Link builds for a more comfortable lifestyle and Epona liberates a captive sewing expert.

Teba's exhaustion weighed down his flight as surely as the frosty blizzard did. It seemed like this weather and the misery went together as naturally as cream and fruit did. As he approached Rito village, the howling of the winds outside outscreamed anything else Teba might have heard. He still held out hope that soon, they would hear Bokoblin screams to indicate Link was making sure monsters were warm for the rest of their lives. As it was, the Rito did their own work making sure Bokoblins died every Blood Moon.

Oddly, there was a lot more light than he expected coming from the village... Oh no. "Is the town on fire?!" Teba screeched to no one in particular and forgot the exhaustion. He frantically swooped in to see the glowing wasn't the flickering of flames. So it wasn't monsters, probably.

All around the town, there was some strange new boxy structures. Here and there were some Zonaite lights being used. He could see some of the children seated on the end of a box chattering away. Teba drew close and found exactly why the fledglings were so enamored with the spot. There was this blessedly warm breeze coming out of the thing. The strange construction was so obviously Link's work. Teba checked in each of the homes he passed by and confirmed his suspicions. Misa had the biggest grin anyone had seen in weeks as another of the odd vents was pointed in her direction and, furthermore, there was a massive pile of food in the store. "Misa, which way did Link go? Is he still around?"

"He's downstairs messing with that weird shrine that appeared. He said it is a Shrine of Light and he's tampering with it. Look at all this food Gerudo Town and Hateno sent! Link said he didn't have time to gather much, but the other people of Hyrule chipped in." Misa was choosing the most perishable produce to make food for the kids. Hateno didn't just send its leftovers, they sent their best produce as a point of pride. Gerudo Town, while recovering from the sand shroud, somehow had managed to send more fruit than anyone could have predicted. She wondered how voltfruit sauce on crepes would go. "Link didn't just bring food, There's rubies from the Gerudo and from his own mining. Our hammocks will have footwarmers!"

"This... this is so much. I must go thank him immediately." Teba made a quick stop at the clothing store to find a suit specifically tailored for Link.

"I was just about to deliver this, Teba. Would you believe the man tried to pay full price? I told him the delivery of those extra goods more than covered it." Nekk had added extra cloth on the knees and elbows for the inevitable fights Link would pick. Teba asked some more questions about how things were going and offered to do the delivery.

Not every home had a vent pointed to it and Teba guessed Link had limited supplies during the construction. It was still impressive just how much he'd gotten done. The three vents all terminated at the weird rock where Link was currently fiddling with a green wall of light runes. Link muttered while the strange claws of his new hand twitched to different places. (Rauru was being very careful with his instructions to Link. He pointed to different runes and traced each settings rune change for Link. He was no Mineru, but he could at least read settings menus.)

Teba approached loudly, it wouldn't do to get accidentally gutted by the hero of Hyrule. "Link? Praise Hylia! I am so glad to see you alive. I really owe you. What are you doing?"

"I'm just changing some of the settings on this Shrine. Normally messing with this thing would be too time consuming, but I wanted a power source for the central heating system... Wait, my battery just finished recharging..." Link rapped a knuckle on a fan and flamethrower strapped together to turn them on. The two devices were crammed firmly into the end of the vent system where stone and metal planks funneled the resulting heat. "So, where do I start?"

"Why not start with what happened after you went into that basement with Zelda? Is she safe?"

"I... I'll tell you about the finer details after I finish this. I don't want anyone eavesdropping." Teba watched in fascination as Link bent forward and stuck his head directly into the smooth face of the rock. After a minute Link leaned back. The wall of light in front of the rock turned more solid and Teba's jaw dropped as it turned into a hole to another dimension. "Come on in! It's warmer in there anyway and no Gloom can get in. Wait... I should finish making the central heating too."

With this, the two men grabbed Link's flamethrower and fan combo. Link added a few more (metal) planks to stick the end into the rock. Teba followed Link in and helped position devices at the new endpoint. "That's it! Devices in here don't turn off automatically and the shrine will keep them powered up. speaking, of, I'm going to have to tell you about Rauru." Teba heard Link's tale right through the terrible revelation of Zelda's fate. He also heard the public version of events that Link was telling people in insecure environments or with those not trusted.

First, the tailor they kidnapped had run out of fabric. Now, this new embarrassment. "Let me get this straight. HOW many of us failed in our duty because of a stupid horse?!"

The conversation between the branch supervisor Blademaster and his visiting comrades in arms was not what anyone had wanted. A drawing of the horse now stuck to the wall next to the doodle of Link. The Yiga courier nodded as he smoothed out the last corner of the poster. "Link's horse took out two blademasters in thirty seconds. Bunch of people are calling the fiend the Master Horse."

Branch supervisor sighed. "Okay, look, this is stupid. We can just take out this horse. People are going to start laughing at us. Any word on the nightmare's whereabouts?"

"It seems to be following that one reporter guy around. I wanted to threaten the guy to help us proofread a pamphlet but, well, the horrible horse trampled me half to death."

"You too?" Branch supervisor squinted at the image. The black and white rendition of the horse. "What color is the horse?"

The courier remembered not everyone had tailed Link a lot. "It's a flaxen colored horse? Anyway, how's your knee been doing lately?" The branch supervisor took the opportunity for small talk and ran with it.

Unbeknownst to the Yiga inside, the guard posted outside was colorblind. He'd been teased about it as a child and, as a result, was reluctant to admit he didn't know what colors people were talking about. He was vigilantly watching for Link and stopped to admire the horses wandering about. There was something about watching them graze.

One horse came close to him. The Yiga guard reached a tentative hand out to the ears.

Inside the hideout, they heard screaming. Then, a cart full of elemental fruits rolled in to the cave. It exploded into smoke and flying splinters. Before anyone could recover or smoke dissipate, Epona charged in and finished off survivors with some well-placed blows. After the smoke cleared, Epona looked over the posters on the wall. She squinted at the rendition of her own head. This could make things more difficult.