A/N: Apologies for just missing my deadline again everyone! Sadly Ch 13 will likely take two weeks due to my exams. Thank you as always for your reviews/patience/support.

Announcement: I am looking for a new beta reader. Please message me if interested.

Part Three: Detention

Sister,

Have you seen Wolf or Sparrow?

Your letter said they would be arriving in Hateno a month ago. But no sign.

House is empty. Townsfolk know nothing. That, or Symin really is that inept.

Zora and Gerudo races apparently at war? Symin heard about it in town. No one leaving or entering Zora's Domain or Gerudo Town. We need luminous stone at the Lab, but all trade has stopped.

No word from Robbie. Sent him several letters.

Apologies for sending encoded letter. Tried to keep it brief. Cannot be too safe.

Write back!

Purah

Dear Sister,

I have neither seen, nor heard anything.

Our wait continues. I have faith that whatever has happened, the children will persevere.

You sent me the unencoded letter, by the way. I find myself unsurprised.

Impa

I was thinking… this reminds me of the time we first met.

Link's captors did not bind him, but they may as well have. The fever left him suspended between agony and ecstasy, between dream and memory, between fondness and regret.

He could feel it all; the dirt under his fingernails, the sting where he had scratched too hard and made his fingers bleed, the throb in his chest as incessant and painful as the voices that swarmed his mind.

You've hurt yourself again. Was it the climb?

Scrabble scrabble. The voices clawed at the inside of his skull. In a moment of clarity, Link raised a hand to his chest. It hurt so much that he felt separate from from it - as if annexed from his own flesh. Link spoke the Princess's name, and called upon her power. But nothing happened.

So I really am just a failure.

Inglis's brown eyes were before him then, his thin mouth scowling at the wounds. "You got yourself locked in this hole," he said. That wasn't strictly true, Link had wanted to tell him. A quick denial - you threw me in here. I did nothing. But silence was too easy. And then Inglis was gone.

You were such a reckless child.

Link wanted to scream. He'd been alone with nothing but the pain, the guards, and the memories - the faded wisps of the past that wafted through his fingers like smoke.

The Hero and the Princess, remember?

Fingers scratching against the ground. The air… frozen. Winter? How could it be winter already? Last week it had been summer, the grass a verdant green, and the sun burning bright above Hyrule Field, yielding to the right hand of a goddess painted in gold and white…

"Zelda." Her name fell from his lips. He'd sent her away; he could grasp that much. He'd been bundled in her arms, bleeding out on the stone floor, and somewhere through his painful haze it had occurred to him just how strange it was that Yinli, a Rito advisor, would be among the bandits. He remembered thinking: why would an advisor tarry with outlaws? Has something happened at Lake Totori? A schism? A coup?

They'd been wayward thoughts, as though there wasn't anything else more pressing going on around him at the time. Link's lips curled into a smile as he recalled gazing upon the vast and blazing shield of light that Zelda had created during their encounter with Cinelgen in the throne room.

In that moment he had realised just how powerful she was - formidable, even. Hadn't she knocked him on his feet when they'd sparred in Gerudo Town? Hadn't she made quick work of their Yiga assailant at the tree by the fork, and of the Hylian drunkard in Hyrule Castle Library? Even the muscled and well-built Inglis couldn't keep her down when the two had fought.

Yinli's presence at the Castle had made him sure of it; there was something there to be investigated in Hebra - a thread to be pulled to unravel the meshwork of Cinelgen's plans. Perhaps with the Sword and the Slate, Zelda could find that thread. She'd have to. And in her own words, there are choices we make when we have no choice at all.

And so Link had sent Zelda to Hebra, and hoped - no, chose to believe that - she could continue their work alone. That she could heal the Divine Beasts without him, and bring about the peace that Hyrule so needed.

Even if it hurt to be without her. Even after everything that happened. Even if there was a chance he'd sent her to her death in the frozen mountains.

No - he'd know. If she was… he'd just know.

Had he made a mistake, sending her to Hebra? Anywhere would be better than the Castle, surely.

I'm okay if you're okay.

It was raining. Patter patter against the mossy brick of the Lockup. Raining again, or raining still? The last time it had rained he'd kissed a Princess. Maybe more than once. Rain was good, Link decided.

It was raining when he'd held her too, he remembered. On the muddy path, among the trees. Zelda had fallen into his arms, weeping, and he remembered realising how small she was. Before then she'd been a tower; a soul unassailable. But when he held her she had become… just a person. Someone young, and someone lost - just like me. Duty had compelled him to die for her if need be; but then she had become real and he would have died for her no matter who they were, or what they were to each other.

Would I still? Am I still her knight?

The sounds of barked orders and the accompanying slam of a cell door brought Link reluctantly back to the present. A tall Hylian guard was muscling the Zoran Ambassador Larella back to her cell. She'd been taken away, Link recalled. And now here she was, returned, like a book on a shelf.

"No need to shove," Larella snapped at the guard after he threw her into the cell opposite Link's.

Slighted, seething, the guard stormed into the cell and pushed the Ambassador up against the mossy wall. His hand seized her neck, and the other brought a dagger to the hollow under her chin.

"I'll do as I like, mackerel," the guard spat in her face. "Maybe I oughtta find out what the Chief likes so much about you."

"You do that-" Larella wheezed against the weight of his hand. "And he'll put you down like the dogs... the dogs you Hylians are so fond of."

A blur of movement. Link wasn't lucid enough to parse it out, but heard the guard grunt and Larella yelp, and watched as the Ambassador was thrown against the floor of her cell. The tussle had left a cut against her neck where the guard's knife had been, and a thin line of glistening red blood was seeping down towards her collarbone.

Shaken, incriminated, guard backed slowly away from the cell, passing a threatening look towards Link. You speak and you'll get the same, his harrowed eyes said, and then he fled. Moment of defiance over, Larella huddled against the wall of her cell, hands gingerly testing her tender neck. Link wanted to offer to help - to heal her - but couldn't bring himself to break another promise. Silence fell in the Lockup once more, and the voices returned.

You promised that you would not forget her.

Another memory, another princess. The last midsummer of his youth he had hiked up to the Domain with his heart in his throat, caught between a need to see the Zoran Princess again, and the gripping fear of what he might do to embarrass himself when he did.

You're taller, again! Mipha had laughed when she met him on the rocks of a plateau near the Domain. I'll never understand it. They had been alone on the bluffs, the luminous rocks around them swathed in amber hues of the late afternoon. Mipha had healed him then, her crimson-webbed hand held above his own, the soft light taking away a graze on his palm. You climbed too fast, she'd scolded gently. I wanted to see you, he'd said without thinking. And when the healing was done, Link had seized Mipha's hand before she could pull away, bringing it to his lips…

You know… Perhaps we could spend some time together. Maybe you could spend the summer here? Like you used to…

Princesses, princesses - Link had known too many, and he'd only known two. He felt like an interloper, a doppelgänger; he'd stolen the life of one princess, and stolen the love of another.

Mipha, before you go…

Scrabbling at the floor again. More throbbing pain. Why couldn't he make it stop? Link gripped at his chest, whispering Mipha's name like a prayer, begging for her power to flow. But it would not, and when Link opened his eyes he saw Mipha's ethereal form before him, her shining yellow eyes watching patiently.

… I've been thinking about what you said.

The Zora Princess had begun to cry - large wet tears streaking down her cheeks, and pooling in her long-fingered hands. Link wanted to crawl over to her, to be there with her, reassure her. But she was just out of reach, and he could not summon the strength. Defeated, he tipped his head back against the mossy wall of his cell, and waited for the illusion to pass.

"I made you like this, didn't I, Mipha?" he asked the weeping princess. "But… what did I do? I don't remember. I can't remember…"

The crying suddenly stopped, and when Link blinked, Mipha was gone. It was Larella's soft voice that lilted through the bars of their prison.

"P-pardon?"

By the fragile tone of her voice and the wet gleam of her cheeks, Link realised that it had been the Ambassador who was weeping.

A second round of shouts echoed through the cells of the Lockup.

"Why didn't you tell us, Inglis!?" A woman's voice, frantic and accusatory. "He's no use to us dead!"

Milagre. That was her name; she didn't seem to like Link and Zelda very much, given the number of times she had tried to kill them. The Yiga woman stormed into Link's cell once a guard had unlocked it, and proceeded to tear open his shirt. Hmm. Perhaps she does like you.

"Did you hear what I said!?" She was scowling at him. "Are. You. In. Pain?"

Link glared at her. Of course I am. Inglis was hovering behind them.

"You won't get anything from him, not 'sides muttering, Mila," Inglis advised. Milagre observed Link's festering wounds a second time, and shook her head, the waves in her hair swaying.

She rose sharply, and abruptly yanked Link to his feet by his ragged collar. Meanwhile the Princess was still whispering into his ear;

If anyone ever tries to do you harm...

"We need to get him to Cinna. Get his wounds treated properly," Milagre was saying. "Chief won't be happy that you let him get this bad, Inglis."

No matter when, or how bad the wound.

"I'm not a doctor, Mila," Inglis protested.

"Anyone would have noticed that he was dying,"

Link felt his legs moving, but wasn't sure who was giving them the orders. Then he was slipping in Milagre's grip, stumbling back towards the ground.

"Inglis - help me with him!"

Begrudgingly, Inglis went to Link's side, throwing Link's arm over his neck and shouldering the older Hylian's weight.

"Just because I'm not some Gerudo mastermind..." he grumbled.

"We do not have time for this."

Link couldn't stop himself from grinning. He'd heard this argument before. "Honeymooners, are you?" he quipped through his delirium.

There came no answer beyond an exasperated huff from Milagre.

Link bit his lip, and remained silent as the pair dragged him through the tunnels of Hyrule Castle.

It was fresh bandages and coarser bee honey applied to his wounds that healed them in the end. Link didn't know exactly why Mipha's power had left him, he could make a guess; healing required a certain peacefulness of spirit, and an understanding of the pain. Link had neither.

Cinelgen himself re-dressed the wounds, but not before banishing Coya, Milagre, and Inglis from the infirmary. He was apparently a skilled healer himself - on account of his years on the road and on the run, according to Inglis - but was still none too pleased to be taken from his breakfast to play nurse to his own prisoner.

"Fools!" he muttered after his subordinates were gone. "I'm surrounded by fools."

Link felt no need to argue.

The Gerudo sat opposite from him, a tray of wet bandages, honey, and soaking cloths balanced on his lap. His stern brows were furrowed as he worked, and Link noticed for the first time that Cinelgen's face was pockmarked and scarred. Who were you? Link wondered, becoming curiously aware of the faint smell of cinnamon. Before you became the Chief?

There were two guards in the room with them, as expected. On any other day he could have taken on all three; planning and executing the attack would be as familiar and natural as flexing a muscle.

But not today; not while his chest burned and not while the fever kept him in a permanent, pervasive haze. It would be weeks at least before he would be strong enough to attempt an escape - if Cinelgen would let him grow strong enough.

"We have heard many things about you, Link," the Gerudo said as he dipped a soaking cloth into the honey on his tray. "How you freed the Divine Beasts from Ganon. The Sheikah Slate that you once carried. Your propensity for handiwork, for weapon craft, your unbreakable spirit."

The soaking cloth stung fiercely against Link's bare skin, and he bit his lip to stop from crying out.

"What about my good looks?" he jibbed, wheezing through another surge of pain.

Cinelgen ignored the taunt. "We would have liked for you to come willingly. I regret that we fought in Vah Ruta."

Link's mind wandered back to his first meeting with Cinelgen, when the Gerudo and his bandits had attacked Divine Beast Vah Ruta. The incident had left Zelda badly wounded, and had incited the Zora to send that failed envoy into Gerudo Desert.

"Why would I come willingly to you?" Link scowled.

"It doesn't matter. You are here now, are you not? And we require your aid," Link detected a hint of chagrin in Cinelgen's voice. "Those Sheikah researchers have studied their ancient technology for years, yet you are among the few who truly understand it. We believe those Beasts are alive, Link. They cannot just be studied. They must be tamed."

"You want my help?" Link muttered, unsure if he had heard clearly. "Why would I even help you?"

Cinelgen lowered the soaking cloth, and reached for a fresh set of bandages. "Because you have nowhere else to go," he answered as he focused on his task. "My people tell me that your Princess was planning on casting you aside - that once the pair of you had finished cleansing the Divine Beasts, she would send you to Goron City to meet with the politically neutral rock men."

Link stared blankly at his captor, open mouthed and blinking stupidly. "That makes no sense."

"Ask the Ambassador. It was to her that Zelda spoke," Cinelgen countered. He was unravelling a bolt of the fine gauze. He shrugged, almost innocent. "I heard you had a lovers' quarrel. Is it possible that your Princess no longer cares for you?"

"You don't know that," Link seethed. "You can't know that." A pointless denial; there was no quashing the truth.

Cinelgen met his gaze, amd squared him up. A simple argument; "But I do, Champion."

As he prepared the bandages, Cinelgen spoke in a slow, sombre voice, as though telling the story by a fire. "One hundred years ago, a Calamity befell the land. A legend spreads of a knight put into a deep slumber. And then an unknown boy with no history and no past shows up in Hyrule wielding the very technology that almost destroyed this Kingdom. It was not difficult to surmise who you truly were. Then my spy in the envoy tells me of your arguments with the Princess, and I realise - why else would she send you away, if not because she no longer wanted you?"

Link had begun to shake his head, slow at first and then more and more frantic. "I don't have to listen to this!" he muttered, and then he sprung to his feet. He'd had enough, and didn't care if running would be akin to suicide. Immediately the steel rang as the guards drew their weapons, and Link halted, hovering awkwardly above his Gerudo captor.

Cinelgen looked up at him from his chair, unmoved.

"No, you don't. You don't even have the Slate anymore, which is what I truly needed." Cinelgen raised his hands and held out the bandages draped between them. "But you need those wounds dressed, and soon. Sit down, Link."

Link looked at the two guards, their weapons still drawn and their muscles taut, and felt the aching weakness in his chest. He had no other option but to sit. Cinelgen returned to his task, leaning forward to wrap the bandages around Link's bare chest. Link could hear the Gerudo's breath, and smell the cinnamon on him once again.

"Think on this, Champion," Cinelgen said softly. "No matter what you feel and no matter who you think the Princess is, you are an outcast just like us. Robbed of a home. Given no direction in life. You became someone you never would have been, and she decided to remove you from her life before it became too painful."

And then Cinelgen had finished up with the bandages, securing them with a small metal clasp. Link felt his skin begin to cool and his hands begin to shake. Was it rage, or grief, that had overcome him?

He raised his eyes to meet Cinelgen's. "Why are you telling me all this?"

Cinelgen nodded to his guards. They ushered Link out of the infirmary, down a side passage through the Castle, out along the Eastern Passage. Looming at the end of the wide stone path was an octagonal structure of stone and iron; a Gatehouse that in a past life served as a sparring ring.

The voice came like a gust of wind, rushing past him and catching the hairs on the nape of his neck.

You are too aggressive. You lunge without first reading your opponent. In a real fight that would get you killed.

His father's voice. Disapproving and stern. Almost angry. Link felt himself arguing back: It's not my fault that everyone else is slower than me.

Another memory. He wasn't sure if he could trust it. The fever had brought all kinds of visions, and the fever had not yet passed. But Link wanted desperately this one to be real. Hearing his father's voice again nearly made him stumble, the shock sending him reeling, desperate to grasp what little of himself was left.

It had been before he was chosen. He had been training at the Gatehouse, a line of squires and lesser knights lining up to try to defeat him. Each one he had dispatched with an ease and bullish strength that had stunned even him. It was as though he could not help but win. As though he had been born to it, the steel of his sword an extension of himself. And at the centre of the swirling crowd of greyed faces, he remembered seeing his father's unyielding glare; two piercing blue eyes hovering disembodied from the crowd. A knight is not a just weapon, Link. When will you learn that?

When the memory faded, Link found himself standing before the twin iron doors that led into the Gatehouse. He was flanked still by Cinelgen and the guards. Taking in the gargantuan building, Link noticed that the upper terraces and windows had been boarded over with the same planks that lined the floor of the throne room; the same oaken wood and the same poor workmanship.

Before the guards opened the wrought iron door, Cinelgen placed a hand on Link's shoulder. "This one is good, Champion. The way they used to be." Link didn't understand.

Gingerly, as if expecting retaliation, the guards pried open the doors. Harsh light flooded into the chamber, and but once it had receded, Link saw what Cinelgen had been hiding.

He shuddered backwards in shock, stifling an instinctual scream.

It sat in the centre of Gatehouse - its winding legs tucked neatly at its side and its cylindrical body pulsating in a slow, almost peaceful rhythm - a Guardian. Whole, and alive, and awake.

Link felt his legs pushing against the ground, launching him into a fleet-footed sprint. But Cinelgen's guards were behind him, and they caught him before he could even take two steps.

"Look upon it, Link," Cinelgen urged, his voice exultant. "Don't you see the opportunity we have before us? You alone can tame this beast. If we can control it, if we show the people of Hyrule that we have mastered that which destroyed their Kingdom…"

Mechanical gears whirred and spun, and the cylindrical head turned towards them in a single fluid motion. Its beady cyclops eye locked on to them, and it saw.

Kisses of snowflakes against her cheeks pulled Zelda from her slumber, although they turned quickly to bites and jabs. The cold was pervasive, gnawing: Winter's Welcome.

"Open your eyes."

Is that my father's voice? It was almost as deep. But too warm, too smooth… too kind.

"I'm glad to see you safe, Princess," came the voice again.

She felt soft feathers against her cheek, and the gentle rhythm of footfalls beneath her. But she was not walking. Someone was holding her close, carrying her through the vanishing-point trunks of wintery pines.

"We're almost there." The figure above her was an array of azures and earthy browns, embellished with bursts of colour like a painter's palette. From her vantage point, he was wide-set and towering. Zelda felt the softness against her cheek again; a simple realisation - her protector was of the Rito tribe.

"Revali?" she mumbled as her eyes found focus. For a fleeting moment the Rito above her spoke in the voice of an old friend. You know, I think your dedication to unlocking your power is quite impressive, Princess.

Zelda felt a rumble against her cheek as the Rito laughed. "I am no Champion."

"Where am I?" she croaked.

"The better question is who are you, little sparrow," said the Rito, smiling down at her. "Don't answer. The truth is a dangerous thing. Who would you be, if you were to be safe?"

Safe? When have I ever been safe? Zelda gazed up at the Rito as she tried to find her words, and saw two crimson feathers rising out from behind his left eye, arcing out into the air. She almost wanted to reach up and pluck them.

"I don't know what you mean," was all she could manage.

As her drowsiness faded, she became aware of a dull sensation of pain: her face, her knee, and another, deep in her chest. The third was an ache of a sudden absence - a meteoric hollow where he had once been. Someone between friend and adversary, between past and present, between loved one and love lost.

Not long ago she'd wanted to send him away; she had even discussed it with Ambassador Larella. "Perhaps some time apart might help," she remembered saying. "You know what Link is like..."

But now the unfathomable had come to pass, reaffirming only that Zelda knew nothing about him at all.

The Rito lowered her down against a mossy boulder flanked by snow-flecked pines. Zelda took a moment take in her surroundings; they were on a narrow island, mere feet from a cliff face that led down to a wide and shining lake below. Winter winds ruffled and whipped at the water, waves cutting fast and sharp across the surface like a dagger. And beyond, were the jagged edges and snow-blanketed slopes of a mountain range. The Rito, the lake, the mountains - Link had sent her to Hebra, of all places!

The Rito knelt before her. He frowned down at her right hand - at the glowing Royal Crest. Embarrassed, scrutinised, Zelda pulled her sleeve down to cover it.

"Are you hurt?" the Rito asked, gentler than Zelda had been expecting.

Zelda shook her head, ignoring the throbbing pain in her fingers and nose.

"Who are you?" she gave the Rito a hard look, determinedly studying his face. "You seem… familiar."

"My name is Kass; I am a bard of the Rito of Lake Totori." His smooth voice and shapely eyes presented the guise of an earnest, almost fatherly air. "A pleasure to finally meet you."

"Finally meet me…?" Zelda drew back, pressing herself into the stone behind her. "What are you talking about?" Her eyes flitted down to the Rito's neck; she saw no neckerchief, but felt no relief.

"The symbol on your hand," Kass said, his voice low and urgent. "It can only mean…"

She gaped at him with wide, disbelieving eyes, hands seeking purchase against the rock at her back, seeking stability in a world that was closing in around her.

"You know who I am, don't you?" Zelda breathed. There was only one place that Rito could have seen the symbol on her hand. Hyrule Castle, now taken by those bandits.

"Why are you afraid?" Kass asked, sensing her panic. "What happened to you?"

She wanted to scream, to run, even if she had nowhere to go. She hadn't expected to be recognised so soon, or at all. But of course she would be. How many other Hylian girls bore the Royal Crest on their flesh?

"Nothing. Nothing!" Zelda couldn't answer; couldn't risk a single word in case this Rito was one of Cinelgen's.

The bard had her trapped at the edge of the island. Using her magic would only give her away. Her hand went to her hip, and she realised she no longer had the Sheikah Slate. Or the Sword. Or anything - aside from Link's crossbow hooked to her belt, of all possible things, and even then she had no bolts.

The next thing she knew, the Rito was reaching for the accordion strapped to his side.

"I believe I have a song to remedy this misunderstanding," he said softly, standing and turning towards the lake. Zelda gaped at him, dumbfounded; what kind of captor serenaded his prisoner? Was it a Rito custom?

The melody that Kass played was simple and lilting, almost a waltz, but sweeter. Zelda spied a rope bridge not far from where she huddled. Could I reach it? Could I outrun someone with wings?

But there was no time to think. Just as Zelda was about ready to sprint across to the bridge, recognition hit her - she knew this song. It wasn't just a simple melody, and it wasn't a waltz.

A haunted gasp seized her chest; the song as a lullaby.

"Stop!" she cried, leaping to her feet so fast that her ears rang. That song, my mother's song - my song! "How do you know that song?!"

The bard continued to play as he spoke. "I trained under a Sheikah bard, a man who once served the Royal Family of Hyrule. He served as the personal court musician to the Princess of Hyrule, and in that time learned many songs passed down by the family. I only called him Teacher, but I believe his true name was-"

"Lexo!?"

A warm smile crossed the bard's face. "Yes, that was it."

"You knew Lexo? How is he?"

Zelda could barely believe it. Lexo! Lexo, who had remembered all of her favourite songs, who was there by her side at every feast, who seemed able to feel her mood and play just the right song to match. He'd been a freckle-faced Sheikah, with a golden harp and haunting, almost ancient voice, and only a few years older than her when the Calamity had struck. Once, he had found her crying in the gardens of Hyrule Castle, and had thought it wise to play her lullaby. The same sweet melody that Zelda's mother had once sung. But the song only made her tears worse that day, and Zelda had screamed at Lexo to leave her alone. What she would give now to apologise to him, to make right her unkindness...

But the Rito had not answered, and Zelda understood.

"When?" she murmured.

"A few years ago," Kass replied solemnly. "He never wanted to teach me the lullaby… or any of the ancient songs. But he felt his strength failing, and knew that they needed to be passed on."

Another one lost. The pain felt hollow, the grief little more than an echo of something that had already passed. To her dismay, Zelda realised the the feeling was familiar now, almost a comfort. A numbness that could protect her from the oncoming winter.

"And so Lexo entrusted the songs to you?" she asked. She tried to picture Lexo as an old man, but only Impa's face that came to mind. The Sheikah bard would always be a boy to her, now.

Kass nodded. He had returned to playing a different song, one she had not heard before. This one was indeed a waltz, though somehow sadder even than her own lullaby. "My teacher taught me all the songs he knew, so that they might survive and be returned to the Royal Family. I made that task my life's work."

Zelda was cautious. "But… the Royal Family are all gone. At least, that's what everyone believes. How could you know that your efforts weren't in vain?"

"My teacher had faith that the Princess would return, and he passed that faith on to me, I suppose." Kass's eyes passed over the rippling waters below, and his voice grew fond. "Lexo believed in the power of a good story. And the story of the Hero and the Princess - one of legend."

Familiarity became recognition, and recognition became understanding - Kass was the bard Link had spoken of. The one who had helped him throughout his quest to save her. The one whose song had helped them heal Vah Ruta and Akkala Citadel. It left her speechless; this bard had carried her family's songs with no proof that she would even return to hear them. All he had was the word of his teacher, and the strength of his own faith. Zelda looked up at Kass, and heard Revali's voice again: your dedication is impressive indeed… and dedication deserves its own reward.

"'The Hero and the Princess,'" Zelda recited. "'Hand in hand, must bring the light back to this land.' That is one of your songs."

Kass halted his playing, muted surprise crossing his features. "You've… heard this song, then?"

"Not in full, no," Zelda admitted, a little sourly. "How does it go?"

Kass nervously padded the buttons of his accordion. "I was instructed only to pass the song onto the Princess, and her appointed knight. Am I correct-"

"Play the song," Zelda commanded gently, she peered over her shoulder, and saw that the island was empty. "You were right. The Princess is before you."

Kass opened his beak to speak, but could not, awe and relief blooming on his colourful face. But then, and with a sigh, he shouldered his accordion.

"Not now. You must tell me what has happened to you and to your appointed knight, the Champion Link."

Hearing his name burned like acid, but Zelda kept her face impassive. "My knight?" she said.

Her words seemed to startle the Rito. "You do not know him?"

"No… I do." Is that it then? Was it duty? Is that why you saved me, after all that I said to you?

Zelda gazed down at the lake as she gathered her words. Beyond the icy shore she spotted the Shrine where she had materialised, and the ravine beyond. Eventually she began to explain, the memories of their heist on Hyrule Castle still raw. "There's a man looking for me. A Gerudo. He leads a group that call themselves the Successors. They've taken Hyrule Castle, but it's as if… they're trying to hide it. They barely have anyone posted beyond the walls and they have barely begun to repair it..."

Kass ran idle wingtips across the feathers of his face, nodding as she spoke. "So the bandits do have a name," he mused. "And I take it they are not merely Gerudo bandits?"

"No. There are Zora, Gerudo, Hylians, and even Rito among their number. Some are Yiga and some are not. I don't understand where they're all coming from."

"And you had an unfortunate run in with them, then?"

Zelda nodded. In the far distance a white Rito was approaching the ravine that bordered the Shrine. "They know what I look like. They know what I was carrying." She looked down at her bare belt and shrugged. "Though I've lost most of what I had."

The memory was coming back slowly, like snow to the thaw; she had been trudging through towards the firelight, and distracted by some great dragon above her, she had stumbled. When she had opened her eyes she was lying by the ravine, the Master Sword and Sheikah Slate no longer bundled in her arms, but rather tumbling down towards the waters below.

"I made such a mess of things. I really did," Zelda lamented as Kass looked on.

Zelda had sat crouched at the edge of that windy ravine for so long that her fingertips and her nose had near frozen over. When she had squinted down to the waters of the ravine, she had been able to make out the glint of the Sword's golden scabbard, but little else. When the pain of the chill had become too much, she'd crawled to the fire she had spotted, and had fallen into what felt like a one hundred-year sleep.

"I sense this is a tragedy you are telling," the bard offered, and Zelda smiled in spite of herself.

"It is." She sighed. "We tried to infiltrate Hyrule Castle like fools. Link was injured - gravely - but he helped me escape. And I… I really don't know if he's alive." The realisation brought another ache, this one deeper than the rest. The familiar, almost nostalgic ache of failure. "I should know… but I don't…"

Kass gingerly placed a wingtip on her shoulder. "You must convalesce here. Winter is upon us, and it will be a harsh one. The travellers speak of war between the Zora and Gerudo."

"Oh - that!" Zelda whimpered. She had somehow forgotten about the war, amongst everything else.

A born storyteller, Kass was more than capable of filling her in."Thankfully the parties have not met in battle. They cannot, not in the winter, and not while the Gerudo hold such a defensible position in their desert."

"Nowhere in Hyrule is defensible, not anymore," Zelda muttered under her breath.

Awkward, caught a little off-guard by her comment, the Rito removed his wingtips from her shoulder. "Indeed," he exhaled. "And I have reason to believe that even Lake Totori is not safe. A friend of mine has noticed strange disappearances in the village, and I just wonder if perhaps…"

Zelda sighed. "There could be bandits here too."

"I can tell my brethren you are my student, and none will question it, but if these Successors recognise you…"

Zelda scanned the horizon, and focused on her breathing. She could not leave Lake Totori, nor could she enter Rito Village and risk recognition. And right now, she had no means of teleportation. And whatever it was she had tried to do in Hyrule Castle, she was not strong enough to reach this 'other place', let alone travel anywhere…

Her empty gaze snagged on a faint silhouette in the west; shadowed and monotone, stood the tallest towers of Hyrule Castle, climbing up into the morning sky.

What would you do? she wondered. The Castle, and the boy within, gave no response. But Zelda knew the knight well enough to guess.

Adapt. That's what he would do. Return to a place of neutrality. Start again. He would become what he needed to be.

Just like that, it was settled. She didn't need to be Zelda to continue her work. Until now, she had operated in a world that thought her dead. All she needed was to survive.

"They're looking for a girl with long blonde hair and a golden mark on her right hand," Zelda finally said, speaking more for herself than for Kass.

"Those things are not easily changed," Kass cautioned.

"Perhaps not." She shrugged off his concern. A plan had formed in her mind. Even in Link's absence, it felt like a collaboration.

Zelda looked up at her new Rito ally. "Kass, if I may, do you have a knife?"

Lesson one: to grieve was to accept the loss.

Zelda did not allow herself to mourn as she used Kass's paring knife to haphazardly slice away the tendrils of her long golden braid. It was just hair, after all. Like an orchid of flowers, it would grow in both peace and in adversity. Each lock that fell was tossed into Lake Totori to be washed away by the wind and water. Zelda left the hair long enough to be pulled back with a leather tie, and she sliced the bangs a little shorter so that they hung about her face, concealing her soft cheeks and slender neck. The ends were now crude and jagged, frayed somewhat by the dull blade, but Zelda figured that added credence to her disguise.

Lesson two: we are made who we are by our stories - by our memories.

"You can call me Rowan," she told Kass, speaking in a lower, richer tone. "I'm a Hylian male, your apprentice. We met in Necluda, the birthplace of your mentor. His legend is what caused me to seek you out."

"Rowan is a woman's name, is it not?" Kass implored.

"And a male name. My parents wanted me to choose. So I chose."

"Princess-"

"Rowan."

"Rowan," Kass repeated firmly. "What about the mark?"

Lesson three: thoughts should be observed, and allowed to pass

"Zelda spent a few days trying to understand why the mark had appeared..." Speaking about herself in this way was awkward, but Zelda was determined. I am not her, not anymore. "She never considered just… letting go."

Closing her eyes to focus, Zelda held her left hand over her right. She imagined the life of a Necludan boy with no special heritage and no destiny beyond a simple desire to seek a teacher. She imagined that the real princess been left at the Rito Stables, and had foolishly run out into the Hebra wilderness. That this girl had succumbed to a passing blizzard, and would not be found until the spring thaw.

She imagined never having known a noble birth. She imagined never having lived in that Castle. She imagined never having met her appointed Knight. And she imagined never having loved him at all; neither the original, nor his reiteration.

When Zelda removed her hand, the glowing symbol was gone. Kass breathed a sigh of relief and motioned for them to head towards the village.

"Isn't it a shame, Teacher?" Zelda said as they walked through the wooden gates towards the spiralling village. The shadow of Divine Beast Vah Medoh stretched across their path. Zelda passed a quick glance at the eagle automaton, and then pushed the thought of it from her mind.

"Hm?" Kass peered down at her, eyes quizzical.

"The songs can never be passed on. We will never finish our true task," Zelda explained. "The Royal Family are all gone."

The Rito kitchen swayed softly in the afternoon breeze, its chains creaking and groaning. Neatly stacked tins of condiments and spices slid back and forth on the shelves, and more than once Zelda worried that something would fall. But nothing ever did, and for some reason that put her even more on edge.

As the day had dragged on, she had become hypervigilant. Each passing Rito was an assailant, each sideways look in her direction an accusation. But Kass jad led her to the kitchen without incident, taking her via his hut to hide her crossbow among his things - the last remaining possession that marked her as the Princess.

Kass had sat at her down by the fire at the centre of the suspended kitchen; it was the warmest place in the village, he had explained, but Zelda could not seem to shake the chill. Was it the cold, or the fear that made her shiver? Liars must believe their own story, she told herself. And so she recited the same words in her head over and over, until they became a chant, a mantra.

I am Rowan, bard of Necluda. Zelda is dead, but Rowan can live.

Kass had settled down opposite her, taking a polishing cloth to the straps of his accordian. The leather glistened under the firelight, and Zelda could smell the pungent, woody odour of polishing oil from across the fire.

"My friend's name is Teba," Kass began after a time. "He found you. He was the one to notice disappearances in the village."

"Can we trust him?" Zelda asked nervously. She found herself impulsively checking the skin of her right hand for any signs of the mark, but it had not yet returned.

Kass looked up from his accordion. "Teba? Of course. Teba could never cross anyone. He is too… self-disciplined. You'll find him at the Flight Range."

"That's where Zelda arrived in Hebra," she commented upon recalling the Shrine. "That's where her belongings are. We should retrieve them."

"You'll need to wait until the morning then. Teba never returns until sundown, and even a well-travelled boy such as yourself should not make that trek alone."

Zelda nodded, taking in the information. She ran a hand through her hair, finding herself still startled but the newfound lightness of it.

The rumble of talons against planks and a cacophony of excited giggles and squawks signaled the passing of a flock of Rito fledglings - they were chasing each other up the stairs, squeaking and yammering, and a few who passed stopped to wave, shouting, 'Hello father!'

Kass raised a wing back, a wide grin on his face. One of the girls who stopped even added, 'Hello Rowan!'

Zelda let out a nervous laugh.

They had met Kass' colourful daughters on their way into Rito Village. One of the girls, the mint-green Genli, had spotted her father from the lookout, and soon his entire flock had been walking the bard to his home.

Trailing the flock that passed the kitchen was a small white fledgling, and when he spotted Kass and Zelda he stopped in his tracks. His wide yellow eyes locked onto Zelda, and he hovered at the entrance of the kitchen, as though privy to some secret he should not know.

"Tulin?" Kass said to the fledgling. "Are you alright?"

The child seemed familiar; had she seen him in a dream? She remembered seeing yellow eyes above her; two bulbs of amber cutting through the haze of an early morning snow.

"It's you," Tulin said. "Your hand was glowing. Where's my Father?"

Zelda swallowed hard as the memory returned; this boy had been at the Flight Range with Teba, she remembered suddenly. What's more, he had seen her mark.

The only thing to do was deny him. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Tulin," Kass clipped. "This is Rowan. He's my student."

"He?" the fledgling cocked his head to the side. "Father called her 'girl'. She has a mark. I saw it."

"I-I do not," Zelda protested, feeling her voice slip. "And I'm not a girl."

"But Fath-"

"Tulin!?"

It was a woman's voice that rang out, and soon a breathless pink Rito darted up the stairs towards the fledgling, her curled feathers bouncing about her face. The fledgling's eyes went wide when he turned towards her. "M-Mother?" he all but squeaked.

"What are you doing here?" she scolded. "Where is your Father?"

"Afternoon Saki," Kass cut in, his normally amiable tone strained.

Saki stared at them in disbelief. "Kass? You're back?" she said quietly. And then she saw Zelda by the fire, and she narrowed her eyes. "Who is this?"

Kass cleared his throat, and stood from the fire. Like a shadow, Zelda followed.

"I have taken an apprentice," the bard explained. "This is Rowan. He is from Necluda."

Zelda gave Saki a quick two-finger salute, as she had seen Link do in the past. Thinking on his mannerisms helped with her disguise, she supposed, even if thinking about him at all fed the ache in her chest.

"But… she's a girl," Tulin piped up as he went to his mother's side. "I saw her at the Flight Range with Father."

"Is that so, little one?" Saki said, idly cupping her son's head against her wingtip. Zelda felt Saki's scrutinising gaze boring into her, seeking the soul beneath. She felt her right hand was shaking, as if the divine light could burst from it at any moment.

"I met Rowan near the Dueling Peaks Stables a month or so ago," Kass continued. "We travelled here together."

"But I saw her!" Tulin insisted, reaching up to tug on his mother's wingtip "She has a mark on her hand! I saw it! Triangles or something, and gold!"

"Most interesting." Saki grinned down at her son, her sweet voice twinged severe, almost greedy. She looked back towards Zelda, her smile never fading. "Why don't you show Tulin your hand? Humour him."

Zelda felt as though her mouth had turned to dust. "Uh, I don't..." was all she managed.

Kass was coy, always the performer - he did not acknowledge the tension that they all felt. "We saw a girl of that description at the Rito Stables, Saki. Teba mentioned finding her at the Range. Perhaps this is what Tulin is remembering?"

"I remember her!" Tulin cried. "I saw it, Mother. I promise - look!"

And then Tulin was storming over towards Zelda, and before she could fend him off the boy had seized her right arm, and was thrusting it forward..

It was almost unbearable to look, but when she did, Zelda saw nothing more than the back of her hand - her pale skin, the faint impressions of her bones, and her snaking blue veins, but nothing else.

Zelda is dead. But Rowan lives.

"Let go of my hand, child," she growled at the fledgling boy. "Before I slap you with it."

Tulin jolted away from her, and sprinted frantically back to his mother. He hid under Saki's wing, and glued his curious yellow eyes to the floor. Zelda saw Saki take a long breath.

"A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Rowan, and my apologies for my son's behavior," she smiled. "So my husband took this girl to the Stables?"

"We met him there on our way in," Kass affirmed. "He might still be there."

Saki seemed to accept the lie readily, and Zelda had to pinch herself to stop from groaning with relief. The Rito woman placed a hand at Tulin's back. "Do you fancy a walk to Rito Stables, little one?"

Tulin grinned and nodded excitedly, and soon the pair were disappearing down the spiral stairs. Once they were out of sight, Zelda knelt once again by the fire. Her hands were shaking, and her heartbeat thrummed in her ears - but she had lived, and her lie had held true. A small victory, but perhaps the first in months. She breathed deep the frigid air and smoke from the fire, feeling cleansed.

"Come, let us find go wait for Teba," Kass said, extending his wingtip to her. "We will need to speak to him before anyone else."

It was Zelda who nodded up at her Rito ally, and Zelda who took his wingtips in her hand; but,as the afternoon light began to recede behind the Hebra mountains, it was Rowan who stood.

A snowstorm had begun to pass over Hyrule Castle, the icy winds howling between the crevices and cracks in the Castle walls. In the winter air, Link's body had become numb all over; first from the cold, and then from the shock. Or perhaps the other way around.

The storm had replaced the fever, it seemed, and Link found himself reaching out, yearning for the heat to return, his mind seeking the delirium. At least then there was a chance that all he had seen in the Gatehouse was nothing more than the creation of a memory-addled mind.

It was madness. Insanity. Still, underneath his panic he found a… curiosity. Link had never met a Guardian that did not attack. He had never seen one so… at peace. He wondered what they were truly like without the corruption. Were they like the Divine Beasts? Did the automatons have souls? Zelda might know.

Link winced at the thought of her. Meeting the Guardian had almost made him forget Cinelgen's words - that Zelda wanted to send him away, and that apparently the Ambassador could corroborate the story. Link raised his head and squinted through the dark cells to see the Larella still in her cell opposite him.

She was asleep, it seemed, huddled against the stone wall with her long arms wrapped limply around her legs.

"Larella." Link's voice was urgent as he called to the sleeping Ambassador. "Larella!"

Larella started awake, and raised her head to look at Link. "W-what is it?" she asked weakly, sniffling as she spoke.

Link cast his mind back to that miserable journey out of the desert. He crawled slowly towards the edge of his cell, and leant up against the bars. "When you were speaking with Zelda… did she ever mention wanting to send me away?"

Larella pondered his words for a moment, remaining huddled against the wall. Eventually she said, "She did, in fact."

"What did she say?" he asked, bracing against the bars for the answer.

Larella sniffled again, and recounted what she knew; "We were discussing the Divine Beasts, and she mentioned that once your work with them was done… that it might be for the best if you were to travel to Goron City."

Another blow to the chest, but this time it felt as though it came from within. Cinelgen's words clung to the clammy air like a mist. You became someone you never would have been, and she decided to send you away before it became too painful.

It was hard to tell in the low light, but Link thought he saw the Ambassador frown. "Why are you asking me?"

How to explain? Cinelgen has an weaponised automaton sitting in a shack and thinks I'm the only person living who can control it.

Instead, he settled with, "Cinelgen wants me to work for him. He says I have nowhere else to go and I… I guess I'm not sure."

Weary cynicism simmered in Larella's voice. "And this - you aiding the man who has torn apart our kingdom and undone all of your work - hinges on whether or not the Princess cares about you?"

He felt like a fool when Larella spoke about it that way, but could do nothing but admit the truth. "Yes."

Larella sighed, and finally crawled over to the bars of her cell. She wrapped her jewel-less hands around the rusted iron. "Listen to nothing Cinelgen says, Champion, and ignore whatever you think you feel about the Princess. She isn't here, and nothing she said matters."

"But do you think she-"

"Wanted to be rid of you? Are you really worried that she doesn't care for you? At a time like this?" Larella laughed and shook her head, her fins flicking gently against her face. "So what, Link? I cared for Dorephan - I loved him - and look where I am."

Link had nothing to say to her. His head was swimming again, the last of his fever refusing to yield.

Larella was not done. "You cannot play politics with Cinelgen's people," she insisted. "You must do what will keep you alive. I can guarantee you the Princess is doing the same."

Stay alive. There was truth in her words, and he'd done a fine job of staying alive in his life thus far. If anything he was bad at dying.

Stay alive, Link repeated to himself. He closed his eyes to shut out the question that followed: But what for?

The afternoon light had faded, turning the dusk sky into a painting of every colour. Zelda could not remember the world looking as crisp and clear as it did from Lake Totori, the winter chill seeming to lock it all in place under the dome that was the sky. None of it seemed real; Zelda felt as though she could frame it somehow.

Hello, Revali. She thought as she stepped out onto the landing named in his honour. Are you well, wherever you are? Can I ever apologise enough?

Perhaps she already had; Zelda had begged all of them a hundred hundred times over. But standing where she and Revali had once stood… it brought the guilt back in droves.

Kass was already waiting for her on the landing, his accordion in hand as he serenaded the lake below. It was the sombre waltz again, the one that she did not recognise.

"Evening, little sparrow," the bard greeted as she approached.

"Evening's welcome, Teacher," Zelda returned. "Is Teba far away?"

Kass had no time to answer. A sudden gust of wind cut through the stillness of the dusk, heralding the warrior's arrival. Zelda watched as the white-feathered Rito warrior swooped up from below the platform, wings arcing deftly as he brought himself in to land on the wooden planks. He appraised them with stern and stony grey eyes, knife-like brows knitted in a scowl.

"Kass." Teba nodded to the bard, before looking to Zelda. She felt herself shrink away under his glare. "It's you. Your name is..."

"Rowan. We met on the way into Rito Village," Zelda said, mustering her courage. "I've come to learn the bard's trade."

Teba huffed. "You want my advice?" he said gruffly, folding his arms at his chest. "Don't. It's boring, and pointless."

"I could say the same for being a warrior, friend," Kass teased. And while Teba rolled his eyes and shrugged off the jest, Zelda noticed something else in his expression. A bristling anger? A frustration? She knew had seen it somewhere before.

"Why the welcome, Kass?" Teba questioned.

"I've lost some things in the Flight Range Ravine. I need some help retrieving them" Zelda said before Kass could explain. The warrior did not look at her.

"I'm an errand-donkey now?" he frowned at the bard. "Thought you said you'd look after the girl."

"Ah - Teba, you are mistaken." Kass grinned. "This little sparrow is not the girl you found. That girl was left at the Stables, remember?"

Teba stared at them, marble eyes moving left to right between the bard and his charge. "You're kidding, right?"

Zelda had had enough of discussing her disguise; and she did not care if this warrior believed it or not. "Kass tells me you're investigating disappearances in the village."

The warrior subjected her again to his harsh glare,and for a moment she regretted speaking. Zelda would cower. Rowan would not. She stood a little straighter, bracing for Teba's reply.

All he said was: "What of it?"

"I can help you."

"I don't need help," he pointed an accusing wingtip at the bard. "And aren't you his apprentice?"

"I haven't yet chosen my profession."

"Rowan is quite worldly," Kass cut in. "He can aid you."

"He!?" Teba shook his head. "Kass, what is going on?"

Kass lowered his accordion, and spoke with a harrowing and unfamiliar severity. "I am asking you to trust me. You cannot work alone any longer. Do you want to help the village or not?"

An unspoken standoff. Years of a friendship that Zelda was not party to laid on the line. She watched the Rito spar with nothing more than their eyes.

"Fine," Teba relented at last. He pointed to the Rito crest painted on the planks. "Meet me here, tomorrow at dawn. I will not wait for you, Rowan, do you understand?"

"I understand."

Before Teba pushed past them to enter the village, he muttered, "Never much liked sparrows."

Zelda watched him go with a mixture of trepidation and annoyance. "Is he always that grumpy?" she asked.

Kass chuckled, and strapped his accordion to his shoulder. "Teba enjoys his independence. He won't even take an apprentice. But you'll get used to him."

The bard reached down to his belt, and Zelda noticed for the first time that he had a large parcel secured to his side. He unhooked it carefully, saying "That reminds me. I cannot teach an apprentice who does not play."

Kass handed her the parcel; it was heavy and round, and Zelda had to hold it with both hands. She carefully pried apart the hessian wrapping, and found a golden harp wrapped up within. Eight steels strings were stretched across its curved body, and the ends of its twin arms were carved into the shape of raven's heads with long beaks and blank eyes. Zelda was near completely taken by the beauty of it, and the strange sense that she had seen it before. She let the hessian wrapping fall away, and held the harp in her arms.

"This was Lexo's. Wait. No - this was Zelda's," she realised, breathless as she beheld the small piece of her past. "He so wanted her to learn, but she never had time."

"Perhaps Rowan can learn what Zelda could not."

Zelda gazed up at Kass, stunned. "Are you actually going to teach me?"

"Passing on the songs of your family are my purpose. Of course I will. And another thing -" he reached for his accordion once more "- it is time I played you the song."

The snowstorm had blanketed in the castle in a thick layer of brilliant white snow, masking its decay and making it almost seem… regal. But it was Hylian tradition that the dead wear white, Link recalled. Am I here for Hyrule's funeral then? He wondered.

The chilly morning air nipped at the still sensitive skin on his chest as the guards escorted him through the Castle, his thin cotton shirt doing little to stave off the cold. The throne room was no less wintery, its austere stone and high ceiling perhaps exacerbating the chill.

Cinelgen's court was not of the calibre that Link remembered from his time as a knight. There were no lords and ladies, no subtle and untraversable social hierarchy, and certainly no finery. It was Cinelgen, and his bandits. A king and his kingdom, with nothing else in between.

Somehow Cinelgen did not seem to feel the winter air. Where the rest of his people had scraped together something in the way of warm garb, the Gerudo kept to his plain traveller's shirt and trousers, opting to show his position through a simple red and burgundy cloak that he wore draped over his right shoulder.

The throne room became a sea of hushed whispers when Link was led in. He stepped out into the middle of the wooden planks at the centre of the room, and looked up to the throne, and the man sat precariously upon it.

"I have made a decision, Cinelgen," Link called up to him. "I will help you with the Guardian."

Cinelgen had been leaning back in the throne, his long-limbed body seemingly too large for the chair. He stood when Link spoke, and walked to the edge of the balcony. "Ah - fine words," he grinned, green eyes sparkling in the morning light. "You thought on my words?"

"I did. And part of me agrees," Link told him. "I am not what I was."

"Good… good…" Cinelgen leaned out over the balcony, fingers excitedly drumming the faded golden railing.

Link took a deep breath, savouring the clarity of mind that he felt; the fever had at last left him the night before. "I have a few conditions, however," he went on.

That gave Cinelgen reason for pause. After a moment, the Gerudo nodded for Link to continue.

"I would like my own room. A small sleeping cell. My wounds will fester as long as I'm down in that Lockup. I'd like to be allowed to carry a dagger. And… any prisoners that you take because of me, or because of the Princess… they are not to be harmed."

Cinelgen thought on Link's words, his eyes passing slowly across the people of his cobbled-together court. If there was dissent it was undetectable. Link spied Milagre standing in the wings, and even her face was held still.

"The first two, done," Cinelgen decreed. "The third, I'm afraid… I cannot guarantee how my people will act."

Link was not in a position to argue. I'm sorry, Larella.

"You start on the morrow," Cinelgen continued. He motioned to the wings, singling out the Hylian youth that Link knew as Inglis. "Inglis, find Link somewhere to sleep, and give him whatever dagger you are carrying."

"Aye, Chief," came the soldier-like response from the Hylian, and before the morning was over, Inglis had completed both tasks. Link was given a sleeping cell among the royal apartments, a small paring knife, and two personal guards to 'protect' him at all times. Link found himself struck by Inglis' diligence.

"I shot you, didn't I?" Link said to the Hylian after he was led into the cell. "At the Sacred Grounds."

Inglis would not look at him, instead preferring to ponder the ground between their feet. Link saw that he was biting his lip.

"That you did," Inglis said. "Healed clean. Could have nicked my collarbone but you didn't."

"Well, Cinelgen got your revenge for you," Link chuckled. "Twice over."

In the Hylian's pained expression Link detected the hint of a smile.

"Look, I uh…" Inglis began, meeting Link's eyes for no more than a heartbeat. "I think you made the right choice."

Do you really? Before Link could speak, the Hylian had turned to leave, and he was left alone in his small sleeping cell. It contained little more than a bed, a desk and a chest, with no rug on its hard stone floor and no pictures on its plain walls. Through a tiny, unshuttered window, Link could see the staggered skyline of the Hebra Mountains, and the Divine Beast tucked among them.

"I'm sorry as well, Zelda," he said under his breath. "I'm sorry that it ended the way it did."

Maybe she had never cared for him. It didn't matter, as much as it hurt. Larella had the truth of it; in this new Hyrule, his priority would have to be to survive.

Link ran a hand through his hair. Matted, as it had been for a few days now. The dirt of the cell had woven its way into his hair, making his scalp itch and his neck tingle as the knotted tufts scratched at his nape.

Inglis' dagger in hand and his ponytail in the other, Link cut his hair above the leather tie that secured it, in a series of short, uneven hacks. The matted hair fell away, landing forgotten against the ground as outside, another snowstorm was approaching the Castle.

Link sat down by the window, and gazed out towards the mountains to watch the snowfall. He shook out his newly shortened hair and felt strangely at ease - welcomed by an unknown familiarity.

And then, the suddenness of it catching him off-guard, he laughed - a ridiculous, disbelieving laugh as he realised: this used to be my room.

Zelda gripped the railing so tight that the splinters dug into her skin. The evening snowfall of the night prior had given way to blistering morning winds, and so she had to brace herself against the railing while she waited for the Rito Warrior. As Teba had instructed, she had risen before dawn and clambered down the frost-covered spiral stairs to the Revali's Landing.

It was more than just the morning chill that shook her however. The song Kass had played for her the night before still looped in her mind, lingering and echoing, refusing to leave her be.

"You played this for him? Why?" she had demanded of Kass once he was done. She had been red with embarrassment, mortified by what she had heard.

"He deserved to hear his own story."

So he knew how I felt. He always knew.

Had the feeling been real? She could hardly remember. One hundred years of memory and dream - mixed with intensity of the past few months - had meant she was beginning losing parts of her life before the Calamity, just as Link had.

But the story in the song could never be forgotten; an ancient evil returning once again after 10,000 years; a Hero who laid down his life; and a Princess whose love for him had awoken the power needed to save their kingdom.

"That isn't his story anymore," Zelda had murmured. "He's lost too much of himself."

The bard had not been expecting such a negative reaction from her, and was almost distraught at seeing her weep. He'd wrapped a wing around her, and waited until her tears were finished to speak.

"You know, little sparrow. A teller of stories always dreams of meeting his subjects," Kass had said. "When I met Link, it felt as though my teacher's song had come to life. So I wonder if perhaps, our friend has been liberated and is at last his true self… and that it is the world that has changed."

And the world had indeed changed, Zelda reflected. It was not only ruin that pervaded Hyrule, but an aimlessness too. What was it that Cinelgen had said? The people are little more than leaves in the wind.

Zelda had never considered it; what it would be like to wake up in world as sparse as theirs, to know no one, and to know no purpose but to fight.

"I thought… I thought he was afraid of failing…" Zelda had said to Kass, understanding slowly forming in her mind. "But that wasn't it. Your song… your story told him he wouldn't fail. He's the Hero, and the Hero always wins."

"But what happens when the point is not to win?" Kass had added. "When it is person against person, when the monsters are hidden in plain sight? What kind of story is that?"

Zelda had shuddered through another sob, dazed by the sudden clarity."I was the only one he had who could understand. The only story he had was ours. But I told him it didn't matter. That I no longer cared. Those were among my last words to him, Kass."

"They need not be, not yet." Kass had reassured her. "You can still save him."

"How?"

"Teba." the bard had said firmly. "He will help you. He is a strategist through and through.

And so Zelda stood on the landing in wait of the warrior. She wrapped her hand tighter around the railing and looked towards the Castle. I shall wake every morning and look at it, she thought. To remind myself of his words. Courage. That is what I must have.

"I've been the biggest fool," Zelda told the Castle, and the boy within, needing suddenly to speak to him. "I thought I understood you. I thought I knew all there was to know about you. But I am-" she thought of the Sword waiting for her at the bottom of a ravine. "No - we, are coming to get you."

Another quarter hour passed before Teba arrived at the landing, talons clicking against the planks as he stalked purposefully onto the platform. An angular Rito bow was strapped to his back, the metal gears on its limbs catching the morning sunlight.

"Good morni-"

Teba cut off her pleasantries. "We'll go on foot. You'll keep up or I'll leave you behind. I'm not here to babysit you."

"Understood." Zelda gave a curt nod, feeling a little foolish as she spoke in her faux-deep voice. Are you sure about this, Kass? Before they set off, Zelda gave the Castle one last look.

Sit tight, Hero, she silently called to him, imagining that wherever he was, he might hear her. I waited one hundred years for you. You can wait a little while longer for me.