Chapter 18
The Wolf awoke to pain and strange smells, foreign smells, smells of beasts and fire.
He tried to open his eyes, but the left one refused to heed his command. Something was keeping it closed, and he pawed at it, willing to remove the obstruction. His paw, he saw, was not his own. It had long fingers and dull, milky nails crusted with dirt and blood. It was attached to a thin, bare arm streaked with muscle strands. Where were his claws, his fur, his cracked black pads?
What happened to me?
The Voice of Reason spoke within him and asked the appropriate question, but he could not offer an answer. The beastly smell was foreign and revealed nothing. He had trouble seeing. A warm pressure restricted his moves and forced him to arch his back until the tightness was tossed away. A whine escaped him as the pain in his head flared up.
"Link," someone murmured, hopeful.
The voice, although familiar, startled him. He looked around to find the speaker, but when a black hand draped over his face, he yelped and twisted away. The ground became the ceiling, tilting like the snow that had caught him, until he tumbled painfully onto his side and felt coarse fibres beneath his body. They scratched and itched, and he pedalled to get off of them. The black hand once more seized him, and he bared his teeth, growling.
Is it Midna? Where is she? Is she safe?
He couldn't see, so the Voice of Reason was left without an answer once again. All he knew was fear and pain. That black hand would make the pain worse, he knew it. It had done so before, in a fever dream he could remember all too well. It could not be trusted.
"Link, calm down, you're hurt!"
Then a purr sounded above, followed by the beast smell intensifying. A brown paw scooped him up and pressed him into sheep's wool, incredibly soft and squishy. And hot. The heat burned him, made him squirm and jerk in fitful tries to escape. He bared his teeth, his laughable teeth only good for chewing that soft Human food. He bit at the monster, but only got a mouthful of wool. It squeezed harder.
Another purr rumbled across him in an undoubtedly female pitch. Its vibration went through every fibre of his being and soothed the fight out of him. He melted into it, until those eyes that were not his own began to water. Relief washed over him. It was raw, physical relief, that of a cocoon or a nest, spelling safety only an animal could comprehend. And he did. For he was hurting, afraid, and lost, but had found someone who could keep him safe.
Holding on to that feeling, nestled into the beast's velvety wool, the Wolf fell back asleep.
0
Link felt cold despite the many layers of wool blankets covering him when next he awoke; it was a floating, numbing cold, the kind leaving him with an unpleasant feeling of disconnection. He coughed, a rough hacking feeling too much like his lung sickness from the Lakebed Temple, and he sighed out a pained groan.
But the pain reached through his clouded mind and brought a level of lucidity back to it. Pain meant danger but also function, healthy nerves that fired their warnings and demanded his attention. His heavy lids lifted and his eyes finally focused on a wooden ceiling with a russet tapestry cascading from its edges, faded paintings assorted around the darkened room. A velour backrest half-leaned over him to his right. Firelight flickered and created a play of dancing shadows around him. The light hurt his head, but he accepted the discomfort with a manner of relief.
"I'm alive," he muttered.
"Link?"
Midna's voice rang out to his left. He found her hastily getting up from an old, lush carpet and hurrying to his side. She had a hole-riddled blanket draped around herself that held a musky smell.
"Can you hear me?" she asked.
"Of course, I can," he mumbled, and was saddened to admit that her high-pitched voice strummed his nerves unpleasantly. His head felt like it had exploded, and what remained of his skull surely was a messy crater of shattered bone and scattered brain matter. He stretched his chin skyward so he could roll his head around; still intact, still whole.
"Good, because when you woke up last time you were… I don't know… You didn't know I was there and acted all panicky."
"I did?"
He remembered only flashes of memory; stifling heat, strange springy softness, his inner voice muffled and far away as if locked inside a wooden box. What he recalled vividly, however, was the terror of being cornered, held down against his will with no understanding of where he was or what had happened.
But through it all, mightier even than the animalistic panic that had threatened to overtake him, was a feeling of exuberant trust, hope, and relief. If only he could recall what had made him feel that way.
He swallowed and tasted metal. His throat felt like sandpaper.
"I don't really… How did I… What happened, exactly?"
"We were hit by an avalanche, remember? It threw you against a tree and you passed out. You hit your head pretty bad."
Avalanche, yes. Things were coming back to him. He lifted a hand and gingerly touched his temple, but was briefly distracted by his arm's appearance; it was chequered with patches of bruising, and an inner soreness clung to it that made his bones feel as brittle as pottery. His other arm looked similar. When he managed to straighten and gaze down at his bare torso, he was stunned silent. So many bruises…
"Sweet Hylia…"
"Do you feel any breaks?" Midna asked while gently touching his arm and his lower back, feeling along his spine with utmost care. "Can you move your legs?"
"I'm fine," he replied and demonstrated by swinging his legs over the bed—armchair? No, sofa—he was sitting on. His stomach gave an unpleasant lurch. His head pounded harder. Careful prodding on his torso suggested one or more cracked ribs.
Goddesses, why do I keep putting myself in these situations? Just as I was beginning to… figure things out.
"How long was I out?" he asked, both for Midna's and his own distraction.
"A day, maybe? And you really shouldn't get up yet."
"It's only a matter of time before the others follow the reekfish scent and find the Yeti. I have to reach the Mirror before then."
"You're in no state to walk around, let alone fight. Just look at your face, Link."
"My face?"
She stepped back and pulled a wooden bucket sitting by the roaring fireplace closer to him; a few floating clusters of waterlogged slush inside suggested she'd been melting snow in it. He was about to congratulate her on her resourcefulness when his attention was drawn to the face that appeared on the surface.
It was like that of a ghoul; swollen eyes rimmed with indigo, giving him the appearance of a shocked raccoon. More half-moon bruising behind his ears, with traces of dried crusting below the ear canals and nostrils where blood had leaked into his hair and across his cheeks. A split lip, a bandaged temple, the gauze clearly fresh but already dark and moist where it had soaked itself to the breaching point.
He knew what some of the signs meant. Especially the raccoon eyes; young Talo tumbling from the barn loft as a toddler, his eyes like two hard-boiled purple eggs from internal bleeding, Uli monitoring the wheezing babe in their living room, suggesting the possibility of a fracture…
He carefully reached two fingers up and around his long left ear and buried them in the thick mat of his hair. He felt along the scalp and the bruise there, applied gentle pressure that was accompanied by a deep ache as if a chisel had been driven into his skull. He wasn't entirely certain, but he thought he could feel the hard plate give way just slightly. It drove a shiver down his spine.
He steadied his breath, lowered his arm, and focused once more on Midna who was calling to him.
"Huh?"
"I said those bruises weren't there when you woke up yesterday. Do you know what it means?"
He heard the panic in her voice trying to surface, trying to find a horror it could cling to. "Do you?" he asked back.
"No, I'm sorry. Maybe you got hit around the eyes when you struck the tree, too?"
Good, she doesn't know.
"Yes, that's likely what happened," he assured her, working his way back onto the large sofa. "Bruises don't always form instantly. Some take a day to appear. That's what happened with my eyes. It'll go away very soon, I'm sure."
He tensed, expecting a sassy remark from the Wolf's buried compound, a grunt telling him he should not lie to his friend, stick to the truth, get the rest and immobility he needed to heal the fracture…
No thoughts rang in his head but his own pushing him to protect her from this potentially morbid development. His mind was too silent, too lonely.
"I can't feel the Wolf," he muttered, gritting his teeth against the fear rising in him once again. "Was I a wolf when I…" He paused, racking his hurting brain for more memories. All was fuzzy and muted.
"When the avalanche caught us? Yes. What do you mean, you can't feel it? Is it… gone?"
He mentally reached out to probe his mind, search around where he usually felt its breathing, heard its thoughts, felt its feelings. He called out to it, begging for a sign of life.
Still, no reply from his spiritual twin. Perhaps it had done more than protect him. The nausea he felt was coupled, amplified, by his deep unease. Did it die so I could live?
A sound like a banging door rang from outside the room, followed by shuffling footsteps.
"Link, I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation—"
"Where are we?" he interrupted her, gazing across the unfurnished room, listening to the gentle thudding nervously. He would have to postpone his search for his canine companion, for that thudding couldn't be good. The room he was in looked unfamiliar, like an empty chamber of royalty furnished only with that blood-red sofa and carpet and illuminated by the fireplace. Had Midna brought him back to the Amauger residence?
"Did they find us? What is this place?"
"We're in some sort of house, or castle. You remember the Yeti who brought us here?"
"What? Yeti?"
The thudding had reached the door behind him. It swung open and the space was filled with a massive woolly frame. It stomped into the room, nostrils flaring, leaving a trail of melting snow in its wake. The face that turned to him reminded him of a demon mask, complete with boar fangs reaching from a large mouth and wide eyes gawking. Link felt himself grow very, very small and very, very tired. So tired that he almost lost control of his spine and toppled backwards over the sofa's rigid armrest. Midna's hand settled on his shoulder to steady him.
"Yeto was the one who brought us here," she assured. "He wasn't tainted by the Mirror as we thought. He's actually really friendly."
"Y-Yeto? He's…the…"
"Yeta!" the monster called. The barrel chest amplified its voice until, to Link, it sounded like a roar that made his head hurt. "Yeta, see! Little Human awake!"
The enormous furry body whose capped head—was that really a saddle?—scraped the high ceiling, was pushed aside, and in waddled a second much shorter monster. It looked like an oblong snowball covered in white wool that poofed up around it and hooded its face, which sprouted smoother brown velvet. Soft green eyes narrowed with delight, and a fanged mouth opened in an unsettling, very human grin.
"Ordona, help me..." Link gasped, pressing himself into the backrest when the poofy snowball toddled towards him.
"Rrrrrrr," it purred, grinning wider. "Yeta and Yeto worried for little Human. Couldn't get to wake. But better now, uh. Little Human cold, come to Yeta where is warm."
Its voice was high-pitched, feeble, and definitely feminine. Link shook his head, only realising the creature—just like the larger one—had actually spoken when she cocked her head and pointed at his body.
"Shivering, uh. Not cold?"
"She won't hurt you, Link," Midna said, smiling. "She's been keeping you warm while you slept. You seemed to enjoy it."
"Huh?" He shook his head again, the nausea building with the mindless lateral movement. His hand draped over his heaving belly in the hopes of staving off the urge to throw up.
The female Yeti again misinterpreted his reaction. "Little Human hungry? Want soup?"
"No, thank you," Link stammered, but the thought of food caused his empty stomach to give itself away with a loud, embarrassing growl. He felt his cheeks grow red as the beast grinned once more and turned to the larger one.
The big monster looked at Link with his large saucer eyes, chops pulling back once again in a wide grin that made its fangs twitch. "Human eat Yeto's soup. Feel better! Baby want too?"
"I had some earlier, thanks," Midna answered. "And I'm not a baby, Yeto."
Nodding, it trudged back into the other room, giving Link time for just the barest glance at a large stone cauldron that once might or might not have been a Goron's crucible. The fur blocked the operation from view, but he presumed the beast-man was scooping the cauldron's content into a bowl or something similar.
Meanwhile, the female trundled to the far side of the sofa close to the fireplace and hopped on with a grunt of effort. Her weight, which seemed to be considerable, made the entire divan creak and dip. Link felt his hips tilt sideways and held on to the armrest before he slid down towards her.
The larger Yeti inched backwards into the sofa room and turned, proffering two copper pots that had had their handles amputated. As if on cue, Yeta began coughing violently, beads of nasty looking saliva pelting the sofa's backrest as she turned away to spare Link from a germy shower. He looked at her worriedly while she plopped onto her back, gasping and moaning.
"Oh, yeah, almost forgot," Midna murmured. "She's quite sick. Yeto told me it started after he brought the Mirror piece here. Apparently it's been like this for over a month."
"Yeta okay?" Yeto asked with obvious concern as he set down the two pots, patted her head, and rearranged the cushy pillows around her.
"Yeta fine, Yeto not fuss," the female beast puffed and clung to the sofa to pull herself back up. "Oh, blast, Yeta ruin sofa. Bad host." She set about rubbing off her spittle from the backrest, visibly holding back more coughing. The effort shook her like electric shocks.
"Wife no worry, Yeto will clean. Eat, Yeta. Human too. Need strength."
The Yeti first handed the female her pot, then shoved Link's portion into his hands none too gently. From the pot, a familiar pungent fish smell arose that stung Link's nostrils. Yeta began slurping her soup with visible delight, purring in between gulps. Her coughing gradually subsided.
Link glanced at Midna and whispered, "Did you have any?"
"Yes, it's pretty good. And I didn't die from it yet, so… it's safe?"
With Yeto's eyes fixed on him—eyes that were larger than his palm—Link thought it wiser to just give in. Dying from food poisoning seemed like a better option than being disembowelled and eaten alive by a hungry Yeti—which was what Yeto's eyes seemed to promise if Link did not comply.
The soup was piping hot and, to his surprise, rather tasty. It did not have much in the way of seasoning, but the salmony fish flavour was intense enough to make his eyes water. He found himself wolfing down most of it until he began to feel sick. Groaning, he set the pot aside before it could tumble from his hands.
"Maybe you shouldn't have eaten so fast…" Midna said unhelpfully.
"Human not like?"
The Yeti looked comically disappointed, and Link felt the need to ease the beast's mind with a polite reassurance, but his head had begun to spin and throb, needles of pain assailing it. He felt dizzy and disoriented.
"Little Human no fur, like puppy. Come here where is warm."
The female handed Yeto her pot before stretching out arms that had formerly been completely buried in her fluff of white fur, and placed her fuzzy hands on Link's upper arms. The raw woollen heat that radiated from her was as intense as the hearth behind them but without the charring sting that accompanied a fire. Link's first instinct prompted him to lean away, to get out of this large beast's grip.
"I'm okay," he wheezed.
"But has no fur."
"I have my clothes and the blanket," he retorted, pulling the sheet around himself more firmly to make his point.
But Yeta would have none of it and scooted closer on her considerable behind until Link was about to spill over the armrest. Goaded by Midna's giggles in the background, Yeta used her superior strength to practically smother him within her fur, purring all the while like an oversized cat.
"Midna?" he wheezed, searching for her.
"Finally I don't have to worry about you getting up and being stupid," Midna chuckled, now dissolved within his shadow. "Just rest some more. We'll look for the shard in the morning."
Head pounding, barely able to breathe, Link resigned himself to his fate. Yeta's wool all but buried him in lulling heat while her gentle purring resonated within his aching body. He was faintly aware of the male Yeti giving the female a soft head butt before he trundled back into his kitchen, humming quietly to himself. It was clear no help would come from that side, either.
The food had a narcotic effect on Link and made him drowsy. Soon, he felt his eyelids droop.
And there it was again, the same feeling of solace and utmost relief that had broken through his panic and freed him from the Wolf's reeling mind before. He remembered it now; it had come from Yeta's warmth, her relentless, constricting hug. And, although he wished he could sleep in his own little corner on the large sofa, he couldn't help but admit that he felt comfortable. Sheltered. And surprisingly safe.
Quiet, barely a presence but awoken by her tenderness, he heard the Wolf rumble happily in his mind. It was back.
0
Link had not expected that much trouble to find the Mirror shard's monster amidst these opulent stairwells, palatial halls, and innumerable frozen chambers.
Packed in a thick blanket with small crocheted pillowcases tied to his feet, Link stomped along in front of Yeto across the many rooms and marvelled at old frosted paintings, icy wood carvings, and marble floors swept with heaps of crystalline snow wherever the roof had caved in. By now he had seen the building from outside, with its curved gable and impenetrable stone walls, and deduced it was a stately house—or perhaps a manor—he had woken up in. But the estate looked more akin to a fort than a noble family's residence flaunting high battlements, a guard tower, and a square courtyard packed with artillery. Its inside had been designed as a convolution of rooms, stairwells, broom closets, halls, and corridors that left him grateful for Yeto's company to guide him back to Yeta's cosy living room.
"Let's go out on the battlements, maybe we'll find something we missed," he said, pushing hard against the double door to free the latch of its icy lock, holding it open for the large Yeti to pass. His chin went into a jittering fit when the freezing wind from outside pelted his exposed face.
"Maybe you should call it a day, Link," Midna said from below him. "You're…"
"Link leaking again," Yeto finished and pointed at the Hylian's face. Link stopped, sighed, and retrieved a handkerchief which he dabbed at his bleeding nose, adding another rusty stain to its crisp linen.
"Yeto sorry for snow river," the beast man said, as he always did when Link's healing fracture made itself known through leaks and resurging bruises. "If Yeto left mirror in cave, Humans not be angry. Wife not be sick. Link not be leaking."
"It's not your fault, Yeto, you didn't know how dangerous it was."
Yeto grunted and plodded out into the whistling wind. The blizzard had barely calmed after four days of relentless tempest, swathing the northern mountains in flurries of white powder. It was out there, alright. Somewhere, drifting around them, mocking their efforts to locate it. Link could feel malice in the air. The Mirror was playing with him.
He did not need to be an expert to know the manor had seen better days and had likely been abandoned for decades. A wealthy Hylian family had once resided within it, he suspected, judging by the coat of arms he kept finding on pillars and walls. He had stared at it for a while, traced the gold and cyan helm wrapped in wreaths of feathers and half-concealed behind two crossed sabres, and wondered if he'd seen a similar symbol somewhere in Castle Town before. Lacking a schooled eye for heraldry, they all looked the same to him.
What he could tell from his perusing, however, was that the manor had been outfitted with an unusual amount of weaponry. Swords, battleaxes, shields, maces, and lances of unnatural dimensions were strewn across the walls or within racks. Deeper in the building he had come across an armoury that had completely frozen over, but its treasures were still visible behind thick sheets of ice. The crowning military prizes were enormous, bulky suits of armour that flanked the main doors and towered over him nearly twice his size. He could not imagine whoever—or whatever—these suits had been made for. The closest match he could think of were Gorons, a concept that was instantly negated by the frigid region this manor sat in. Gorons had one terrible weakness, and it permeated this house like a haunting entity.
And if, for some unfathomable reason, this family had once attempted to enlist Yetis in their military endeavours, Yeto's bulk was too big even for these suits. Yeta could potentially fit into it, but she was the gentlest soul he'd ever met, hardly material for titanic battles. Unless he had vastly misjudged her, but he doubted it.
According to the Yeti couple, the Mirror shard had been taken somewhere into the manor by a monster lurking in its depths, but where exactly was yet another mystery Link would have to solve. Both snow dwellers, thankfully, had been resilient enough to fend off the Mirror's aura and keep their minds intact, and only Yeta had been plagued with a virulent sickness she couldn't yet shake. They offered their help whenever they could.
"Bad monsters live in house," Yeta would warn him each time Yeto, Midna, and he set out for another search. "Monster take Mirror, take it elsewhere, uh. Link be careful."
Monsters were indeed plentiful. Link had come across some keese, the same batlike monsters that also bred in deeper Faron, and white Wolfos that barked and growled at him whenever he set foot into the courtyard. A particular encounter had almost speared him on a lance-like icicle that an unknown bipedal ice monster wielded like a javelin. Yeto had stepped into the icicle's path and caught it on his nigh impenetrable Yeti fur, giving Link enough time to draw the Master Sword and cleave it in half. But his head wounds still left him dizzy and disoriented more times than he felt comfortable with, and the splitting headache persisted even a week after he had been brought to the ruins in Yeto's arms. But things had to get particularly hairy, or the cold too harsh, for him to sound a retreat to Yeta's cosy living room. He refused to stop the search unless he absolutely had to. Yeta's well-being, her life, depended on him finding that Mirror shard. Her condition was worsening with each day that passed by.
"Link, what are these prints?"
Midna emerged from his shadow and squatted by the battlement ramparts, pointing a finger at the ground. Yeto and Link crowded around her.
"Really big feet?" Link asked, suddenly hopeful.
"Not from Yeto," the Yeti replied.
"And here, skid marks made by something thin and heavy," Link continued. "A chain, maybe?"
"Where does it lead?"
Yeto straightened and peered into the distance, shielding his eyes with one enormous hand. "To bedroom."
The central tower's upper level, the Yetis' former bedroom, was the only place in the manor they hadn't been able to enter. Yeto had tried, in vain, to throw his weight against the massive metallic door leading into the central tower, but for once the beast-man was vanquished by Hylian architecture. It was clear the door had been reinforced, perhaps on purpose, to fend off large predators. A key to the building existed, according to Yeta, but the female Yeti had lost it after the Mirror monster's first attack. Link so far hadn't been able to jog her memory enough to find it. And though the tower had a row of tall windows, they were too high up even for Yeto to reach. The snow dweller had once chucked a twelve-pounder at one, shattering it and potentially gaining them access, but nowhere had they found a ladder long enough to reach. And Link had drawn the line after Yeto proposed to chuck him through the window.
"Such plushy bed inside," Yeto had enthused with a sigh. "Too bad Yeta lost key. She remember soon, Yeto sure."
Midna had solved the mystery, and at least part of the problem, by simply using the shadows to slip beneath the door. According to her, the room was particularly cold, even more so than the rest of the manor. Yeto's prized four-poster, massive armchairs, over-whittled end tables, a vanity half-covered by a collapsed banner, and more decorative suits of armour, were all covered in a thick layer of frost. But she'd felt no malicious aura, no magical touch anywhere within the room. And the cold had driven her out before she could summon up the willpower to look around more.
Midna used Yeto's shadow to climb up onto his shoulder and gazed into the wintry haze surrounding the central tower. "No, the prints lead past it, I think, down the battlements towards the storerooms below. Should we have another go at them?"
Link pulled his blanket around himself tighter, running a finger below his nose and coming up clean. "I can manage another hour. Yeto?"
"Baby right, steps lead to things rooms. We go."
Link giggled as Midna erupted into yet another argument with Yeto. "For the last time, I'm not a baby!"
"Small, puny, like baby—"
"Midna, my name is Midna!"
"Mida."
"No, Midna!"
"Baby easy for Yeto to speak."
"I don't even look like a baby!"
"Eeehh," he grinned and rocked his splayed hand like a teetering scale, earning himself a half-slap he barely avoided. "Careful, concussion victim here!"
"I'll give you a renewal if you keep messing with me!"
The storerooms below the central tower were also the main access point to the dungeons. Link's first instinct had been to search through them on his first day out and about, but except for more weapons and a stack of oversized armours, they had yielded no results. Still, the prints were a good start, and with Yeto by his side, he felt practically invincible. Monsters barely fazed the large beast man, and even Wolfos were considered nothing but a minor inconvenience when they nipped at his ankles, as Yeto referred to their bites. Link might have had to give up the backup promised by Auru, but it had been replaced with, in his opinion, a much better alternative that wasn't bothered by monsters and didn't question the purple-hilted sword on his back nor the faded mark on his left hand. And the best thing yet: they needed only a few words to understand each other. When Link said smash, Yeto smashed. When Yeto said soup, Link eagerly held out his amputated copper pot for a refill of the fishy brew, the ingredients of which, thankfully, changed every other day depending on what Yeto could scrounge up during his forage hunts. When Link assured the creature his head was fine and he didn't need pampering, Yeto simply shrugged and nodded ahead, waiting for Link to take the lead.
To reach the central tower they had to cross the courtyard, which today was guarded by just a pair of Wolfos. Link drew his sword and readied himself while Yeto scooped up an armful of snow and launched a snowball with the might of a trebuchet shot in their direction. It crushed the first and prompted the second to growl and vault toward them. Yeto was too slow to intercept it, and Link stumbled in his attempt to step out of the way of its attack. He twisted more than his spine was comfortable with to land a strike on its back. Responsive as ever, the Master Sword sliced through the frozen skin and shattered its spine, allowing Yeto to finish it off with a vicious kick.
Link took a moment to blink away the dizziness, then grunted at Yeto and stepped into the central tower's ground floor.
"Link leaking again," Yeto announced. "Ears. Sorry for snow river…"
Sighing, Link rubbed at his ear canal with his handkerchief, ignoring Midna's quiet plea that he should take a rest and Yeto's hundredth apology for the avalanche.
"The ground was wet here," he announced, looking at the grimy cobbles that showed faint footprints cast in moulds of ice. "It came through here and headed to the dungeons."
They walked on through the corridor past the armour stands that stood in a row to their left and right. Racks filled with maces and iron flails lined the round tower walls. While Yeto looked longingly at the ceiling—likely thinking of the cosy bed on the floor above them—Link and Midna followed the ice trail until they were blocked by a crate filled with twelve-pounder cannonballs.
"That's strange," Midna said. "It stops here, doesn't even reach the staircase to the dungeons. Does that mean that it stood here, waited to dry off, and then walked on?"
Link frowned as he crouched low to inspect the floor. "Could you pass me the torch over there?" he said.
Midna returned with the torch and Yeto in tow. The beast-man looked troubled. "Smell strange here, Link. Like goat cheese."
Link looked up at the Yeti apologetically while he held the torch out for Midna to light it. "Sorry, can't help you there, Yeto. Your soup entirely obliterated my sense of smell."
"He's right," Midna interjected. "Smells like sweaty feet." She thankfully didn't catch on to the fact that she'd been eating just as much reekfish soup as Link had, and her nose was clearly fine. That damn fracture is crippling me in more ways than I thought. But as long as she doesn't know, she won't worry…
Link groaned as he tilted his head, the move augmenting the pressure on his sore skull. His flame, however, revealed an interesting find; the subtle water trail continued past the cannonball crate until it reached the base of one of the armours. He paused, leaning in further, and touched the suit's boots. Wet. Not even iced.
He slowly ran his eyes up the bevelled plate armour, past the plackart and breastplate, the gorget at its neck covering the mail shirt underneath, until he had to stand on his toes to look at the visor. A breath of steam blasted into his face. Two glowing red eyes stared back at him angrily.
"Back, quick!" he shouted and drew his sword when the suit of armour shook with sudden movement. It growled through the thick helmet covering its head and stepped forward, reaching into one of the racks to retrieve a flail. With brute savagery, it hurled the spiked ball in his direction.
"Watch out!" Midna screamed, shooting for Link's shadow just as he dove for the ground and rolled away. A flash of pain erupted in his skull, rendering him briefly blind with dizziness.
"MONSTER NOT HURT LINK!" Yeto roared and punched the suit of armour with a mighty roar, leaving a large dent in the plackart. Their opponent crashed into the empty suits, shattering them like glass dolls, but jumped back to its feet with unnatural agility. The next flail was taken up and once more flung across the room, this time at Yeto. The beast-man was too slow to catch or dodge it and took the spiked weapon's hit on his chest.
"Yeto, you okay?" Link called.
"Monster sting Yeto's belly," was the disgruntled reply. "Fur catch most of it."
"Can you try to grab it so it doesn't use more weapons? I'll try to get past its armour!"
Growling, Yeto stomped forward with arms stretched out as if for a tremendous hug, and caught the monster in the midriff. The suited monster's height reached up to Yeto's chin, which was already considerably bigger than he was used to, and the Yeti was briefly stumped when it launched its gauntleted fist into his jaw. The grapple that ensued had the two larger creatures perform a strange ballet dance around the cluttered room, giving Link little opportunity to approach without getting swept off his feet.
"Just—Grab the middle—Lift it—" he stammered, breaking into a frantic run when Yeto's considerable behind whipped in his direction. He slipped on the icy floor and fell, giving his hip a bruise to match the rest of his avalanche contusions. Grunting and cursing, he struggled to his feet.
His eyes landed on a discarded flail next to him, and he had an idea. Holding the weapon by its solid wooden handle, he inched closer to the armoured monster and waited for it to lift a foot, swinging the spiked ball at the other with all the force he could muster all while being careful not to hit Yeto. The monster howled, off balance, and Yeto heaved it into the air.
"Now, Link!" Midna called.
Link centred the Master Sword's tip at the base of the helmet and drove into it with all his might. He felt brief metallic resistance as the hallowed weapon glanced off the chain mail edge, then staggered forward when he found the face. A nasty gurgle sounded, followed by a sudden flail of its legs that caught him in the midriff. Instinct alone made him let go of his weapon and shield his head before he fell once again, but the jolt shooting through his head left him crying out with agony.
He found himself on his knees and elbows cradling his throbbing skull, Midna's hand rubbing soothing circles on his back. His vision was tunnelled and swimming with sluggish stars.
"Link all right?" Yeto asked, and by the stifling heat radiating from his left, Link knew the beast-man had crouched down beside him.
"I'm fine," he wheezed. "What's happening with the monster? Is it dissolving?"
"No, it's just lying there," Midna answered. "Maybe it's not dead?"
"Monster has no face no more," Yeto answered. "Link kill it with shiny sword. Not Mirror monster then?"
Link grunted and sat back, glowering at the armoured creature. "I guess not. Damn it, we're right back where we started. I thought we had it."
"You're bleeding again. Link, are you sure you're okay?" Midna was looking at him with a pleading expression as if she wished he would stop all bodily anomalies and just act like a normal Hylian again.
"Yes, it's… just that damn concussion that keeps surfacing."
Nayru, forgive me for lying to her; if she knew how bad I was doing she'd keep me in bed for a month. I need to find that Mirror piece before Yeta gets too sick to eat. Before it takes Yeto…
Must… protect them… the Wolf agreed in a whisper.
"Are you sure it's nothing more serious? Blood is never a good sign, right? In Lakebed Temple you were coughing blood. When you told Auru this, he said it was half a miracle that you didn't suffer permanent damage from your lung sickness. Now it's coming from your nose and ears. Couldn't it be something just as bad, something internal you can't instantly spot?"
She was too clever for him to lead her astray more effectively. There was just one way to ease her worries without openly admitting to the extent of his injuries.
"Fine, let's go back and rest, then," he murmured, feigning annoyance at this oh-so-cumbersome fate. "I could use some more of your soup, Yeto." And the wonderful warmth of Yeta's living room. This place is barbarically cold…
"But after that, I'm taking a look at your head," Midna answered. "This can't be normal."
"Yeto add more flavour this time with what Yeto found in valley," the snow dweller disclosed in a manner to rival Countess Amauger's posh cook, who just as well might have recited a poem when he announced and described the spicy meat and seafood fry his servants had delivered for the lady Dowager and her guests the night before departure. Proudly, Yeto listed the few new ingredients he had scrounged up in the barren mountain range to complement the mandatory reekfish base, of which he still had a few carcases frozen in his kitchen backyard.
"How about you finally put in that cheese ring you got from Anouki Township?" Link inquired, salivating at the mere thought of it. Ordon goat cheese, who would have thought? Evidently the Dowager had a thing for provincial delicacies. To his greatest dismay, he had been banned from the kitchen and that lovely homely treat until Yeto deemed his soup ready for the pungent parcel.
"Mmhhh, ruuuh, not right combination," Yeto protested as he held open the double doors that led into the mansion's main body. "Cheese not go well with shrub roots."
"But it goes well with that big pumpkin you also stole."
"Yeto no steal pumpkin! Yeto go shopping in Human place."
"Shopping, huh?" Link chuckled.
"You need to leave money if you want to call it shopping, Yeto," Midna added smugly.
Link had found out she'd jump at any opportunity to lecture the beast-man about light dweller procedures. Like you're the expert, he thought, grinning.
"Money?" Yeto looked stunned, but not for the expected reason. "What money look like? Is food? Can put into soup too?"
The cavern-like, comforting atmosphere in the living room melted Link's bodily aches away, and convinced him he'd chosen wisely to call it quits for the day. Between freezing his ear tips off in a glacial manor and cosying up to a roaring fireplace on a sofa of heavenly softness, only a fool would choose the former.
"Yeto back, love," Yeto mumbled and smooched a hearty kiss onto the top of his wife's head, which Yeta reciprocated with a purr.
"Welcome. Find Mirror?"
"Not find Mirror, look again tomorrow. Yeto make soup now. Baby say money make soup better."
"No, I didn't!"
"Money shiny, like Mirror," Yeta said wisely. "Very pretty."
Yeto's eyes went wide. "Where find money? Put in soup!"
"Here," Midna sighed and produced a red rupee from the shadows, valued at twenty, which Yeto ogled like a vulture.
"Wait, where did you find that?" Link asked. "Did I have some left in my wallet?"
"It was lying in the grass next to the Lizalfos nest you annihilated back in Lanayru," she replied smugly, holding the rupee away from Yeto's sausage fingers. "You just failed to notice it since you were too busy butting heads with your dad. No, that is not food, Yeto! Stop it! Don't—Alright, you know what? I'll show you. Let's toss that into your pot and see what happens."
Yeto grinned in such a way that betrayed his intentions, and the two disappeared into the kitchen amid petty squabbling and crimson light emanating from the rupee. If Link had held any former belief in the currency's slightly anthropomorphic tendencies, he was fully convinced now after witnessing the panic in the rupee's frantic pulse.
"Another?" Yeta asked, holding in her knobbly fingers a stack of whittled sticks, after Link had rid himself of his improvised winter gear and put the Master Sword down by the hearth. She had that look in her eyes which suggested non-cooperation would get him in trouble. Offering a nervous chuckle, he gave in, a choice he knew he would regret half an hour later like every evening. But he never passed on an opportunity to make her smile, even if it meant overcoming his soreness over losing yet another game to her.
From the kitchen soon rang the stringent chiming of twenty green rupees fleeing the cauldron's bubbling content, followed by Midna's braying laughter and Yeto's intrigued grunting. The incident also marked Link's first defeat of the evening.
"Link try again," Yeta cooed, coughed a little, and held the blue painted stone out to him with a cheeky grin. "Must win once against Yeta, uh. Not hard."
"You're enjoying this a little too much," Link grumbled and plonked the stone down in the bottom left corner of their makeshift lattice. Twenty-five quads, harder than the sixteen he was used to from back home. The female Yeti, although sick, was no rookie at Slats. She'd beaten him more times in the week they now shared together than he cared to count. If ever he did beat her, it was because she'd been distracted by a particularly harsh coughing fit, and that kind of victory held no satisfaction for him.
She made her move with her stone, dyed raspberry red. After only ten more turns, she had again formed a diagonal row he'd failed to notice and break up in time with his own pieces.
"Yeta enjoy games," she chuckled in her sweet, very womanly, very human voice.
For a snow beast, she didn't sound much like one. Link was both comforted and slightly disturbed by that. He still hadn't quite made up his mind about how he should categorise the two Yetis. Monsters or people? They looked like the former, but most definitely acted like the latter. Civilised, almost. Accommodating. And tremendously friendly, once he had gotten used to the stomping and shoving which was never malicious, simply the result of moving a body so large and so voluminous that smaller, delicate gestures were considered a challenge. Although, Yeto had been walking on eggshells around Link after becoming acutely aware of the latter's fragility.
"You love games, really? I hadn't noticed," he mocked, fussing over the straightness of their lattice.
"One more," Yeta taunted while she gathered the stones back up. She would obviously not be fazed by his adolescent antics. "Link be red now. Win next time."
"You're too clever for me," he protested, but accepted the round rocks and gave it another go. This time he held his own until the very end, but was forced to admit defeat at the last stone. Yeta giggled and bounced up and down on her seat with joy.
"Good, good, Link get better. How is head?"
"Smoking from all the hard thinking I had to do during that one. I almost had you."
"Once Yeta and Link better, must go out and slide in snows. Lots of fun. We race!"
"You're into racing?"
"Yeta love to race. Always beat Yeto."
Link burst out laughing as Yeta imitated her husband teetering on one leg presumably sliding down a snowy slope on an imaginary sledge, until the pressure in his head grew so strong that his laughs turned to moans of pain. Soon he felt another sluggish trail of blood ooze from his nostrils that he wiped away with his handkerchief.
"Yeta sorry, make Link leak," she lamented, breaking into a coughing fit that had her toppling sideways and scattering the neatly arranged sticks making up their Slats game.
We, the invalids, Link thought miserably as he lay on his back, body hurting from the countless bruises he still harboured, head feeling like a balloon with too much air in it.
"It's not your fault," he wheezed when they finally got a grip on their ailments. "Just need… some more time to heal. We'll be alright."
"Bed?" she wheezed.
"Yes please…" he hissed back and crawled with her onto the large red sofa where he curled himself into his blanket next to Yeta. Barely five seconds had passed when he felt her oversized arms encircle him—like they did every time he wasn't looking—and squeezing the air out of his lungs.
"Yeta…" he coughed. "Too tight…!"
"Rrrrrrr," she purred, and the created vibration rumbled through Link's body and blurred the entire room with the motion. He gasped, trying once more to break free of her smothering clutch while she giggled behind him.
"Yeta make sure Link warm."
"I'm not warm, I'm boiling!" he called and finally managed to slip out beneath her arms. He was sure his face was glowing red with heat.
"Link faster than Yeta?" she teased, a mischievous grin on her velvety face.
"Yes."
"Yes?"
He realised too late he'd challenged the wrong Yeti, and before he could scramble from the sofa he was once more writhing and laughing in her arms, trying to break free. Even in her current state of sickly weakness, she was surprisingly limber.
"Stop, stop, I can't—Ow, ow! Yeta, I mean it!"
"Yeta stop, Yeta stop," she assured sweetly and let him go. He wasn't quite sure she meant it. "Head feel better?"
"Yeah, now that I can breathe again."
"Good. Yeta definitely faster. Yeta win again."
"You're all about games, aren't you?" he murmured, leaning against her springy bulk. She ribbed him hard enough to make him topple sideways.
Then her expression became reserved. "Yeta worry every time Yeto, Link, and Baby away," she muttered. "Must be careful. Mirror bad. Make Yeta sick." To emphasise, she turned aside and hawked a couple diminutive whoops that, because of her size, nonetheless shook the sofa and Link like a cart rattling over potholes.
"I know, Yeta, we're always careful," he assured and recounted the events of that day's scouting, feeling no need to hide his disappointment that the mysterious monster they'd encountered had turned out to be a false trail. Yeta, perhaps the only being he'd met so far that could rival Ralis's empathic nature, put a sisterly arm around him while he voiced his frustration until he was left with nothing but numb despair forcing his eyelids closed.
"Let's go over it one more time," he said wearily. "Yeto brought the Mirror home and you put it in your bedroom."
"Uh. Yeta see Mirror turn black, then turn into big ice monster with two leg. Yeta run out of bedroom and hide. Yeto come and fight monster, chase away. Yeta lock bedroom, then trip and lose key."
Link continued, "Yeto was down in the courtyard fighting the monster. It vanished. After that, you felt sick and retreated to the living room, and Yeto left to bring back food to help you get better. He met a scouting party that was then buried by an avalanche."
"Yeto not attack little Humans. Want to protect them, warn them of snow river. Since Mirror turn to monster, lots of snow rivers."
"Yeah, I know…" he muttered, closing his eyes, trying to picture the vague fight she described to him each evening, the same way word for word. He knew that, once he saw Ashei again, he'd have to shed some light on the tragedy that had befallen the hunting party and Aroo's nine companions. Yeto had never wished to harm but to warn them, a gesture they had falsely taken for an attack. And Yeto's many raiding sprees had been nothing but foraging for healthy food to make his wife feel better. How sorely wrong they had been to think he was the monster. But then, how could they be blamed? At least on the outside, Yeto looked like he would gobble you up the first chance he got. Those wide eyes and ferocious fangs didn't exactly instil calm and serenity. Not to mention his impressive twelve feet of height.
"Are you sure, absolutely sure," Link murmured, "that the shard isn't still in your bedroom?"
She dipped her chin down at him. "Yeta see Mirror monster go out. Lock bedroom after monster go out. Many treasures in bedroom. Important to Yeto and Yeta. Not want monster to break. Monster attack Yeto and Yeta drop key. After that, monster gone."
"And it looked like a big Human, you said. The monster."
"Uh."
"And you have no idea where the key landed."
"Uh. Look everywhere. Key lost."
"You're sure you looked everywhere?"
"Link not go into bedroom," she said, more firmly now. "Bedroom private."
"But what if Midna overlooked something? What if—"
"Baby was in bedroom?" Yeta asked, suddenly sounding angry.
"Yes, she slipped under the door. Yeta, what if the monster somehow managed to get back in before you locked it? We could be running around in circles all while you get sicker—"
A sudden, thunderous boom shook the living room walls, and they both cried out in fright. Yeta folded in over Link, who curled himself into a ball inside her woolly cocoon. Dust and wood splinters rained from the ceiling, and the hearth behind them roared with heat as a gust of wind from outside made it flare up. From the kitchen, they heard glass shattering.
"Yeta!" Yeto crashed into the room and banged his saddled head against the ceiling beams in his attempt to reach the sofa. The rumbling finally subsided and returned the living room to an eerie silence.
"You okay, Link?" Midna called and helped him peel himself from Yeta's furry shell.
"Yeah. What happened?"
"An avalanche came down the mountain and a tree broke the kitchen window. We saw it just as it reached us. Can avalanches even happen during storms?"
"No idea, but you know these aren't ordinary avalanches," he grunted, bolting up and hurrying into Yeto's kitchen.
In his pursuit of civilised customs, Yeto had furnished his kitchen with shelves the size of scaffolding, all cluttered with various human paraphernalia including crates filled with pinched supplies, pinched wine bottles, pinched kitchen tools, pinched pots and pans, and a lovely—most definitely pinched—painted porcelain soup bowl. At the back of the room, amidst those dusty shelves, was a pool of glass shards and a whistling opening with the end of a tree trunk leaning in. Snow spilled around it like frothy whipped cream.
"Firewood," Yeto murmured contently. His cultured refinement clearly did not reach as far as invoking outrage for shattered windows yet. "Yeto go out and smash tree."
"Be careful, my love," Yeta urged. "Mirror monster make snow river. Yeto not get buried again."
Link approached the scene and looked out past the trunk at the large heap of snow compacted just behind it. How glad he was that the mansion was made of solid rock slabs, and not wood. His tree house back home would have been mowed down like a twig.
"What do you make of it?" Midna asked.
"It happened just as Yeta and I were talking about the bedroom," he mused. "Midna, I know this sounds crazy, but I think it knows we're hunting for it. I don't believe this avalanche was just a huge coincidence. The one that got me came out of nowhere too, and nearly killed me. It's trying to keep itself safe from us, exactly like the Eel in Lakebed Temple. It thinks. It knows I'm a threat, which is likely why it tried to break through the walls here."
"On the side you were on, too," Midna agreed. "I don't like this. We have to pick up the pace before it finds new ways to threaten us."
He sighed, looking back into the kitchen at the door leading into the entrance hall. "What we need to do is get into that bedroom."
"But I looked inside, and I saw nothing. No shard, no monster, no piled bodies…"
"I just know something is in there. Every time we're close to it, it feels like the Master Sword is humming louder. And the cold always seems worse there. When you were inside, did you feel any sort of power that was familiar to you? Like with the Fused Shadows?"
"No. I was given my crown piece to watch over it, to use in dire situations. I had a connection to it, which was why I could feel the other pieces when we were near. But I feel nothing here, nothing but this blasted cold. Speaking of, you're severely underdressed to be next to an open window with a blizzard outside. Go back to Yeta, we'll talk more in the morning. I'll keep an eye on our soup monster while he smashes his tree."
He chuckled. "Be careful."
"You be careful, clearly it's after you. Keep your sword close."
Link hurried back into the living room, his eyes flitting towards the hearth where the Master Sword was still resting against the masonry. He found Yeta once more curled up on the sofa, the fire crackling merrily behind her.
"Husband foolish, go out in this weather, uh," she grumbled while he crawled into his blanket beside her again.
"Can he freeze to death with that thick pelt?"
"No, not die, of course," she said, as if the prospect of her monstrous husband succumbing to anything deadly was the last thing on her mind. "But get stuck in snow until no move any more. Sometime when away, Yeto get stuck in ice cave for month and leave Yeta to look for Yeto."
"For a month?"
"Uh! Link know how many caves in Snow Peak? Hundred. Million! Yeta cannot smash like Yeto. Must build fire to melt ice, must find wood. Link know how few trees in Snow Peak?!"
"I get the gist," he chuckled, leaning closer and drawing an enamoured purr from her that instantly melted away her irritation. He imagined that, in her eyes, he looked like a cute and adorable, hairless miniature version of herself. While he felt very much like a plushie cuddled by a toddler.
Sitting close to her, feeling the intense warmth radiate from her, he was once more struck by just how comfortable her presence had become. She was not the kind of creature a civilised race should easily mingle with. Ashei had said that they kept to themselves, that they were aggressive when one got close to them, territorial, uncultured, monstrous…
They're none of those things, the Wolf protested feebly. They saved our lives.
People got them all wrong, Link agreed.
They could be what I've always been looking for. Two individuals who just accept me as I am. I could be myself here. Both of them could be my pack.
It was a realisation his rational mind begged to review and see the potential for danger in it. She was not his kin, she wasn't even human. Logic warned against being so close to her, building up this kind of connection—a connection of trust and friendship, bordering on the same sisterly bond he had once shared with Ilia. But this connection seemed to reach even further. His camaraderie with Yeto, and the simplicity with which they could communicate, lacked the complexity of refined societal obligations he'd encountered with Humans, Hylians, Gerudo, Zoras, and even Gorons. There were no judging side-glances from passing guards, no schemes or intrigues sprung from plotting minds harbouring much more refinement and intelligence than he could ever muster. The most trouble he'd found in that big mansion were monsters, a lack of food, and the perpetual cold. Simple problems the Wolf knew simple answers to; fight, hunt, huddle up.
The Yetis are… just like me, he thought. Part human and part creature. Maybe that's why I feel so close to them.
Farore only knew how long he'd felt like an outsider among Ordon's population, yearning to be like them, round-eared, hard-working, just to be certain he was accepted there, accepted into their pack. Secretly he'd always known he was different, in more ways than just a racial divergence.
He had accepted his assignment to deliver Rusl's sword to Hyrule with much more in mind than a simple adventure. Secretly, perhaps hidden even from himself, he had yearned to find out if he would feel a deeper connection among his own kind. Hylians, with their big cities, their cultural differences, their sophistication, could have earned him an unconditional feeling of belonging he could finally connect with.
But his recent time involved with Hylians had shown him that, just like in Ordon, similarities were moderate at best. While Auru was more of a class of his own, people like Shad, Garril and Mezer, Millie, Kyra, and even the very princess, seemed to lead a life of total self-assurance. Their passions defined them, forged their beings around vast exploits in innumerable fields of proficiency. Millie lived for her fine craftsmanship, Shad could immerse himself in works of literature like they were a second form of existence, and Garril, while a bully, would have bested Link in every move, both with the sword and verbal if Link hadn't been helped by the spirit of his ancestor.
Perhaps he'd been too bastardised by Ordonian culture to fit into Hylian society, or he was simply too removed from any culture he'd come across to feel a proper connection. He was one of a kind, always had been. Part Hylian and part wolf, he didn't truly belong with any race.
But here, nestled close to Yeta's arm… Yeta, who coaxed out his playfulness and was utterly unimpressed by any form of self-doubt he displayed… Yeto, who spoke to Link without reservations, held back no emotion, and showed just exactly what he felt, when he felt it…
He had found genuine, unforced happiness here. A home he could feel comfortable in.
She'd accept me, the Wolf muttered, without a sliver of doubt. She would.
Link hesitated, his logical mind once more running through the worst-case scenarios. He did not want her to suddenly turn her back on him, and hate him for what he was. What if he scared her? What if Yeto mistook him for a monster and hunted him down? After all, all his ruminations of hope and supposed kinship with these creatures came from only one week in their company. Surely he'd made a wrong assumption somewhere.
But his heart agreed with the Wolf, and felt an insatiable need to confirm his hopes.
"Yeta?" he asked, rousing her from her snooze.
"Uh?"
"I'm not just a little Hylian, Yeta. I'm also a… a wolf."
He had expected confusion, hesitation, perhaps shock or anger, but she just chuckled, a reaction that caused the purest satisfaction to radiate from the Wolf's mental pen.
"Uh, husband right, then. See wolf with Baby at snow river place. No need glasses."
His breath caught and he felt like he was suffocating with relief and joy. Mutely he leaned forward and reached into his satchel on the floor, retrieving the black crystal. "Only Midna knows of it. I haven't shown this to anyone before because, being a Hylian and a wolf, is not exactly normal. I'm not going to hurt you, Yeta, I promise. But I want to show you who I really am. May I?"
Who I also am, his mind corrected, but he paid the fleeting thought little attention.
Her face had softened with mild concern, as if she understood just how monumental of a step this was for him. He almost expected her to ask, 'Are you sure?' when he realised he did not need any confirmation. He was sure. All he needed was her permission.
"Yeta trust Link," she said, with unsmiling firmness that brought goosebumps to his skin. "Want Link to trust Yeta too. Wolf secret of Link. Yeta keep secret."
She had barely finished her words when they both twitched in fright at Yeto's beastly voice thundering across the mansion from the entrance hall. Dog barks, human voices clamouring, splintering wood, and ringing weapons, accompanied his angry bellows.
"HUMANS GO AWAY! NOT HUNT YETA!"
Link bolted from the sofa and scrambled for the Master Sword, knocking into it. He was halfway to the door when Midna merged with his shadow.
"It's them, Link! They're here! They've found us!"
On her red velvet sofa, Yeta curled into a poofed ball of anger, growling and hackling like a rabid animal.
000
Author's note: I love the Yetis 3