Chapter 35: Decisions
Having seen that slave Link could go back and forth between forms (albeit rather painfully) using his mask, I began to wonder if knight Link and I could do so as well. First things first, though. I walked up to slave Link and I put my hand on his shoulder in order to let him know that it was alright and that I was about to try mine. I also watched as knight Link did the same thing and walked over to his mask (the goron one) in order to put it on. Both he and I put our masks on at the same time.
I then understood why slave Link had screamed when he put his mask on. The unexpectedness of the intensity of the pain was what got both knight Link and me to scream (at least no one but the princess could hear us). When everything calmed down, though, we looked at ourselves and each other to discover that we did transform into a goron and a zora respectively. Sure, we were surprised, but it was less of a surprise than what it had been when slave Link had done it because we had half-expected it. There was a little bit of a silence before the two of us removed our masks, returning us to our true forms. Even more silence followed after that, but it was eventually shattered by the princess.
"Well, that's certainly a game changer! I understand your fear of these masks, especially considering how painful that looked, but I think you should take them with you. After all, they could be pretty useful if you use them correctly." I was hesitant to agree with her on that, but after thinking it over, I realized that she was right. It took a little bit longer for the other two to agree, but in the end, they did. So, the three of us took our masks and, after saying our goodbyes to the princess, we set off once again for this 'Gerudo Desert'.
For about three weeks, we travelled along according to knight Link's directions. I was honestly a little bit relieved when I found that snow was still covering the land. Then again, it was still the same day when we set out as when we had arrived… somehow. I had hoped that we would re-adjust to the ridiculously short amount of time that we had lost. Thankfully, we managed to accept it a little bit more as time went by.
However, we eventually approached an area of land where, as we went, there appeared less and less snow. Although, there were very few plants. Frankly, it got to a point where we were lucky if we even saw a single tuft of grass. I knew that knight Link had told slave Link and me that we were going to a desert, but I had always pictured a desert being more filled with cacti and things like that. Well, at least there was no snow. I may have been glad to see it after the ordeal with the masks, but that didn't mean that I suddenly liked the stuff.
Either way, a huge valley seemed to separate the rocky entrance to the desert and the sandy, main part of it. The valley was crazy deep and I was able to make out that the bottom was filled with water. Upon asking knight Link where the water was going, he replied that it was headed straight for Lake Hylia, which was directly connected to zora's domain. Thinking about it for a while, I came to the conclusion that when I had woken up in the mask-dream thing, it was there that I had woken up.
Coming back to reality, I saw that the bridge was down and there was a fence on the other side, preventing even a well executed (it would have had to have been from a horse or something like that) from getting the job done. Thankfully, though, slave Link had the idea to use his hookshot to get to the other side, especially if knight Link and I hung on to him. We had to get uncomfortable close to the edge of the valley in order for it to actually reach, though. If only it were a little bit longer, we wouldn't have any close calls like that. Oh well, it wasn't like there was anything we would do about it. Although, despite the shortness of the chain, it did the trick in getting us across to the other side of the valley and into the true beginning of the Gerudo Desert.