Zelda hadn't expected her knight to be knocked out till morning, and she certainly hadn't expected to spend the night in his room.
For the first few hours of watching over her drunk lover, she investigated his small bookcase for anything interesting.
She had previously heard that it wasn't a good idea to leave someone drunk by themselves, on the occasion they were sick or hurt themselves, she had heard at the very least. The most she knew about the state of inebriation was that the more alcohol someone consumed, the worse off they would be, but the only drinker she really knew was her father and he held his drinks well.
On the other hand, Link was the very opposite. She had never heard someone wretch so violently in her life.
Thankfully, the disgusting ordeal was entirely mess-free and he had ended up falling asleep right after, albeit on his bathroom floor, but she was thankful it wasn't with his head in the toilet.
She had only needed to drag him halfway across his room and up onto his bed and most of her efforts for that night had been lifting him off the floor, she was sure that it had to count as exercising.
Her knight had drunkenly thanked her a few times but she found that she understood very little of what he kept trying to say for the first hour she had brought him back to his room.
It was after he began snoring that her curiosity brought her to the bookcase.
Upon a first glance, despite the small amount of novels and tomes, she found that the subjects were quite diverse for such a small collection. She found books about different fighting techniques and weaponry, ranging from hand to hand all the way to guides on forging blades, to how-to guides of foraging, testing and identifying poisonous plants and species, and even found a small book about foreign architecture.
Well-read. She plucked one of the botany tomes and flicked it open, scanning some of the pages. Tucked between many of the chapters, she found small slips of paper with his detailed notes on the species in question, and she discovered that some slips contained information not detailed in the book, something that surprised her very much.
Placing it back in its spot, she picked another and found the same; small bookmarks and notes littered between the pages.
Her eyes eventually landed on a thin novel sitting between two of the thickest books, the title being unclear as to what subject it pertained to.
In the Air? What kind of title is that? She flicked it to no particular page and began reading the first few lines.
The ferocity of her words fed his desire more, her wanton sounds increasing. "Please, more!"
Zelda felt her face burn as she slammed the book shut and approached the bed. "Of course you have dirty books on display!" She smacked Link's arm lightly with the flimsy book, yet received no reaction apart from a silent groan from the sleeping knight.
Instead of putting away the book where it had first been taken, she pulled up a chair at his small coffee table, bringing her feet up on the chair and she flicked open to the very first page. "It's okay, he'll never know…" She mumbled as she began reading the sultry novel.
He did eventually find out in the morning, for he was the first one to wake up and notice a very ornate crown sitting next to his head on the bed, and Princess Zelda slumped over his desk, snoring softly with the book open on the table.
He took no time to wonder about the situation he was in before pain slammed into his brain, loud drums smacking against every corner of his skull, and his stomach somersaulting in every possible direction.
For once, he was glad that he woke up before the sun, he couldn't imagine the pain of sunlight on his poor eyes.
After lunch, Link had taken to dragging his colleague out of his office and down into the deeper, lesser travelled halls of the castle, and within 10 minutes of reaching their destination, both were sitting at a table, looking at a mysterious silver necklace on a table.
What was odd about it was the Sheikah symbol etched into the embellishment of the pendant charm of the thin silver chain. It glowed a deep blue and red that had Link wondering what in the hell he was looking at exactly.
"So… What is this exactly? Looks like a necklace." His colleague asked as he studied the item silently.
The other three in the room, two women and a man, were part of the Infiltration Division, a secretive department both captains had some familiarity with prior to their switch to the Royal Guard.
One woman, Sheikah in origin, was the first to speak up. "And it is a necklace, excellent observation, Bear. " She snorted, rolling her eyes.
"Why are we here?" Link muttered. He had a schedule to get back to. He and Zelda had to get ready for an expedition the next day and he was planning on mapping out their route prior.
The man of the trio approached and lifted the pendant by the clasp, showing both captains the piece. "Well, you remember your good friend Thompson, correct?"
"Not my friend, never will be." Link was quick to comment, remembering what had happened less than one week prior when they'd had their small fight in the field.
"Maybe I'll show Her Highness what a true Alpha is." Great goddesses, his blood was still boiling at the memory of that day, never had he ever wanted to break someone's nose so badly and so violently in his life. He had gone way too easy on him, too merciful.
"What about Sir Thompson? What does this have to do with him?" Barnabus cut Link off before he could speak up.
"When they brought him to the infirmary, naturally the doctor and nurse had to strip him down, and one of the nurses discovered this fascinating piece attached to him." Link and his colleague both leaned forward, attentive to the information now. "At first, they weren't going to remove it, but one of the nurses mentioned something interesting about presence."
"Presence?"
"Yes, presence." The Sheikah frowned as she took the charm into her hands. "As you're very familiar with this concept, when an alpha is introduced to heat pheromones, there's a physical and hormonal reaction that triggers in the mind, yours Fox, was through the roof understandably. You spent the entire day with Princess Zelda."
"And what does that have to do with anything?"
"Sir Jiran's charts had some noticeable changes, as did Lady Impa who had minimal contact with the Princess that day as did yours, Bear, and you were in contact for no more than half an hour, correct?"
"That is correct."
"That brings me to my next point. Sir Thompson had no physical change, nor had he a hormonal change."
"Excuse me?" Link stared at the woman incredulously. How did a knight who had spent almost three hours in contact with Zelda have no change whatsoever? It made no sense in his mind, but he imagined it was likely related to the pendant they were looking at.
"Sir Thompson had no presence in the infirmary. The nurse could not discern any scent emitting from the knight, but she could sense yours and Sir Jiran's."
"So what are you saying?"
The two women looked between each other and the pendant, confusion between their eyes. "Based off your report of the incident, we believe he may have been acting under separate orders unrelated to the Princess' safety."
"Separate orders? Like the Yiga maybe?" Link asked, reaching out and touched embellishment, taking it into his hands carefully.
The three nodded. "Within the charm, we've detected a liquid and a hidden needle." He turned the charm around in his hands, careful not to press or apply too much pressure. "I don't recommend you to ever touch the eye if you happen upon another, but when Sparrow touched it, her finger was pricked and out came a small drop of a brew."
"A brew?" Link passed the necklace to Barnabus, who turned it over in his hands.
"A potent mixture of Bloodshade, Nightshade, Chili, and electric Safflina. There's also an ingredient we haven't been able to figure out yet but all we can say is that Sparrow had a very unpleasant two hours."
"Unpleasant how?" The two captains shared a glance of uncertainty before setting the necklace down.
"Well, the least of her worries was the vomiting, difficulty breathing and massive amounts of sweating."
"Those were minor worries?!"
"And the biggest one was a very elevated heart rate along with an amputated arm."
"How elevated, if I may ask…" Barnabus asked, masking the horror from his voice poorly. Link wanted to wash his hands from the pendant, why had they even let them touch the thing if that was what happened by accident?
"Resting? Around 150 beats per minute."
"Why did you let us touch the damn thing, sweet Hylia, are you trying to kill us?!" Barnabus exclaimed furious.
"We've already extracted the needle and poison so it's relatively safe." The three deadpanned. "We wouldn't hand you the pendant in the same state it was when Sparrow first handled it, how dumb do you think we are?"
The two captains remained quiet, but the simple glance and point to the ceiling conveyed enough of an answer for the three to understand that they had to deal with enough of it on a daily basis.
"Moving on." Link coughed awkwardly, allowing them to continue.
"While its poison was designed to likely kill, it would seem that the pendant's primary use would be espionage actually." One of the girls smiled.
He watched two of the girls share a glance between him and themselves before continuing.
"We do have a strong suspicion about one thing."
"Go on…" Barnabus mumbled, curious to hear.
"We don't think Princess Zelda was the intended target of this."
With the way they looked at him, Link could already feel what words were about to come out, he could feel blood running cold in his veins.
"Who? Tell us."
"We think the intended target was you."
"It's nothing more than a day's ride, isn't it?" Zelda asked, looking over the map Link had placed on the table. "Revali did say he would meet us at the Tabantha stable, no?"
Link hummed, acknowledging Zelda. He was busy looking over and drawing out a potential route for their trip tomorrow. He had already drawn out their stops in Castle Town, the Breach, and the Bog from the Ridgeland area. The stable would be a quick ride from there, and should mostly have been calm.
They'd decided to seclude themselves in a private corner of the library with a map and the comfiest chairs they could find to plan out their trip. Planning provisions and the timings had been easy enough as always, storing their belongings inside the Sheikah Slate was a piece of cake.
"Oh I can't wait to get out again!" Zelda said excitedly in her chair, glee written across her face. It'll be so nice to finally get out and feel the breeze."
"I can't wait." He muttered, his eyes still glued to the map.
He hadn't realised just how glumly he had said those words, a smile not quite reaching his eyes as they usually would have, and by the sounds of it, the princess caught on immediately.
"What's wrong?" It was less of a question and more of a statement, Link found. Her green eyes bore into his with an intensity he usually didn't see. "You're usually thrilled to get out of these stuffy walls. What's wrong?" She continued to grill him.
"We think the intended target is you."
He wished he could stop thinking about those words, he wished he hadn't heard those words to begin with. He had aptly listened to their explanation of the crazy idea, and he hated to admit the fact that they made sense.
He was forced to think back at that moment. The two knights' focuses were on him rather than the princess– Well Sir Jiran had his focus on the princess but it wasn't terrible. He did admit that Sir Thompson's behaviour was the most baffling of the entire encounter. How hadn't he noticed that the bigger knight had tried to immobilise him rather than knock him out? How hadn't he noticed that he had been the one to be antagonised in a way that shouldn't have happened if the other knight had indeed been thrown into a rut? No, Sir Thompson had been too lucid at the time, he could think of no one who would threaten someone in such a way if they were preoccupied with that kind of hormonal charge.
And the fact that he had barely sensed them. He couldn't smell them at all, even when he was on top of them, he had only really detected Zelda at the time and he had assumed it was because it was her first presentation.
"Link, I asked what's wrong. Are you even listening?"
"It's nothing." He robotically answered to appease the woman.
"Nothing my ass!" He nearly jumped out of his seat at the profanity, her finger appearing right before his eyes as he shuffled back to avoid it. "Don't you start pulling those lies on me, Link. It's nothing, sure it is." She sat back into her chair with a huff and crossed her arms expectantly. "You're a terrible liar, I think I've told you this before."
And she definitely had told him this.
He looked around instinctively, looking to see if anyone had heard the outburst and breathed out a sigh of relief when no one looked their way. "Really, it's nothing for you to worry about," he mumbled, bringing his chair back to where it had been and fixing his posture.
"See, when you say it's nothing to worry about, and then you won't tell me what, it simply does the opposite, didn't you know?" She cocked an eyebrow and kept her stern glare.
What do I tell you? The Yiga are after both of us now? I'm worried they're going to get more violent? Sneakier? There's Yiga in the castle?
"You can tell me if someone's after you, Link, I'm not stupid."
Link's thoughts stopped dead in their tracks. Had he spoken out loud? Oops.
"No one's after me," he played it off, hoping he hadn't voiced his thoughts into the open by accident. He had never done this and he hoped he would start doing it.
"Sure, let's say I believe you, what's wrong then?"
"I'm just… not excited to see Revali, that's all."
He avoided her stare of suspicion by focusing back to the map, hoping she wouldn't notice. Despite looking away, he could feel the burn of her eyes on him as he refused to meet her eyes. "What did Revali do this time?"
"He's a prick, that's all. Back to this," he pointed to the map with his pen and hoped she wouldn't jump back. "I was thinking, maybe I'll assign an extra guard or two this time?" He attempted to sound confident, but he knew the confusion in his own voice wasn't as hidden as he'd initially hoped.
From a brief glance up, he could see her eyes deflate a bit, any excitement from earlier gone. Good job, jackass. He ignored the stabbing feeling in his gut as Zelda fixed the way she was sitting.
"So… It won't just be us then?" Goddess, he hated the way she sounded so disappointed. He wanted it to be them alone just as much as she wanted, but the words from earlier kept ringing in his ears.
"We think the intended target was you."
"There's been a bit more activity recently… I just want to be on the safe side." He hated himself for not being able to tell her that it bothered him. He wanted to tell her, but what good did it make if there were two people worried for each other's safety? His job was to make sure she was safe, after all.
"Oh alright… Which guard will be coming?"
"You choose," He tried to smile, but felt himself deflate at the visible disappointment and sadness in her voice, the damp smell of rain permeating in the air to bring on heavier notes of her misery.
"I need to go pick up something from the lab, I'll see you all later." Purah got up and left her share of money for the drinks and food they'd ordered earlier. "I left something the other day."
"Miss Purah, it's late… You should take someone with you." Cherry commented, taking a look out the window into the darkness of the night. "Perhaps Robbie and I can accompany you?"
"Won't stop you! Snap!" Purah exclaimed, heading outside with the two other sheikahs.
Each donned their riding cloaks and mounted their mares before leaving the eastern exit of Kakariko village and out into the open, leaving behind the village hidden by the steep mountains.
They rode into the night in silence, flying past Blatchery Plains and through the gates of Fort Hateno with only the sounds of crickets and local wildlife echoing through the night. before Robbie finally broke the silence. "Purah, I can't be the only one to have told you this, but you really shouldn't travel alone during these times." Their paces slowed as they approached the hills leading to Hateno Village.
"Oh there you go again! Don't you go all alpha on me!" She snapped back with a laugh. "I can handle myself just fine. Mr. Sota has already told me all about your little paranoia"
"It's not an alpha thing, Miss Purah. There have been too many Yiga sightings recently." Cherry commented back, looking nervously between Robbie and Purah.
"And if memory serves me properly," Robbie started. "You didn't excel in self-defence too well." Purah scoffed before laughing off their worries again.
"You should both relax or have you two become sticks in the mud like dear ol' Impa? No one's gonna come up and attack us out of nowhere."
"You know… Master Link has mentioned the increasing Yiga presence in the area."
"That report was three months ago, it doesn't matter anymore." Purah laughed off their mumblings and rode on past the bend entering the village. "Besides, how'd he even get a report on such a dinkie town?"
"Master Link hails from this 'dinkie town' , as you called it." Just as Robbie finished his sentence, they passed the entrance to the village where a farmer greeted them in the light of a small torch.
"You're kidding!" Purah grinned. "I wonder where he lives…"
"A short walk from here, actually." Robbie pointed out as they passed the dimmed Myahm Agana shrine. "His family always supplies us with ingredients for brewing."
"Oh right!" she couldn't figure out for the life of her how she could have forgotten such a fact, she had the same conversation less than three days before…
"Right…" the two other Sheikah deadpanned at her forgetfulness.
Arriving up at the lab, all three dismounted from the horses and watched in surprise at the front door flapped open in the wind.
"I think we've had unwanted guests."
"Relax, it's probably just the village kids as always." Purah said nonchalantly as she pushed the door open to the messy laboratory. As always, her notes were strewn across the floor, tables, and some pinned on her corkboard. Some of her books were thrown around carelessly much to Cherry's horror.
"Purah, do you eat bananas?"
Purah laughed as she turned to Robbie, who had taken only one step into the lab. Cherry had begun walking around the lab, carefully walking around papers on the floor.
"Bananas? They're bleh," Purah made a gagging face before turning back to her table and picking up a pile of notes. "Why do you ask?"
Robbie coughed awkwardly before pointing to the cleaner side of the room. "I'm surprised you haven't noticed… But there seems to be a banana peel sitting on top of the Guidan-"
A loud gasp could be heard coming from the director as she swiftly turned and witnessed the fruit peel sitting atop her precious Guidance Stone.
"They're dead! When I get my hands on them-"
"Mi-Miss Purah! Calm down! We don't even know who-"
"I don't need to know who to know that they're dead when I see them."
Robbie carefully stepped inside the lab, looking around the ceilings and the bookshelves. The place absolutely reeked of bananas, there was no other smell that could be identified from the place, it was almost nauseating. Choosing to ignore his fellow director's agonising and very colourful string of curses, he scanned the room, carefully scrutinising the room with Cherry.
A shimmer of red soon caught his eye as he approached a far bookshelf. Shifting one of the books aside, he plucked the small solid piece of red paper, instantly recognising the upside down Sheikah Eye.
If Robbie hadn't been suspicious before, he now certainly knew that the Yiga had broken into the lab at some point in the last week, and judging by the very brown banana peel, he was willing to bet that they had broken in very shortly after they had originally left.
How many times have they broken in in the last week? Robbie's senses were on high alert and Purah packed up her necessary equipment with the help of Cherry. He helped load the pieces and papers to his horse before stepping back into the lab alone while the two other Sheikah unstrapped their horses.
He inhaled deeply the smell of bananas, trying to locate where it had been the strongest. Of course, the Guidance Stone reeked due to the week-old rotting fruit atop it so he stepped away from that. His nose eventually led him to the bookshelf where he had found the card, and then to the table where a small brewing kit sat.
Why here? Robbie kept the thought in his mind as he looked around the table. Leaning beneath the table, his nose picked up another scent. A bitter smell that very much reminded him of wine. Moving some papers, he found three individually dried pieces of red fruit. He brought the lesser-dehydrated piece up to his nose, squishing the seed to squeeze out any juice he could, and quickly found his hand permanently stained with red. He cursed as he tried to wipe his hand, to no avail. What is this thing?
He shook his head in disappointment, taking the key and locking the front door securely before mounting his horse.
"What took you so long?" Purah asked, waiting expectantly for him.
"It's nothing." They set off down the mountain quietly before Robbie silently added: "Also, you're not coming alone anymore."
"That's so unfair!"
They later arrived at Kakariko Village unharmed just as the sun rose over the horizon.