Glad you're all enjoying! =D Birdie, I know just how you feel about Impa - she's such a completely unnecessary shit for no reason, to the extent that I actually almost stopped playing the game when I first met her! I've tried to make her a little less of a crazy arsehole while still keeping Link's rough impression of the scene. And also given Zelda some actual reason to not just ignore her and talk to him anyway. Hope it's worked!

Chapter 34: Chains of Fate

The door reformed behind Zelda as she walked slowly inside, Impa a silent pace behind her. Great columns rose beside her, cracked by the weight of ages, two broken altogether with their tumbled remains strewn upon the floor. Small waterfalls trickled down on either side of the stairs ahead, water flowing back underground to escape down the flank of the volcano. Zelda felt breathless, uncertain. Something strange hung over her, hovered around her, and her already slow pace slowed further still.

She placed one foot on the lowest stair.

The whisper of water falling down the cavern walls ahead seemed like a softly murmuring voice, a trapped echo that would never fade. Strangeness surrounded her, filled her. She had to know what those words would say, half-familiarity like something long forgotten. Like a dream, in which she might walk towards a casket in wonder and open it to see what lay within – like a dream, in which she might at the same time know that something terrible would come from it and yet be unable to change how the tale her sleeping mind told itself would go.

She was at the top of the stairs.

The water in the pool rippled gently, shimmering with a luminous glow that seemed to have nothing to do with the cracks in the rock ceiling above. The statue by the far wall gazed down on her, so like the one at the other spring, so like the one that gazed benevolently over Skyloft, and yet her recognition of it seemed older, deeper.

She thought it looked like a devoted but worried young mother, and it was as if she was seeing it for the first time after all, long ago and far away. She was fond of it, like a gift made with love and care, and it was as if she had seen it be raised and known it all the long years since. She had never been here before, never seen this statue before, never been on a volcano or even on the surface before, and she wanted to run away, to escape the nameless pressure of the silence all around her, but the strangeness had filled her.

She stood upon the edge of the water, and it was far, far too late.

She stepped in, and where she should have dropped into the water she merely floated gently down, feeling it close softly around her like light itself. It filled her, flooded her, shone into and through and from her as she lay floating on the surface of the water with her eyes open yet unseeing.

She was…

. . .

Impa waited, kneeling calmly at the top of the stairs, letting her reverence and awe flow through her without overwhelming her duty. She had taken the sacred one from her pack, heavily padded to withstand the rigours of the journey, and set it before her: a cunningly-crafted child's toy cat with hinged joints, but one that moved and spoke as a living being. She, like Impa, watched the divine light rise, and play across the inside of the cave, and, at last, slowly fade.

The spirit maiden stood, and climbed from the waters, and Impa saw that she was clean and uninjured once more, her clothes purest white, her skin flawless, her hair gold as the sunlight, something too perfect to belong in this world.

"Para… Parasova?" she said, and her voice both was and was not the voice it had been before.

"Mistress!" The sacred one stood stiffly and made her way towards the spirit maiden with her strange gait, limping on all four legs at once as each joint seemed to have a slightly different stiffness and range of motion. Impa would normally have carried her, but it seemed disrespectful to interfere.

"Oh, Para…" The spirit maiden knelt and swept the sacred one up in her arms. "You waited for me all this time?"

"Of course, Mistress." The maiden was close enough to hear the slight scraping as Para's neck bent, looking her up and down. "And you are fortunate that I have spent the time preparing, or I wouldn't have recognised you. You bear little more than a 60% resemblance to any of your previous appearances, but you do demonstrate an almost 97% correspondence to one of the extrapolations I created."

Zelda – that was her name now – gave a laugh that was almost a sob, overjoyed to hear the little assistant's childlike voice, slightly smug and edged with static from a deteriorated speaker. "You really waited for me." Her eyes flicked beyond Parasova's face and lit on Impa, still kneeling at the top of the stairs. "And the Sheikah, too…"

Impa bowed, still kneeling, and rose as Zelda set Parasova down and gestured to her. "It has always been our honour to serve you, Your Radiance."

"Thank you, both of you… all of you." Her words encompassed each one of the Sheikah for a thousand years, and Impa felt their truth.

Silence reigned for a few moments before Zelda, her senses unfolding beyond the edge of the spring, lifted her head with a sharp intake of breath.

"Ghirahim is here."

Impa turned to face the door at once, but Zelda spoke again.

"He's testing the defences. I think he senses I have awakened." Light bloomed behind her as she gestured, up and around and down, a faint golden shimmer sweeping through the rock around them. "He isn't attacking directly." She frowned. "What has he done? This is not… not what we planned. Is it?" Her memories faded at the key, terrible point, and she felt too new, too fragile, to risk pressing them.

"No, Mistress," Parasova told her, still and stiff with her head angled back where once she would have been in motion. "Ghirahim has remained active and in command of the demonic forces to the present day. He has additionally supplemented their ranks with new creations of his own, which," she added slightly grumpily, "I suppose goes to show he's smarter than we predicted. Although the Sheikah counter him when possible, he has remained a frequently excellent, if increasingly erratic, commander. The seal that you emplaced over Demise has consistently been his primary target." Her head tilted slightly with a subtle clicking of ancient, worn gears. "If he killed you, the seal would be broken."

Zelda lifted her hand to her heart, feeling the truth of it, feeling her own distant power like a faraway echo. She felt Ghirahim too, still, just the other side of her shield, and she felt-

Her resolve flickered; she stiffened, her hand falling. She felt her own sword, her Chosen – she felt her friend, a thousand little memories sleeting through her mind, and her sense of self wavered-

"Your Radiance?" Impa asked anxiously. The familiar title cut through the memories, gave her the grounding she needed to push them aside. There was no time for her to be the young mortal from Skyloft, younger even than dear Saina had been: she needed herself full, whole, and in control.

"I… I am well, Impa." Zelda breathed out slowly, centring herself. "I sensed my Chosen within the temple, and I… in the life I was living, he was my dearest friend." And she had loved him, and she loved him still, and Parasova's clicking head motion told her that the little assistant knew perfectly well all that she was not saying. "He… I'm still not used to these memories, to who I am." She shut her eyes for a long moment, feeling tears tremble at their edges, but not letting them fall. "Sensing him almost destabilised me."

Impa frowned, uncomfortable. "I felt your power waver. Does that mean it is dangerous for you to be near him, Your Radiance?"

"I don't know," Zelda said slowly, unhappily. "I did not know what this would do to us. I don't know what to expect. He was to be my guardian – I would have wanted him to –" She broke off, her hands lifting in mute distress. The memories of a Skyloft girl battled against the drive and duty of all she had been before, and it was only with effort, at the cost of redoubling her grief and remorse, that she pressed them away. She would never and had asked him to die for her, she would never and had moved him like a piece on a game board, still deciding his fate even now across the breadth of time-

"Mistress!" Parasova's sharp, static-laced voice cut into the storm of feelings, and again, with an effort, Zelda forced them into abeyance. "It's perfectly clear that Impa is right. The light intensity in this room has significantly decreased, which I've been reliably told was always correlated with Mistress Hylia's presence fading."

"You cannot risk losing your self-control now, Your Radiance," Impa told her, at once concerned and uncomfortable at speaking so firmly to her goddess, reborn before her as prophesied. "You have only just awoken. This is your most vulnerable time."

"You're right," Zelda whispered, clasping her hands together, her head bowed. "I barely held on to my memories… my power. If I lose the memories again…" She shook her head. "We cannot take that risk. There's no time to try reawakening them. Impa – where must I go now?"

It was Parasova, however, who answered her. "It was your intention, Mistress, to send aid through the Gate of Time."

"It was, wasn't it?" She remembered that, remembered waiting by the Gate as the ever-thinning strand of hope dwindled away to nothing, as no help ever came. "...But I sealed the Gate."

Her head shot up a moment later, a new light in her sky-blue eyes. "But – the original Gate of Time!"

Parasova nodded, scratchily and yet ineffably smugly. "Correct, Mistress. The original Gate of Time probably still stands. Ghirahim has never seemed very interested in the depths of the desert."

"I have never travelled there," Impa said, quietly. "We Sheikah venture into the fringes of the desert for training, but we do not go too deep lest we draw Ghirahim's attention."

"That's all right," Zelda said calmly. She felt far more assured now that she had some fragment of a plan. "Para and I know it well." She walked back to Impa as she spoke, her power sure and certain now as she stretched out to the southwest across the lands that had once been her own and found their edge, and the edge of the desert from which she had come. "I'll take us to the edge." She hesitated. "If… if you'll come with me? Please?"

"Of course, Mistress! It's my purpose to assist you!"

"I would be honoured to, Your Radiance, sacred one."

Parasova turned to Impa with a whirring of ancient joints. "Please prepare for transportation," she directed loftily, settling down into her compact, folded position. Impa bowed abbreviatedly to her before lifting her, settling her safely back inside the well-padded backpack and swinging it on.

"Unfortunately," Parasova's voice explained from inside, "my motor systems have deteriorated somewhat over the past millennium, despite the maintenance the Sheikah have performed."

Zelda grinned, absurdly, a little flash of old good humour resurfacing in casual conversation with her personal assistant. "Considering your guarantee was only good for a decade, I think you've done quite well." She frowned a little, thinking, then checked the magical pouch she still wore. Bleached as white as the rest of her clothes, it had held its enchantment, and she drew out the harp that a daughter of Skyloft had played at a ceremony in a different, distant, simpler life. A caress of her fingers flooded it with magic, and before she could think about any places other than the one she needed to reach, she began to play.

Impa listened in silence as the goddess played, every note perfect as the liquid rippling of birdsong. She felt the ancient subtle power in it, felt the world obedient to the melody, as a golden light rose in the centre of the platform on which they stood, and when the tune ended, when the goddess lowered her harp, it felt as though she had lost something precious.

Slowly, she gestured to the light. "Is…"

The rest of Impa's words died in her throat as she sensed something had changed in the spring, something she had not noticed while she let the goddess' music mesmerise her; something that Zelda, too, had noticed, because her breath caught. Impa's head snapped around as her goddess turned.

Down by the golden door, already reformed behind him, she beheld a young man, dressed in clothes as unusual as those the reborn goddess wore, predominantly green over sturdy chain armour, streaked with ash and filth and sweat. He was staring up at them, frozen in a moment of disbelief and dawning joy, and as Zelda gasped and clasped her hands together with an altogether different, more youthfully delighted expression upon her face, Impa realised with horror that they stood upon the edge of a knife.

The young man started forward, and Zelda took a step to meet him.

"Link!"

Fear twisted Impa's gut as she snapped her arm out, blocking the girl's path and hoping the goddess would forgive her her impertinence. Zelda stopped, crestfallen, pressing a hand to her heart as Impa spoke.

"You cannot go to him, Your Radiance. Remember what we discussed. You must restrain yourself – you must focus on the task at hand." Beneath her quiet tone, beneath the controlled exterior of a Sheikah, her tone was pleading, almost desperate. She could not risk what the goddess herself had warned her might happen.

The young man came to an uncertain halt at the base of the steps, gazing up at the young woman as she stared back, her expression heartbroken. She gritted her teeth, frowning against the tears that threatened to break free – and turned away.

Link stared as Zelda took a slow, halting step away from him, blocked by the arm of the woman in the Sheikah clothes. He stared as she paused, looking back over her shoulder, speaking in a soft and halting voice that threatened to break.

"I… I have to go. I'm sorry, Link."

She had to go. She couldn't face him, couldn't face all she had done to him, couldn't face the girl from Skyloft who demanded they turn back and explain and apologise and beg that he forgive them even if he never wanted to see them again, the girl from Skyloft who hated the one who was herself and whose emotions were shredding the fabric of her memories and all of her powers with every breath.

She had to go.

She looked away from him, and walked into the light, and was gone.

The Sheikah woman turned to follow her, and Link found his voice at last.

"Wait!" His shout struck echoes from the walls that rang alongside his footsteps as he raced up the stairs, and the Sheikah turned back to him, a single tail of long white-blonde hair swinging beside her thin, hard-edged face. She raised her hand in unmistakeable denial, and something about the look in her ruby eyes made him hesitate enough to obey, stopping just short of her hand.

"She cannot wait."

"But…"

The Sheikah woman looked him up and down, and her voice was still hard and sharp with imperfectly masked fear that Link was far too distraught to recognise. "You cannot follow her now. I fear the goddess may have been mistaken in her choice of agents." She cares too much about you now. She cannot have foreseen that you would be so close in the new life. Surely she shouldn't have chosen an agent whose very presence might destroy her.

But I'm here! I found her! Are you trying to say that I've failed her?! Link's furious denial only hid his own fears. He hadn't found her, day after day she had been here and he had only just barely caught up to her, stood transfixed by the fading notes of music as the door reformed behind him when he should have shouted; delayed and struggled and caught his breath when he should have moved faster; slept another night on Skyloft so that he'd not even caught up to her in time when she had been captured, and before he could form the words he had opened his mouth to say the Sheikah woman was speaking again in her cool, hard voice, its quietness only serving to make it more biting.

"If I had not sent her ahead, she could not learn of the fate that has always been her destiny. Listen well, chosen one. If you wish to be of help to Her Radiance, you must summon your courage to face the trials laid out before you. Only when you have walked the path that awaits you here may you aid her. No sooner." All Impa had to do, she hoped, was to buy her goddess more time, time enough to become secure in the self she had awoken to. She and her chosen one had been meant to receive whatever instruction waited here together, but he had found this place and that meant he would be able to find the next. Whatever had been left here for him to find, he would be able to. "Am I understood?"

Link couldn't speak.

Apparently satisfied with his silence, the Sheikah woman turned away. She stepped into the light, and vanished, and the light vanished with her.

He had been too late… and there was nothing that he could do.

I have been waiting to fix that scene for freaking ages. I think maybe if I stare at it for another week, I might improve it slightly more? But probably only on the levels of rephrasing a sentence or two to flow better. I'm 95% happy with it, anyway.

Patch Notes:
- Zelda's personality being tragically overwritten now actually tragic.
- Plot threads surface from the backstory!
- Reasonable "immortal" produced using said threads.
- Specific title introduced for goddess suitable to said goddess.
- Zelda given actual reason to listen to Impa and leave area.
- Impa given actual reason to stop Zelda from interacting with her chosen hero.
- Nuclear Gandhi I mean Impa bug fixed: World's Greatest Arsehole title removed from Impa; given back to Ghirahim.
- Overall apparent thrust of Impa's speech retained through understandable misunderstanding.
- Link now supplies own internal criticism in line with prior self-doubt.

I genuinely nearly quit the game and just stopped playing when I hit this scene for the first time. Apparently Impa can handle things just fine without me, so I'm clearly not needed – and I hadn't even done any of the sidequests, I fricking beelined it, the only way to move faster would have been to cheat. Okay, fine, thanks Impa, screw you too, guess I'll go do the sidequests now since my getting here literally as fast as I possibly could wasn't good enough for you.

So she's better now.