumed that there was no Valhalla to go to when people died, even though religious dogma demanded it. After all, what could possibly be more perfect than the natural world in which they lived?
Granted, Hyrule wasn't doing very well of late, given how Ganondorf had seized control of the kingdom, but Link's point remained.
Some unintelligible murmurs drew Link's attention from his reverie, and he sat up on the gurney on which he was laying to see that he was actually in the Lakeside Laboratory off of Lake Hylia. The old man who worked there must have found Link's waterlogged corpse floating down the river and felt enough pity to drag him out of it. It then occurred to him that he was no longer wearing a shirt, and that there were two strangely shaped singe marks just below his pectorals.
"Ah, took you long enough," the scientist cackled, pivoting and sashaying over to Link's body. "You should count yourself among the very resilient, yes, yes…"
"Uh… Honestly, I'm just surprised I'm not dead," Link answered, noting the evident lack of use of his voice.
"Oh, you did die," the probably senile old man revealed with a not very reassuring smile. "Fortunately for you, it took you so long to die that I was able to drag you all the way here and, for lack of a better term, resurrect you. It's not very hard to do, given how the mind dies a little later than the body. To save a strapping young lad like yourself was no trouble, really. All it took was a little, itty-bitty massive electric jolt. The only real side effects are a light headache, sensitivity to light, and maybe a tiny chance for some teensy-weensy serious brain damage."
The Hero of Time guessed that that made sense. It must have been when after his body died that Healing Fairies healed him, but before his mind had died. He had instantly decided to ignore everything else the scientist had to say, except the fact that the pounding migraine that he had was apparently normal. "T… thank you… How can I repay you?"
"Don't bother," the old man decreed. "I already leached all of your dark energy out of you and put it into this little concoction with the ashes of that Kumangiriza that you slaughtered a month or so ago. I'll charge you for that, but not for literally saving your life."
Link quirked an eyebrow, feeling violated by his lack of consent but still grateful that he hadn't died. He should have honestly had the foresight to stock up on Healing Fairies more, especially by now. "What does that do?"
"Now that the water isn't poison, I can dedicate myself to the much more enjoyable sciences; namely, the study of these eldritch abominations that now walk this earth," the old man explained curtly. "I have found that the Kumangiriza has special magical properties in its beak that allow them to cut through magical barriers like they don't exist! Isn't that exciting?"
It was at that moment that Link realized just how terrified he ought to be of this scientist. "Uh… sure?"
"So, if I could extract that enchantment, I could destroy any puny, insignificant mage who ever dared to cross me! This happens to be the prototype. I charge two hundred and fifty Rupees for a dose. Frankly, it's a great bargain. All you have to do is dump it on whatever weapon you want to enchant and then report back to me every once in a while and tell me how it's going!"
Link had had five hundred Rupees for quite a while now and no way to spend it, so he might as well. Using dark magic on the Master Sword was practically sacreligious- no, it was sacreligious- so putting it on the Biggoron Sword would probably be better.
"Screw it, I'll do it," Link declared, forking over a massive sum of Rupees to the scientist. The old man did a jig of glee as he took the money and forked over a rather small vial with a label that was crossed out and had 'Kumangiriza Essence' scrawled below it. The original label appeared to begin with 'a' and end in 'os'.
Thanking the crazy old man, Link swiftly departed from the Lakeside Laboratory and made for the Gerudo Valley once again. He was intelligent enough to not fling himself into axes of the Iron Knuckles once again and die for it. Instead, Link opted to camp out on the other side of the ravine and see if the Gerudo ever stopped watching over the bridge for some reason.
They never did.
It was raining when Link gave up; he turned aside and regressed back towards Hyrule proper. It had been raining an odd amount ever since the Hylian had made camp, especially considering that the Gerudo lived in a desert, where it wasn't supposed to rain all that much. It was rainier in the desert than it was in Hyrule Field, somehow.
Even in spite of the fact that he had failed to garner Gerudo identification, Link was content as he traversed the barren Hyrule Field, only stopping once to rent a room in a local inn. While Link didn't really need to, he had decided to get used to sleeping in beds again; he didn't want to be some savage beast-child anymore. He was more than that now. He had largely put his grief behind him, and was ready to face the future. He had hope that everything would be just fine. Once Ganondorf had been sealed away again, Link could do… anything, really, with anyone he chose. That choice was paradise in and of itself.
I swear, these chapters get fluffier with each installment.
Anyway, short chapter. I know. Don't worry, though, the next chapter will be a lot longer and more interesting, as we're hopefully going to get into MQ Spirit Temple, which is going to be more my forte.
NOOTTD: The fact that the Iron Knuckles are Gerudo is a reference to the fact that Gerudo models can be found inside of those iron behemoths. 'Nuff said.
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