Purah was the first, incredibly angry, thing Link saw upon waking. Her and Robbie stared down at Link. Link squinted back. Purah glared and growled, "I demand Explanations. After we get somewhere private."

Link thought hazily. What did he talk about last nigh-Zelda. Oh yes, it was coming back to him.

"Where do I start?..." Link buried his face into his pillow so as not to face the harsh reality. "She sacri-sacrificed everything she was." The Sheikah cleared the room and sat down around him. Jerrin and Josha stood watch for possible intruders as notebooks manifested into the hands of Robbie and Purah.

"You mentioned the Light Dragon? Look, what happened after you left Gerudo Town? Maybe you should go in chronological order."

Link inhaled. "Um, I think I can. I might get some stuff mixed up. I started with my supply run... I borrowed a basic toolkit from Hateno." Zelda's little house built by Bolson was loaded with tools, Link had to resist temptation to read the diary.

Purah wanted to wring details out while Link checked his gear. "If you went to Hateno before finding out, you should have grabbed your armor. Why aren't you wearing it? Did you find out about Zelda?"

"I did some errands there before finding out at the Geoglyph. My Ancient Armor is not important as the rest of the story." Link said firmly as he shoved a roasted pepper into his mouth. It had felt awful at the time. Now the fate of his gear was unimportant after the new revelations and he'd forgotten about it entirely until asked.

As usual, Sophie was standing ready at the door to support her sister's watched and heard a lot more than people realized. She could hear the smile from the general store shopkeep even if she didn't make out the words. Pruce was always happy to see customers like Link. No complaints, loved food, and was always willing to destroy Lynels for the good of source of assorted monter parts too.

Pruce was the first person heard speaking. Although she didn't hear the words, she could hear the tones of pleasant surprise then questions from both men.

Link paid and ran across the street to the clothing store. He slowed down to greet Sophie politely, sort of. "Hey, I heard Zelda came by? Cece talked to her?"

"Um, she said so, yes."

"Thanks! Bye."

Link walked in and Sophie could not help but listen in.

"Wait, are you... Link! Good to see you! The Princess herself has a gift she commissioned for you. A one-of-a-kind masterpiece! Your armor is ready!"

"I...huh? My armor? I was fixing it up, you have it now?"

"She brought the armor to me and asked I finish the work. Only the best for the Hero! Behold!" Sophie heard the swish of cloth pulled off the mannequin. She knew it had to be the thing. "Much better than the old design, yes? It's okay to cry! That's a natural reaction to such art!"

Dead silence from Link. Sophie could picture Cece waiting to let the newly mushroomified armor be appreciated before asking for payment.

Sophie didn't even hear footsteps. She didn't see Link dissolve into light. She didn't see him reappear at the shrine overlooking Hateno. She did hear an angry yell over the breeze from the mountain but didn't connect it with the conversation.

Cece emerged from the building to beam at Sophie. "He was so overwhelmed by my beautiful art, he just teleported away! I can't wait to see him wear it! Once he pays, of course."

"Um, sure, Cece."

They listened to the account of what he saw at the Geoglyph. They could see the movement of fabric from an invisible hug. (Rauru wished he could do more.)

Robbie said, "So, after that, you just, what, dropped everything else and focused on finding more of Zelda's memories so you could confirm if you were right?"

"Yeah," said Link. "I... think I got some injuries but I wasn't paying attention to that. Lost my senses for a bit." He started describing what he did remember..

"So I saw the first Geoglyph with Impa and I had a map from the Forgotten Temple. You know the one. I stopped at a glyph before my next errand since I had time and was passing by it and saw her..." Link's voice wavered once he described the conversation about draconification. "Then I ran from glyph to glyph. Don't remember when I burned my ankle."

The Gloom sensed something. A soul. Very bright one. It had to be Link. The hands reached up out of the ground to strangle, crush, and poison the insect.

Link rushed past the hands and didn't spare them a glance.

If he'd been doing it to avoid the hands, he'd have gone around them. As it was, Link sprinted right through the puddle on the ground on his way to a destination unknown. The hands, taken by surprise (because who would keep going without deviating at all in the face of Gloom Spawn) tried to grab him. Link stumbled and said, "Excuse me, I'm busy. Later."

Link kicked himself free with the casual consideration of shaking mud off boots before continuing the beeline.

The Gloom hands were deeply offended.

Link described each memory as it happened and left out the parts in between since he had not paid attention and his auto-pilot had taken over. Purah and Robbie hung on every word. They waited to ask the numerous questions about the past because Link needed to tell his story. This waiting was a sacrifice for the two Sheikah with more curiosity than caution.

Rauru sat next to link on the Light Dragon's back. He said nothing to the wailing Link, he hugged the man as he had his own children back in life. The Master Sword remained firmly entangled in golden mane hair.

Time passed.

Link stopped crying. "Runes."

"Hm?," said an unsuspecting Rauru.

Then came a frantic flurry of activity and Link was talking way too fast for Rauru or the translator to keep up. He scrambled and grabbed shards and cut hair and chipped at horns and explained and apologized. Link gently pried at loose-looking scales. He carefully pulled spare teeth. The dragon did not respond and the ghost did not understand until after Link dropped to Lookout Landing.

Link after Zelda question number seventy-four from Robbie and Purah, decided he was done. A mountain of notes piled up around the three, handkerchiefs mixed in to the clutter. "I should get going, there's a lot to do. Do you think I got enough samples? I should get more. I didn't want to take too much at once but this might not be enough samples for Zelda's research after we change her back." Link prodded the iridescent spikes in front of him. He'd poked himself on a fang by accident, and found his elbow bruise vanished. Zelda was going to love that.

Purah snapped her notebook shut. "Link, what will you do next?"

"What Zelda asked me to, protect everyone. Fix the weather. Clean the Domain. Chat with Yunobo..." Link finagled a second pair of socks over his feet. "... Demon King's gotta die. Then, we will have all the time to research we need." The next words out of his mouth startled Purah and Robbie. "People will owe me favors and I will call them in if needed." It was a surprisingly mercenary statement for Link.

The translator on the Purah Pad beeped. There was a message which appeared, then got rewritten twice to be more clear. Link said for Rauru, "I advise not telling people about the Light Dragon's identity. As far as the Demon King knows, we think those sightings around Hyrule might be the real Zelda."

Robbie looked at the trail marked from Link's past few days of movement. "With all those shrines and towers in your way, it shouldn't take that long, right?"

Link smacked himself on the forehead. "Um, I ignored most of them? Sky towers were useful for getting around, most shrines weren't going to get me to the Geoglyphs faster... ANYWAY. Blizzard. I'm going there now that I have supplies." He forced himself to stop calculating the functions for age regression on a dragon, and start calculating the Demon King's doom.

Purah and Robbie recognized the look of a man close to setting everything on fire for therapeutic reasons and did not press further.

Author's note: You are excellent readers with kind words. And great ideas to steal from.

I bet the age regression rune Purah used has lots of factors to watch out for when figuring out how much energy and time it takes. It probably involves all kinds of multivariable calculus and can be overshot easily. Plus, Zelda's got time powers with her magic so would that negate it? Make it harder? Make it easier? Real world medical tech is complicated by so many factors, magical medical tech usually ignores that in fiction. Link will absolutely use the rune on himself to keep researching this for a few lifespans.

Rauru and Sonia presumably had kids so either it was before Tears of the Kingdom showed them, or Sonia survived the assassination attempt, or both?

Are dragons in this game losing teeth like sharks do? It didn't look like they have multiple rows of teeth. Huh.