"...I can't do it."
"Yes you can, it's just a ladder."
Link stared at the ladder leading down into the deep, dark crevice that made up the entrance to the Fire Temple. "No, it's too long. I'm getting dizzy again just thinking of it."
"It will be fine," Navi insisted. "Just pretend you're climbing out of the tree house."
"It's not that easy," Link snorted, but still managed to turn around and attempt the climb down the ladder. Her hands were shaking the entire time, and about halfway down, one of the rungs busted off as she put her weight onto it.
"AH!"
"It's okay, almost done! Keep it up," Navi urged, trying to ease the situation. As soon as Link hit solid ground, the wave of nausea she picked up during the descent came to a head and the poor girl vomited while propped against the rock wall.
"Ugh..."
Unsure of what to say, Navi flew toward the temple. "Let's just keep going. Maybe this temple will be a breeze, like the Forest Temple was! Come on, you can do it."
Link stared at the fairy in contempt, before straightening and forcing herself to get moving. Sometimes she wished that fairies could get sick, so they'd know what it felt like.
The entryway was fairly quiet, and with only one open door to direct Link's path. On the other side she found Darunia, who beseeched her to free his people before disappearing through the door to the dragon's lair. A captive Goron in the same room supplied her with a key to the way forward, and also told her about a magic hammer said to be hidden somewhere in the temple.
"Why didn't Darunia take the hammer with him to fight the dragon?"
Link pointed the Goron toward the exit, then turned to the fairy. "Weren't you listening, Navi? He said he didn't have time to look for the legendary weapon. Now let's go, we have to hurry and find the others."
"Oh. Well, at least Darunia looked to be in good shape! He still thinks you're a boy, though."
The room on the other side of the temple turned out to be Link's least favorite. Full of hot lava, fire keese, red bubbles, and blocks that spit fire... She already fell in the lava once thanks to a combination of these terrors, and Sheik was right when he said the tunic did not protect against it.
"Like Likes are bad, Like Likes are bad..." Link chanted to herself, having encountered her first specimen on the far side of the room while searching for Gorons. It had eaten her but she was able to get her tunic and shield back before they were fully digested. Being eaten by a Like Like was a sensation she never wanted to feel again.
After escaping the Like Like room and crossing the lava without falling in it again, and saving two more Gorons, Link was finally ready to put this awful room behind her. "Door's locked." Link looked up when Navi pointed out the obvious, so she fished the key out of her belt pouch. When she tried to open it, however, she started seeing two keyholes.
"Not again..." Link winced and sat down, hoping it was just a quick dizzy spell that would soon pass. When the feeling subsided, she unlocked the door and hurried into the next room. Closing her eyes and leaning back against the door, she mumbled to herself, "It was just the heat from that lava pit, that's all. And the jumping."
"Well then, you're gonna love this one."
Link opened her eyes at Navi's snarky comment, and groaned. A tall room with a lava geyser in the center, a fence that screamed "climb me", and a block that obviously needed to be pushed onto the geyser and ridden through into the hole in the ceiling.
"Shit."
It got worse when she climbed up another floor, and discovered a room filled with rolling boulders. Running around to escape the boulders made her nauseous, but that was compounded when the only way forward was across a narrow catwalk high above the lava room. She threw up upon seeing it, and even after taking time to steady herself, the dizziness came back and caused her to slip over the edge and plummet two floors below.
Navi panicked, thinking she'd find a corpse, but was relieved to discover Link had survived the fall. "Link, are you okay?!"
"I hate the Fire Temple," Link muttered as she pulled herself out of the remains of the block that had broken her fall. "Sooner it's over, the better."
"...You know you gotta redo all that to get back up there."
Link was suddenly curious if fairies could withstand lava burns.
With the Sage of Fire awakened and the curse on Death Mountain lifted, Link emerged from the Sacred Realm completely and utterly exhausted. Narrow walkways here, hidden walls of fire there... Thank the Goddesses it was over. She forced herself to the Great Fairy of Wisdom's spring for healing, but even the Great Fairy's magic couldn't ease the weariness caused by the month of hell that made up the Fire Temple. Once the Great Fairy finished her spell and left, Link immediately fell back and collapsed into the basin.
"Link! What are you doing?!" Navi immediately began buzzing about in a frenzy. "Get out of there, it's forbidden!"
"Unh..."
"Get your butt out of that basin or I will drag you out!"
"...I'm hungry, can you find me some food?"
Navi recoiled at the strange request. "Did I just hear you right?"
"Well, my back really hurts and I'm hot so I don't want to get up," Link mumbled. "Go ask the Gorons if they have anything to eat besides rocks."
Navi growled, her aura turning red. "Get your butt out of that basin right now."
"But if I move too quickly, I might throw up again."
"AUGH!" Defeated, Navi buzzed out of the fountain and returned a few minutes later with some red potion from the shopkeeper.
"That's not food..."
"Well it's all they had, you ungrateful whelp. Now drink it so we can get out of here."