Going Home
The next morning, the young hero was the first to wake. He quickly changed into the red tunic he brought and equipped his sword and mask, realizing he had yet to ask for a shield. After walking around, he found a tinkerer in the back part of the general shop, "Excuse me, I know I look like a kid, but do you know if I can buy a shield here? I realized that I can't keep dodging everything. One day it's gonna cost me a leg."
He turned around on the chair he sat in and faced him, "Ah, well I could certainly find one for you, but I can't guarantee that it'll fit your size."
"That's okay, I want an adult-sized shield anyways."
The zora got up and went even further back into the room, coming back with a silver, dusty shield, "How's this? It's a standard zora shield."
Young Link strapped it to his right arm, pretending to guard and parry. When he went to test a backflip with it, the shield caught a slight bit of wind and he nearly landed on his head, "Phew! That was a close one! Haha!" It was kind of embarrassing to slip up like that, but the tinkerer was impressed.
"Why you're quite agile dare I say. Maybe I could make it a bit lighter for you. No use in landing on your bum is there? It's even more interesting that you're left-handed." He took the shield and started pounding it to make it thinner.
"Well I know it's pretty uncommon, but that's all that's interesting about it." He wasn't sure where he was going with that.
"I understand," the zora handed the shield back, "Try another flip."
Young Link scratched his head, "Now I'm nervous! Just kidding." He did another backflip, the shield not interfering this time. "This is great! How much is it?"
He thought for a second, "Hmm, how about twenty rupees?"
"I can pay forty, I'm good at saving."
"Haha! Well consider it a discount for brightening this zora's morning with your agility and skill."
He handed him the rupees, smiling, "I'm happy I could do so. Have a nice day!" The zora smiled and waved. Young Link found his group outside the hotel, "Hey guys. What's up for today?"
"Good question," Zelda responded, her eye caught his shield, "It's nice to see that you've got a shield now. How much was it?"
"Not much."
"I can't pay for it unless you tell me, young one," A smile was starting to form on her face.
He grinned, "Then it was free. The tinkerer thought I was cool for being left-handed and gave me a discount."
"With all due respect, it is interesting that your name is Link and that you're left-handed. I'm sure there's a correlation, but I can't remember what it is."
His heart beat a little faster, "Well you know what they say: if you forgot, it probably wasn't important."
Zelda laughed at the comment. Young Link and the others wished they saw the princess be more joyful, but later that day she was back to her usual attitude. Now that Mipha was on board with becoming a champion, they needed to go back to the castle and then set off to the Gerudo Desert.
"What other races are there?" He asked after hearing about the Gerudo. A bit of sun shined in through the curtains of the carriage.
"There are Gorons, Sheikah, and the Rito..and possibly the Yiga if you count them, even though they're Sheikah who follow Ganon for whatever reason," the Princess explained, her tone sounding bored.
"Oh okay, well who's going to accompany you to the desert? The Gerudo are still an all women tribe, aren't they? None of us could go." He didn't expect her to take him along nor Link since they still were on different terms at the moment.
"I'm not sure. Maybe I can finally go somewhere without my father's men breathing down my neck!" Now she was frustrated.
"Let's change the subject then. What's this device you always have? Is it useful? What's on it?"
"Here." She passed it to him, the tablet being heavier than he expected, "It's a Sheikah Slate, maybe you'll figure something out."
"Oh okay," He instinctively tapped the screen, the Sheikah symbol flashing before taking him to a map of the overworld. A dot on the map indicated where it was located, "Haha that's pretty cool! Definitely would've been nice to have something like this with some of the dungeons I've been through. Well, if it worked like that."
"You've been in dungeons? There aren't any dungeons that I know of in Hyrule," Zelda said, sounding interested, but confused.
'Crap! I need to learn not to talk to myself aloud like that!' "Oh haha, don't worry about it. It's not worth explaining." He put his focus back on the tablet. Lightly putting his finger on the screen, he swiped to the right, the screen now showing the option for runes, "Runes? What are those?"
"Well there's only the picture rune, so I'm not entirely sure. It clearly makes the slate do different things, though."
"Hm, okay." He swiped left to bring himself back to the map, and then swiped left again and found the photo album. He looked through the pictures, finding the one that had him in Link's lap the first day he got here, "Man, I sure look annoyed. It's funny how much has changed since then."
Zelda leaned over to look as well, her mood appearing to be a bit brighter, "You're right. I usually take pictures to remember the places I've been or at significant moments like that one."
"Well you're pretty good. I'm lucky I got away with half the pictures other people asked me to take," He remembered how a man asked him to take a picture of his son back in Termina. It turned out to be Tingle. Granted, the photo wasn't from the most pleasing angle, it was from the raunchiest. When he showed the father, he'd forgotten that he was feeling ornery the day he took it. He was surprised he got anything out of the ordeal, let alone a piece of heart.
The compliment caused a brief smile, "Well thank you."
"Of course. What are you expecting this slate to do?"
The princess shrugged, "That's where I'm stumped. I don't know. It's ancient technology and none of the Sheikah knows what it does either."
"Oh so this is new tech despite it being pretty old? You just discovered it?"
"Yes, exactly."
Young Link handed it back to her, "I'm sure you'll figure it out. Sorry I wasn't much use."
"At least it's the same when someone else tries."
One of the guards pointed to his waist, "Hey, I've been meaning to ask, why do you keep that mask on you? Why is it a human face of all things?"
"I keep it in case I need to use it. I don't really know why it's a face," He vaguely explained. It was none of their business of what the mask actually does.
"Can I wear it?" The other asked.
"What? No." 'Unless you wanna die I guess. I don't think that would actually happen, but the thought of someone else putting the mask on makes my head hurt.'
"Aw c'mon, why?"
He put a hand on his hip, trying not to come off too sassy, "Because it's mine and I said so. Sharing would not be caring in this case."
Link nodded, "To be honest, I get a weird feeling about that mask, so I wouldn't wear it even if I had to."
"Great answer. To make long things short, no one but me should wear this mask, ever. Period. Got it?" The whole cabin nodded.
The rest of the ride back to the castle was uneventful. When it got dark, Link sat next to the driver to protect him, but nothing happened for that to be necessary. After they arrived outside Castle Town, Young Link was the last to get his stuff from under the carriage since he was the first to pack, again. As he walked behind the group, he felt that something was off. The air was tense, the way the wind blew tickled his ears. He stopped, putting his hand on the hilt of his sword, but the next thing he knew he was swept off his feet before he could yell for help.
He already knew it was a Yiga Clan member just by the speed of which it all happened. They had swiftly taken him to the side of the castle and pinned him down, "You'll pay for your actions!" He hissed, squeezing his hands around his neck.
Young Link struggled against the ninja's efforts, his legs unable to kick him off. 'Aaarrrrgh! Get off of me!' He heard voices come from the other side of the wall, they sounded concerned, 'Yes! Please help me!' The Yiga's grip tightened, if he let go, they'd surely try to snap his neck, so the mask wasn't an option.
The clan member's fingers had begun to twitch as he used his entire weight to hold him down. He was getting agitated, "Why is this taking so long?!" He snarled, starting to shake him in an attempt to make his hands let go.
He realized that this guy was likely acting on his own, which explains why no others had appeared to make this slow death be a bit quicker. Through the sound of the grass crunching from the violent shakes, he managed to make out footsteps in the distance. Just when his face was starting to feel hot, the triforce on his hand flashed a beam of light, causing the ninja to instinctively release his grip to wipe his eyes. 'This is my chance!' In less than a second, Young Link was on top of him and forcefully plunged his sword into his chest. Quickly following that, he gasped for air and fell to his knees on top of the limp body, sputtering and coughing blood with each exhale. His mind felt numb. In his haze, he felt spurred from his time in Termina to reach forward and take the mask.
"No! Don't!"
Zelda's cry halted his motion. He wearily looked over, his eyes hardly being able to keep up with his head. Link and the other two knights had come as well. With some of his senses starting to come back, he gave up on the mask and sat back on the corpse, shakily speaking between breaths, "I...I was almost..s-trangled...to death, hah." He found his balance and slowly got to his feet, removing his sword, and cleaning it on the grass. As he hobbled back over to them, he found himself regaining control over his movement the closer he got. Soon he stopped and looked between them, "I am...never walking behind..ever again…"
They were all stunned, Link visibly less than the others, but he still had a worried look on his face. Without warning, he scooped up the young hero and they all hurriedly walked back into Castle Town in silence. When they crossed through the gate, one of the other guards told those at the gates what happened, and a small party was sent out to investigate.
Meanwhile, Link continued back to the young hero's room and laid him down on the bed. "What happened?" He used his gloved hand to wipe the flecks of blood off Young Link's mouth.
He was too out of it or else he'd have smacked the knight's arm away and did it himself, "What…did you see?" He needed to know in case an explanation was in order. It was just the two of them now, so talking about the triforce wouldn't be a big deal.
"I was the first to come around the corner when I saw your hand flash and then watched you stab him in the chest."
His voice was a little loopy. His energy was sapped after his adrenaline rush calmed down and left only the numbness that was starting to fade, "Okay…hold on…" He sighed as gathered his thoughts, "okay yeah. I got my stuff, was walking back with you guys, and then he appeared out of nowhere and snatched me. He went over to where we were, told me I'll pay for my actions, and then started choking me. I heard you guys through the wall, the triforce flashed, I got an opening, and I killed him." Fatigue tugged at his eyelids as he looked away, "I sorta wished I stabbed him more because that was awful, but I didn't want to make things worse for you guys or me."
The knight sat on the edge of the bed, "Aside from the drowsiness, you seem...weirdly okay. Are you alright?" He was clearly concerned.
"Believe me when I say I've been through some shit." Link's eyes widened at hearing him cuss, "This was still bad, but it's been worse." Back in the previous universe, there were many times when the enemy version of any of the characters would slam him against the wall in a chokehold, but they were always open to get kicked or he would slap on the mask. In his universe, a wolfos had once cleaved a massive scratch across his cheek. It hurt so bad, it felt like that side of his face was going to fall off. Despite that though, the Yiga were more ruthless than he'd thought. "I just need to quit assuming things about them. Then I'll be ready to dispatch the next one I see."
"What are you assuming?" Link was confused yet interested.
"I keep thinking that they're like any other enemy I've fought. They're stupid to a fault, usually mess up their coordination, or leave themselves open. I forget that here, these ninjas aren't dumbasses in costume." He clenched his fist, "I'll do better next time. The triforce shouldn't have to save me."
Surprisingly, his descendent's eyebrows furrowed, "Hey, don't talk like that. There's not a lot you could have done to get that guy off of you nor prepare for that to happen." He looked him in the eyes, "Not even us knights would have been able to get out of that."
"But you would have because you would've had the strength to. I've been stuck in this body for Goddesses know how long!"
"What?"
He squeezed his descendant's hand, "I'm seventeen! I've been seventeen for what feels like forever!" He quickly decided that he wasn't going to explain that Zelda sent him back in time to live out his childhood, "But something happened, and I'm stuck like this again. I—I just—" A thought crossed his mind, calming him down, "It's fine." He let go of Link's hand, sitting back, "This is just a learning curve. I just need to train a bit more."
The young hero took off his boots and set them on the side of his bed, "You don't have to stay here any longer. Thanks for listening to my nonsense." When he looked over, Link's face was unreadable.
"I..don't know what you're going through and a lot of what you said doesn't make sense..."
"Figures. I've lost any reason to expect otherw—"
His eyes sparkled, but his voice was supportively assertive, "But I understand. I'm really hard on myself too. It's just hard to watch something like that happen to you and then listen to you flip the blame on yourself. At least go easier on yourself when you go train, okay?" He quietly chuckled, scratching his head, "Sorry, I'm not very good at giving advice."
"Well you made me feel better, and you've got a point. As much as I don't like staying here for too long, maybe it's best that I don't leave the castle for a few days."
Link nodded, "I agree. I'll try to tell Zelda to maybe go find whoever the Goron champion is going to be. You shouldn't go up Death Mountain anyways. You'll catch fire without a good fire-resistance potion, and we don't have too many of those lying around for just anyone."
"That's okay, I'll get to see Gorons some other time," Young Link scooted down and put his head on his pillow, "Night."
"Goodnight." His descendant left the room.