Hey, another chapter!
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Now obligatory message out of the way...
Chapter Sixteen
The Divine Beasts
"WHAT?" I ask, astounded at the Zora prince's words.
"Yeah, that's right. We all have our divine beasts and people ready to become their next pilots." One of the Rito, a middle aged brownish red male named Clef answers.
"Who have you all selected to be the pilots?" I ask.
The leaders or representatives of the races look at each other, then back at me and Cedra answers.
"The Rito have chosen a female named Nala to pilot Medoh." Cedra pauses to take a breath, "The Gorons have selected one of their warriors, Darbus, to pilot Rudania. As for the Gerudo, the pilot of Naboris is myself." Cedra finishes.
"The Zora have selected me to be the pilot for Ruta." Ralis adds.
I don't say anything for a minute, processing this information. Ralis had been the name of the Zora prince in my lifetime as the hero of Twilight. That Ralis's mother, Queen Rutela, had been murdered by Zant when he began his assault on Hyrule. Darbus had been the leader of the Gorons at the time of my life as the hero of Twilight, he had been mutated and altered into the Twilit igniter Fyrus by the power of one of the fused shadows.
"Well…that's…not what I expected, that's for sure." Is all I can say in response, before adding, "I just kind of assumed the divine beasts would have been lost to time."
"That wouldn't have been hard to picture, given how many millennia it's been." Prince Ralis answers.
"Where are they?" I ask.
"We have Rudania deep within a volcano in the northwest part of this landmass." Darbus replies.
"We have Ruta in our domain." Prince Ralis adds.
"Medoh is on a large spire of rock above our village." Nala, who was mostly white but with black specks, speaks up.
"Naboris is near our town which is itself near the border between the central and coastal regions of this country." Cedra finishes.
"Hold on let me grab a large map." I request.
Coming back with it, I placed it on the table and flattened it out. My plan with this was simple, this way I could find out exactly where the beasts were, save for Ruta as it was in Zora's Domain somewhere in the Atlantic.
"Ok, Darbus, can you point to the volcano where you're keeping Rudania?" I ask the Goron who is Rudania's pilot.
"Sure." He points at St. Helens, why am I not surprised?
"I'll go next. Medoh is here." Nala says, pointing to a seemingly remote and uninhabited part of the Rocky Mountains.
"Naboris, and our town for that matter, is here." Cedra finishes, pointing at a location near the center of New Mexico.
"Thank you all for sharing this information, I shall deliver this information to my wife and we will begin making preparations regarding the divine beasts. All of you, return to your duties or whatever else needs your attention." I say, standing up.
Everyone else nods and disperses. Some of them make their way to the travel gate here at Camp Jupiter to go back to their settlements which had recently also received their own travel gates. I left the meeting area and began making my way to the house where my family and I were staying. Soon after our son's birth, the generous people of Camp Jupiter had built us a house here to stay in. They gave us every assurance that we were under no obligation to reside in it permanently. They understood that we would likely only want to stay here until this whole thing was over and Camp Half-Blood could be restored back to its former glory.
However, there had recently been a few murmurings going around. Murmurings of the people who would be best able to get everyone through this crisis, we didn't know where these mutterings came from originally, but they suggested my wife and I were the best people to get the world through this. My wife and I weren't comfortable with this, we didn't feel like we deserved that honor, it was bad enough that all the other races already responded to our presence with something almost akin to reverence. These mutterings were also countered by other people who, while not doubting our identities as the reborn incarnations of people of ages past, stated reluctance to blindly follow us, unless there could be some unquestionable proof of how the golden goddesses and the goddess Hylia themselves had chosen us to lead them. This was good for us, we liked that, we didn't want differential treatment. If it were up to me at least, we would choose to live a quiet, peaceful life raising our children.
Upon entering the house where my family and I were staying, I found my wife sitting in a chair nearby, reading a book. Ilia was sitting on the floor nearby, also reading a book. I didn't see our son, he was certainly napping in his crib. Considering this possibility, I quietly got my wife's attention, she looked over at me and followed me into another room.
"What's the deal?" She asked curiously.
"The other races just shared some particularly important information." I paused, then continued. "They have the divine beasts, all of them. They told me where each of them were as well. I told them to continue their preparations and that I would relay this to you so we could come up with a plan of action regarding them." I finish, keeping my voice quiet, to avoid waking our little one on the floor above us.
"Really?" Her emerald eyes widened at this.
"Yep; apparently Rudania is under St. Helens, Ruta is in Zora's domain, Medoh is by Rito Village somewhere in the Rocky Mountains, and Naboris is by Gerudo Town in New Mexico." I reply.
"I wouldn't mind checking them out!" My wife quietly exclaims, already fidgeting with excitement.
"I thought you might." I answer, withholding a chuckle at her obvious enthusiasm to see the divine beasts again. Goddesses, what did I ever do to deserve this beautiful and amazing woman?
"I'm so excited right now Link!" She just barely keeps herself from almost jumping about like a child who has just been given an entire plate of dessert.
"I can see that, in fact I'm sure we could bring Ilia and Michael with us." I say, finally chuckling a little now.
"Oh, Link that would be great!" She says gleefully, finally unable to hold back anymore and jumped into my arms. I almost lost my balance as she wrapped her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist, her weight slamming into my chest and almost knocking me on my back. Fortunately, I was a lot stronger than my slender frame would suggest and I was able to avoid a noisy and possibly dangerous fall onto my back.
I laughed quietly as I held my wife close to me as she pressed numerous kisses all over my face. If I hadn't already known, this would have told me how utterly excited she was. She did this same exact thing after she told me she was pregnant with our son.
"So, the divine beasts will be used again it would seem." I say softly, as my mouth is very close to her ear and I obviously didn't want to speak too loudly there.
"Yes, it would." She simply stated, now beginning to drop kisses against my neck.
My knees slightly wobbled now, that wouldn't do at all, if she didn't stop her affectionate onslaught or if I didn't get off my feet soon, we were bound to end up crashing to the floor. I shakily started to walk toward the doorway, my wife made no attempt to release her grip on me.
"Zelda." I say, voice carrying just the slightest warning.
"Hmm?" She hummed in question, not stopping what she was doing.
"You should at least wait a little bit before continuing that, I would hate to drop you." I say, struggling to keep my voice from wavering.
"Well we can't have that I suppose." She said with a slight pout.
I smiled to myself, it was at times like this, when she got so excited, that we were each reminded of how much we loved each other. It was funny actually; even though in this lifetime I was by no means completely silent and stoic all the time, there would be some truth to say that compared to each other, she was a ball of energy and I was a silent, thinking type. The excitable side that she was showing right now was exactly the same as the one she exhibited during her technology research in our last life.
Finally reaching our sitting room upstairs, after slipping past Ilia in the family room, I sat myself down in one of the large comfy chairs. I leaned back against the back of the chair, sighing softly as I settled in. My wife echoed my sigh as now that we were seated she didn't need to worry about a dangerous drop to a floor. She resumed her loving kisses, and now that we were in privacy I reciprocated. Yes, of course I loved my wife dearly, but I had noticed that she was far less hesitant to show this kind of affection in front of others, even our young Ilia. I always just shook my head in pretend hopelessness at that. As she continued with her kisses, her hands began to roam over my shoulders, chest, and face. My hands stayed fixed on her shoulders, unwilling to let my own desires spur me into extents that would make us embarrassed if we got spotted like this.
A couple weeks later, the plans had been made, we had arranged to visit the divine beasts and maybe even get them out of their current places. Although in Ruta and Rudania's case this could be a challenge as it would mean getting through huge quantities of rock. Ruta and Zora's domain were in a cavern under the ocean, while Rudania was deep inside St. Helens.
We went to Naboris first, Cedra had sent word ahead to Gerudo Town that we were coming. When we arrived there, things went without incident as the ban on voe, or men, having been lifted, at least for the time being. When we walked out into the desert, I saw no sign of Naboris. I looked at Cedra, confused. Wasn't Naboris supposed to be here? Cedra grinned and clapped her hands once, and right then Naboris rippled into view not far away. My wife and I gasped in astonishment, it had been cloaked, very clever indeed! A perfect way to hide it for sure! Ilia was staring at the divine beast in absolute amazement, she'd never seen anything like it. She'd only barely believed it was real before from the stories we'd told her.
The massive machine was kneeling on all fours, its head and neck curved down a little. Its lights were off, it was clearly in a dormant state right now.
"Have you been inside it yet?" I asked the Gerudo chief.
"Yes, I have, Naboris has taken a shine to me." She replied, with the distinctive accent of the Gerudo.
"Well then let's go!" My wife exclaims, almost twitching with anticipation of seeing the divine beast in action.
"Cedra, lead the way." I defer to her.
She takes the lead and we walk around Naboris to the back end of it, where the ramp is lowered to allow us access. I walk just behind my wife, our little son in one of those baby backpack things on her back, while I hold Ilia's hand as she walks beside me. Ilia is looking all around, utterly fascinated by what she's seeing. I can totally understand how she's feeling, I had almost the same reaction in my last life when I entered this machine to free it from the control of Calamity Ganon.
Our footsteps echo in the cylindrical center part of this divine beast as we approach the main control unit. Cedra comes up to it, places the thunderhelm on her head, and her mouth becomes a thin line as she concentrates. The darkened control unit lights up in blue, followed by a deep rumbling hum. We feel a slight vibration as Naboris rises to its feet, Ilia looking around in awe, Michael makes some little sound. We make our way to one side of the central cylinder of the divine beast, near to one of the staircases attached to the wall.
Cedra focuses and the section begins to rotate, the staircase lowering and tilting until it is vertical. We walk in front of it and then Cedra makes it rotate back the other way, when it comes up to us we keep our footing as it slides against the wall until it is flat enough for us to stand on. We then head over to the side to one of the outer observation areas on the side of Naboris. We head up to one of the rooms that made up the "humps" of Naboris. Here we have a clear view of the entire area, Cedra notifies us just before she makes the divine beast begin to move.
Naboris begins to walk forward, the ride being surprisingly smooth even though from the outside it looks extremely bouncy from how the legs shake upon coming down to the ground after each step. It was curious though, although this divine beast was made long ago and I had no recollection of camels in any of my other incarnations, this divine beast exactly replicated the appearance and walking pattern of that animal. The same was also true with Vah Ruta and elephants. For the next couple hours Cedra drove Naboris around, taking it in turns, straight lines, and various directions, just getting the hang of the divine beast.
The next divine beast we visited was Medoh, getting up to it was a bit of a challenge as the rock spire it was on was very tall and smooth sided. The only way to get up there was if one had wings, so to make up for that, Nala gave us a lift up there one at a time. Kind of like how Teba did in my last life. Luckily the cold didn't bother us really, as we had made sure to purchase warm clothing beforehand. These Rito-made snowquill clothes were really good at keeping one warm. Fortunately, the Rito also happened to have them in infant size so we didn't have to worry about our little boy getting hypothermia up here.
As Nala fired up Medoh's propellers and lifted the divine beast into the sky I again marveled at this. I had always been impressed by this particular machine ever since I remembered it in this lifetime. Why? Because with my understanding now of how the larger something is, the harder it is to keep airborne. My point is that Medoh's propellers shouldn't possibly have been able to keep it in the sky but they did all the same. Nala steered the divine beast around in circles, quickly learning Medoh's little nuances.
Our visit to Zora's domain and Ruta proved to be a bit more exciting, getting it out of the cavern that covered all of Zora's domain would be a pickle. At least we thought that it would, apparently the golden goddesses themselves saw fit to make our dilemma easier to solve by literally raising the entire cavern up out of the ground and above the ocean surface. For the first time in thousands of years, the stone ceiling above the domain was taken away and sunlight shined down on the bridges and walkways of the Zora's home. Fortunately, the wide stretch of ocean nearby posed no problem for Ruta, it was capable of being completely submerged after all.
Prince Ralis was ecstatic and full of optimism. His budding excitable nature as well as his growing admiration for me was really starting to remind me of his ancestor Sidon. He'd done the exact same thing, no joke.
Lastly, there was Rudania. The Gorons took us to the location under St. Helens, luckily for my family and I, they had given us several fireproof elixirs. My wife, daughter, and I didn't need them as we could wear the flamebreaker sets they had. However, our little son was too small for any of the special armor, hence the elixirs. This way we could ensure he would survive the heat without the benefit of special garb to resist the scorching temperatures. Upon reaching the divine beast, we realized how difficult it would be to get it out of here. We were miles underground, with millions or maybe even billions of tons of rock above us. I didn't exactly like the situation but the only way I could think of to get it out of here was to have it come crawling and punching out through the top of the volcano.
Darbus agreed with this and then urged us inside Rudania as he began piloting it up the throat of St. Helens. Inside the divine beast it was far cooler, enough so that we could take off our flamebreaker garb and get relief from the heat from earlier. Rudania gave a croaky roar as it began to climb straight up, we repeatedly heard the sound of boulders slamming against the exterior of the divine beast. For what felt like hours we sat there listening to the rumbling and crashing as Rudania ascended through the volcano's throat. Finally, after what felt like forever, Darbus called out to us that we were nearing the top. That meant we were close to the dome that had formed in the caldera after its catastrophic eruption. I suppressed a laugh at the sudden thought of how Rudania's ascent through the volcano would have freaked out mortals if they were still monitoring the sensors on the mountain.
Upon reaching the underside of the plug in St. Helens' throat, Darbus powered up the beam, the plates of Rudania's "face" opening up like a flower. There was really no other way to get past this obstruction after all. The beam fired, rock screeched and scraped and boulders collided and slammed against the hull of Rudania. I did wonder if the beam continued into the open sky above St. Helens. With the throat now opened, the divine beast climbed out into the sunlight for the first time in many thousands of years. Darbus piloted Rudania up the caldera wall until it was perched on the lip, overlooking the land below. Rudania tilted its head back a little and released another croaking roar.
"WA-HOO!" Darbus cheered, punching the air with his fist.
"Well done Darbus!" Zelda congratulated him.
"Thanks!" He replied.
It was later that day, about two weeks after we started our visits to the divine beasts, that my wife and I both had an idea. We suggested it and everyone agreed with it, we needed to hold a ceremony for the pilots of the divine beasts. They were to be officially appointed as our champions.