Exactly, Birdie, exactly! You feel just like I did. :'-) Very glad the chapter had the kick the game should have!

It would have, huh, Mimi. I can't help but wonder about those sorts of things... and, if you are now wondering, in a somewhat-uncertain number of chapters I will indeed answer that question! ;-)

Chapter 49: Beneath the Sand

After several false starts, Link and Fi had traced a subterranean conduit that led from the sinksand to a building on the outer edge of the sandswept city. With a strange skeletal structure atop it that Fi suggested might once have been a kind of vertical windmill, it was narrow, windowless, and sealed shut. At Fi's prompting, Link had brought the power core that he'd used to temporarily revive Bead, and managed to use it to reverse the damage of ages for long enough for him to – slowly, manually – force the door open. When the timewarp had ended again, the door had returned to its original corroded, warped state, leaving it stuck permanently open rather than closed. Thankfully, the sealed door had largely preserved the structure inside. The machines had been brittle, but not destroyed, and while Link understood almost none of what he was seeing, Fi's explanations gave him at least a basic idea of roughly what it did. Sword drawn and held out to the machines to give her the best view possible, he'd followed her directions, walking around, now raising the blade high towards one piece of machinery; now lowering it to another.

Eventually, the sword spirit had pronounced herself satisfied. The generator would work – not for long, perhaps, but for long enough. Hermetically sealed, it had endured for over a thousand years, and when Link started it up again, it would endure for at least a week longer before, Fi predicted, breaking itself apart. If it hadn't been for the urgency of his quest, if he hadn't been trying to catch up to Zelda with Ghirahim chasing them some unknown distance behind, he might have asked if there were some way to preserve it longer still rather than destroy something that had lasted for so long – but as it was, he had only thought for a moment before nodding soberly.

Now, switches flipped and wires removed to prevent the generator looking for instructions from parts of the city that no longer existed and shutting itself down, Link stood before the final controls. They were remarkably unprepossessing, all told: a panel of buttons with labels he couldn't read, a slot in the centre containing what appeared to be the handle – and presumably the rest – of a large, flattened key.

"Master," Fi instructed quietly from beside him, "turn the key ninety degrees clockwise."

Link gripped it with his right hand, the sword still exposed in his left, and twisted. It resisted him at first, ancient mechanisms sticking, then turned slowly with a grating click. Something in the machinery hummed; something else hissed; Link reflexively rocked his weight back, poised to move, as strange sounds began to echo around him like some sort of metal giant waking up from a long nap and muttering to itself as it did, a dimmed light flickering into being from the ceiling above.

"Master, press the button in the upper left corner of the panel. Once the button you pressed turns blue, press the rightmost button of the second row from the bottom."

Upper left. Link pressed it, and a new hum joined the chorus of sounds, low and deep and very slowly rising in pitch. It settled into a sonorous bass, and, somewhat to Link's surprise, the upper left button turned blue, along with several others. Right, second from the bottom. He couldn't let himself think too hard about what he was doing, waking this great and strange machine from its thousand-year slumber. Focusing on Fi's words, he pressed the second button.

A new range of sounds started; others stopped. A grating, rattling shifting, then a clang as if something had either fallen off or locked into place. A slow whum… whum… as of something heavy spinning, speeding up faster and faster until it became a single note. A whistle uncannily like one of the robots, though when Link looked around he saw nothing.

"Is it done?" he asked. The sounds from all around them had settled into a set of overlapping hums, and nothing new seemed to be happening, at least as far as he could tell.

"I can confirm that you have successfully reactivated the generator, Master." But Fi turned towards the open door, and though her face still seemed expressionless, Link almost thought he felt her frown. "Power production is at acceptable levels. The current drain on the system is zero. These data combined indicate that power is not reaching any facility capable of using it."

All that – all that for nothing? Link's mouth opened slightly, instincts caught somewhere between a denial and a plea for Fi to find a solution, but she spoke again before he could.

"I recommend retracing your steps along the power conduit that we traced here. I will be able to detect the end of the live cabling accurately. I calculate a 40% probability that you will be able to conduct a temporary repair if necessary."

40%… Link's heart sank. Fi hadn't given him so low a probability of success in something he needed to do before.

"Okay, Fi," he made himself say, turning to the door and holding the sword at his side, its tip a few inches from the ground below which, somewhere, the conduit ran. "Lead the way."

Fi inclined her head to him, and sprang back into light, into the blade. The sense of direction she imparted strengthened instantly, and Link stepped out into the late desert afternoon at a brisk walk, despite how far he had already come, how far he had still to go. Even through his heat protection, the desert heat felt like a heavy weight after a short while spent in the inside cool, but he ignored it, resolving to take a sip of water once Fi had found the problem… and found out if they could fix it.

. . .

Master, halt.

Sensing that they had found something even as Fi spoke, Link was already stopping, instinctively aiming the tip of the shining blade to where he felt something was: below him, within the wall he was walking atop. It didn't feel too far down – less than his own height below his feet, and his hopes lifted a fraction.

I have detected the interruption to the power flow. There is a 95% probability that it was not caused by direct damage: I detect a power regulation system built into this wall. I extrapolate from our observations within the power generator that this regulator would have automatically shut off power when the city's primary power grid failed or shut down. While I cannot communicate with the regulator remotely, there will be a nearby access panel to permit maintenance.

Link sheathed his sword at last and knelt, brushing gritty specks sand from the timeworn, gently pitted top of the wall. Nothing stood out to him, the material eroded into featurelessness, but it was closer to one side of the wall than the other, and he crawled that way, sweeping his hands back and forth, alert for any kind of join or seam. A hrok, eyeing him grumpily from atop the crumbled corner of a broken building, flared its wings briefly only to change its mind and resettle them again.

He came to the edge without a change in the construction of the wall, and, frowning, peered over. Looking down along its side, at first glance sheer save for a badly worn, basket-like protrusion, he thought he saw an edge: just the slightest of outlines, but there. Hope rising further, Link ran his left hand down the wall, fingernails skipping lightly along the surface to mark every crack or join – and catching just where he'd thought they would, slightly less than half the length of his forearm below.

"Is this it, Fi?"

The probability is almost 100%.

Experimentally, Link tried to wedge his fingernails into the join. It was too tightly sealed even for that, and he withdrew his hand, lying down to squirm forwards just far enough to lower his head over the edge. Once he knew where to look, seeing the edges of the flat panel that was probably the one Fi had spoken of was easy enough, but faint bumps at its edges where there had perhaps once been screws or catches or something had eroded into mere suggestions, useless. Could he pry one out, or across, or whatever it was supposed to do? He shifted again, edging his left shoulder forwards, just as Fi spoke.

I have completed a full structural analysis of this wall. Although the exterior was designed to be highly resistant to erosion, the internal structure is significantly weakened. I calculate that a shock of sufficient magnitude would detach the entire outer wall section, enabling you to access the internal components, including the power regulator.

"I don't think I can hit it that hard from up here." Even as he spoke, he felt that Fi was thinking of something a lot harder than just hitting it.

I concur with your analysis, Master Link. I recommend that you deposit a bomb flower into the receptacle below, which my analysis suggests was originally designed as a hanging basket for trailing plants to grow from, and retreat to a safe distance.

Link's eyes widened. "Are you sure it will be all right? It won't just break everything?"

The majority of the explosive force will be directed upwards by the shape of the hanging basket. The detonation will send a shockwave through the reinforced outer section that will be sufficient to break the anchoring struts within the wall. However, the blast itself will not breach the outer layer and so will not deal direct damage to the interior.

"If you're sure…" Link pushed himself back up to his knees, reaching for Ledd's bomb bag, still securely fastened to his belt. He'd found a couple of extra bomb flowers growing near the place his sailcloth had deposited him on the edge of Eldin Volcano after the eruption, three days and half a lifetime ago. Had it really been that long?

Had it really taken him that long to get here?

The bomb bag clung to his hand as always, airless and soft. Link closed his fingers around the first deceptively small flower he felt, round and hard and potentially deadly. He'd been in two minds about picking more, about taking the strange and dangerous flowers back to Skyloft, but without knowing what dangers lay ahead, he'd decided that he might well need them – and he'd been right.

Moving slowly, he drew the blue flower out, leaning over the edge to line it up with the hanging basket below. A deep breath, and he let go, already scrambling to his feet as it landed; as the warning hissing sound began again, bolting back along the wall as fast as he could run.

Behind him came the crash of an explosion, a moment's silence, and then a sound like tearing metal, followed by a solid and final thud. Still tense, Link turned around. Sand and smoke hung about the area in a haze, but the top of the wall still looked more or less solid, at least from his distance. Cautiously, he advanced towards the damage, looking first for cracks – of which there were three hairline ones radiating out from some chipping at the edge – and then, as the wall proved to take his weight, over the edge.

The most obvious difference was the huge slab of wall lying in a small crater in the sand. The upward-facing side looked incongruously bright and unmarred, other than a series of broken metal struts protruding from it, most of them sheared off close to the base. Link coughed, waved smoke away from his face, and knelt to look into whatever space had been revealed below.

To his surprise, as Fi had said, it seemed – as far as he could tell – relatively undamaged. Struts and supports gave the wall an internal framework, and Link could see through some of them to what appeared to be a corridor within at ground level. Nearer the top of the wall where he knelt ran huge metallic ducts – and one of them branched into a dead-end that ended just below him. Link glanced around, then took a risk, lying flat on the top of the wall so he could lower his upper body over the edge, gripping a convenient stanchion for support.

The controls he saw at the end of the duct would have been incomprehensible even if they had been the right way up, but Fi's unheard chime sounded in his mind moments before he heard her silently musical voice.

To manually set the regulator, first press the button that, from your perspective, is the second from the right in the bottom row.

Link did as he was told, reaching in awkwardly while still clinging to the stanchion with his right hand. His finger smudged the button at once cleaner and dirtier, removing a layer of dust and adding a thinner one of sooty grime.

Now grip the lever on the left-hand side of the control panel from your perspective, and move it towards the ground.

This lever was more of a handle supported on twin bars, its base noticeably curved. It was more than large enough for Link's hand – like the buttons and everything else, he assumed it had been built by and for robots like Bead – and he forced it down, putting his weight into it when it proved stiffer than he'd expected, until it suddenly clunked into place, jolting him forwards and making him very, very glad of his grip on the stanchion.

"Did we…"

Link trailed off as a sound began to build behind him, not on or even in the wall itself, but out in the vast ring of sinksand, a rumble that vibrated through his whole body and the shussshushsshshsushh of moving sand. Scrambling back up to safety, he turned to look and froze, staring. The entire centre of the sinksand was rising, sand streaming down its sides like a waterfall, an incredibly deep, slow grinding more felt than heard as the soft, soft sound of the sand became a rushing, hissing roar. Link pressed his hands to his ears, but it did little to stop the roar and seemingly nothing at all to stop the deep, deep rumble rising through the ground, through the wall, through his boots and into his bones. Slowly, the sand began to part over a domed structure, and still it kept rising: there was another level formed into an outer ring, slanted slightly to shed the sand, and impossibly another beneath it – and as that one emerged, so too did a long slope leading down from it, until at last, incredibly, impossibly, more than half of the sandy basin was filled with an unbelievable building, the sand streaming from its sides, piling up against walls, spilling in torrents through the breaks in them until finally, at last, the deep, slow grinding ceased, and the howling rush of the sand died to a susurration and finally to nothing. Clouds of fine sand hung in the air, and Link coughed several times, realising belatedly how gritty his mouth felt.

"Wow," he managed, inadequately.

Fi leapt from the sword to float beside him with her half-heard chime.

"That the structure has remained functional to such a degree under the pressure of the sinksand and the passage of time is evidence of the exceptionally high quality of its engineering and of the forethought of its creators."

Taking his water bottle from his belt to finally take a long-awaited drink, Link smiled.

"Even you think that was incredible, huh?"

Fi regarded him in her usual opaque manner, but she didn't seem cold or remote. "To the degree in which your statement is reflective of an emotional judgement, you are incorrect, Master. However, I agree that constructing such a mechanism, of such quality that it remains functional over one thousand years after its creation without maintenance and when buried beneath a greater cumulative load than it need have been designed to bear according to its usage parameters, was an achievement of extreme significance and difficulty. The builders and designers are to be highly respected."

"Isn't that the same thing, but in more words?" Her master was still smiling, and Fi understood that he was engaging in 'banter' with her. Unexpectedly, however, his words had raised a serious question, which she resolved to consider in depth as they continued their journey.

"I am aware of your emotional experience, Master, and I can confirm that it differs from my analyses in notable respects. However, your question raises a worthwhile point."

Link blinked. "It does?"

"I had not previously considered whether your emotional states might in some cases map directly to evaluated judgements in this specific fashion. Your feeling of awe and my evaluation of the skill required to create all that we have just observed lead you and I directly to the same conclusion of respect for the creators of this building, for the same or extremely similar reasons."

"Huh…"

Link thought about that for a short while, walking along the wall towards the place where the slope joined its base with the sword spirit floating ineffably alongside.

"Isn't respect an emotion too?"

Fi turned to regard him again, analysis routines racing. Multiple axes of respect were among the many factors she was programmed to take into account when judging the recommendations of any individual when she herself lacked data, but she had never had reason to compare such evaluations to the imprecise modes of respect that Link felt.

"The structure of your language necessitates imprecision, Master Link. Imprecisely summarised, my determination of respect is a measure of how highly I would weight the advice of the building's creators upon architecture, if I did not possess sufficient information to make a judgement myself, and of how high the probability would be that I would consider it advisable to repeat my own calculations if my analysis differed from theirs, if I did consider myself to possess sufficient information. It also weights the probability of my advising you to seek the aid such individuals if you expressed a need for architectural design, and the strength with which I impart that advice."

Link listened, focusing on Fi's words notably more than on the path ahead atop the dusty wall.

"Then… maybe it doesn't feel the same, but I think that sounds like we do have something in common after all." The wall ended before him in a sheer drop down onto a heap of fine sand at the end of the newly risen slope, and yet he smiled. "I don't suppose I can ever really know what it feels like to be you, Fi, but I think… I think I can understand that." Sitting down on the edge of the wall, ready to jump from it, he added "The sand down there isn't too deep, is it?"

Fi shook her head once, briefly. "No, Master. Your projected landing site is safe."

She swooped down beside him as he jumped, fine powdery sand thrown up by his landing drifting untouched through her ethereal form so that she almost seemed to sparkle with it.

"It is possible, though with as yet undetermined probability, that following this logic will also enable me to understand you more fluently. This would be conducive to your success."

Link stood, dusting off his hands and knees, cautiously stepping out of the ankle-deep sand and onto the slightly raised stone causeway that had seemed to simply end and now instead met the base of the slope.

"Which is a good thing. For me, I mean – I mean from my point of view, I'd call that good."

"Yes, Master Link," Fi said, and Link was almost certain that her musical voice seemed thoughtful. "I agree that you would."

She said nothing more as they walked up the slope, and vaulted back into the sword as he reached the wide, ancient door at the top, but as – without prompting – he found the manual handle set into the wall beside it and forcefully cranked the ancient doors far enough open that he could slip inside, Link felt his confidence increasingly buoyed by the simple sense of her presence in the sword across his back. All he had to do was make his way through this strange buried building, and with Fi at his side, he felt far more confident that he could.

It's taken a while, but here I am again - and with a bonus, too: I also have a new chapter for the dubious bird in To Drift from Grace!

Patch Notes
- Pointless wall platforms with pointless bomb baskets given reason to exist – and their bomb baskets too.
- Link and Fi continue to hold actual conversations.
- Mechanisms exposed to erosion for 1,000+ years given shelter.
- Machinery no longer inexplicably operated by sticking swords in it.