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Chap. 72: Lanayru Foothills
It was freezing, most definitely below the point where liquid water was a thing, when Zelda finally braved sticking her head out of the cocoon of blankets. Only a light dusting of snow had covered the top of her and Celessa's hiding spot, but below her waist, the weight of it was thick and heavy against their legs, so it was a bit of a struggle to climb out while her companion cursed about the bits of white powder that had fallen into the warm spot.
Unfortunately, cold or not, Zelda had to pee, and she could not, would not, do that in such a small space.
Still, she was already shivering despite her parka as she let the top of the little space close, hopefully trapping more heat inside. She trudged to the downhill side of the overhang across frozen scree and ice, half-crawling with one hand on the rock face, the other on the slope of fallen pieces, until she reached a little drop-off.
Pulling down her trousers and barring her bum and sensitive bits to the elements felt like a horrible mistake, but Zelda had little choice; her bladder was about to explode. She squatted hanging over the edge, dreading the inevitable arrow or cry of a Bokoblin, which fortunately did not come. She was able to finish her ablutions, such as they were, in peace. With trembling, shivering fingers, she tied her pants back up loosely and hurried back to the bundle before climbing inside.
"Th- There's a-a-spot just s-south, down the s-slope," Zelda murmured as Celessa hugged her close to help her warm back up, "shit, s-s-s-c-c-c-old."
"Damn it," the other woman cursed too, looking up with dread. "I gotta go too, but… Ugh. Fine… I'll hurry. You should get dressed in as much as you can. I'm bundled up as much as I can get too, so I'll start a fire up if I can find some wood."
Zelda swallowed, shivering, then told her, "I've got some in my satchel w-we can use. And- and no time for flint and steel. I'm going to use the sword."
Celessa groaned, "Damn, we could've used that as a heater! Ugh… I'll be right back, then. The sooner we get moving the warmer we'll be."
Zelda could only mirror her friend's expression, as he had thought of it days earlier, but not in the moment the night before. Still, she drew the blade and let it warm up the space instead of Celessa as she hurried to dress not just in the clothes she'd been wearing before, but the long underthings, warmer pants, two layers of thick sheeps-wool socks from Hateno that had likely come from Koyin's ranch, two more shirts, and then the parka her father's ghost had made for her before picking the blade back up and climbing out once more.
She was still shivering when Celessa joined her a few moments later, still trying to pull the frozen exterior leathers from the ground, but at least the heat of her Flameblade alone had taken much of the cold away in her immediate vicinity. There was still a definite nip to the air, but between it and her clothing, she felt it no worse than an average winter day.
Thankfully, she felt mostly comfortable giving up some of her stock of branches and twigs to start a fire to cook something on. With two sources of heat, one mundane and one magical, the snow immediately surrounding the women started to melt quickly, and the heat rising caused the overhang to start dripping and running with water, too.
Not wanting to get rained on and then climb higher, into even colder air with wet coats and hoods, the women hurried to eat as quickly as they could, toasting bread and cheese and then, from Celessa's prized stores, mixing up a small cup each of sweet hot cocoa while Zelda broke up the rest of their camp and tied the half-frozen bedroll to their packs. She hoped her Flameblade, strapped to the back of her own, would keep them both warm but also work to dry out the leathers. The last thing either of them wanted was to sleep in wet bedrolls in the temperatures they were already feeling. Zelda strongly suspected that if they did, neither woman would wake up again.
There were, the two quickly found, two distinct sections of what the Sheikah Slate's map (which still boggled Celessa's mind to see in action) called the Naydra Snowfield. The first, the one they found themselves in at least, was significantly lower and largely covered by a conifer forest they would have discovered, and thus been able to shelter inside, if they had fled from the Lynel for about ten more minutes.
Neither really begrudged the decision to sleep beneath the overhang, because it had been warm enough aside from waking up covered in snow, and having to pull the combined bedroll free of its icy prison.
The second, from what Zelda could discern without being up there, was a wide plateau a few miles long and at least one wide that rose from stark cliffs across most of the rest of the broader valley between the northern ridge that eventually fell into rocky coast, and the southern that rose quickly from the Nirvata Plateau they had climbed days ago to the triple-crowned peaks of Madorna Mountain, which Clavia had mentioned to the princess weeks ago as being the key to some sort of hidden treasure.
The forest was far from some barren place with only snow and ice, however. The trees lent shelter not just to Zelda and Celessa as they walked, feet crunching beneath them amid a light snowfall that had continued since the night before with only brief breaks between, but to all manner of wildlife. They spotted squirrels with thick ruddy coats, foxes, and even a stray, blue-furred bison rubbing its flank against one of the taller, sturdy pines. It lowed as it spotted them and trundled away, no doubt nervous about the strange creatures it had rarely if ever seen before.
But the fauna was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
"Mushrooms?" Zelda gasped about an hour inside the forest, "Here? But it's so cold!"
They were, undoubtedly mushrooms, though. Thick and squat, with caps that ranged from deep purple or white at the edges to a blue a few shades darker than the noon sky at the top, with stems almost completely hidden beneath the dome, they were so short. "Do you know what they are?" she asked Celessa, already reaching for the Sheikah Slate to take a picture of the strange flora and add them to her Compendium."
"I don't," she replied, "I've never even heard of mushrooms growing in cold like this. I don't imagine it's very common. Cool and wet, sure, but not cold."
"Hm… it appears there's some knowledge of them, though," Zelda replied thoughtfully as she looked at the device in her hands, "They seem to be called Chillshrooms… apropos, I suppose. Grow primarily but not solely in cold climes and regions, thrive when it's snowy… the purple ring means they've had snow in the last twenty-four hours. Which makes sense, of course, as it's snowing now. Interesting… I don't know what solphytomesis means, but apparently it's how they 'eat'?"
"There's a mouthful of a word," Celessa chuckled, "I've never heard of that, either. I'm a simple girl, remember? I grew up on a farm, and not anywhere near here."
"I know," Zelda murmured, blushing a little, "I was kind of talking to myself… a bad habit I think I've carried from… well, the old me. When I was- before I almost died."
Celessa's amused expression sobered quickly at the reminder. A few seconds later, she murmured, "Sorry. Sometimes I forget you aren't just the pretty adventurer… and that you're a legendary princess from a century ago."
Zelda felt her eyes close in phantom-emotional pan, but shook her head as she replied quietly, "That's just it, though. This body might be the same as hers, but my mind? It's basically totally different. I don't… well, I don't remember almost anything from back then, just tiny little snippets, and not many of those. Impa, Purah, they remember me and say I'm a lot like I was back then, but I couldn't tell you if that's the case or not. I just don't know. I feel like I'm a.. a new person? A different person? It's hard to explain, but… It's almost as if the old me did die, and a new me took her place. Almost like… oh, I don't know. I'm not making any sense."
"No, I get it," Celessa shrugged and put her gloved hand on Zelda's shoulder, "At least I think I do. You probably feel out of place. Like you don't belong, even if some things are weirdly familiar, but they shouldn't be, because you don't remember seeing them before, right?"
Zelda blinked mid-reach for one of the bright blue caps, half-crouched, and looked up at her companion. "Well… yes. That's exactly it, I suppose. How did you…?"
Celessa shrugged and looked away with a grimace, "Because it's how I feel, too. All the time, at least here. It was the same back in Holodrum, but less… intense, I suppose, since it's where I was born. I felt like I didn't belong, there. I was always the outsider, the one the other kids, whose parents had lived in Nessuary for generations, didn't want to play with. But that was just on the surface. There was always just the sense of being an outsider.
"Here, in Hyrule, it's stronger if anything, but more because I should know all about it, but I don't. Like… like all the common things, that even the sheltered people in Hateno Village who've never been outside of East Necluda know. Like, where's the Great Forest Stable? I know there is one, and it's supposedly to the north, and near a 'great forest', but I've never been. Almost anyone in Hateno could probably direct you, though. Things like that. These mushrooms? The berries over there on the bush? I've never seen either variety, but I feel like I should've at least heard of them. Little things like that, all the time. Every day, there's something. Sometimes dozens of things."
"An outsider," Zelda whispered, then repeated it as she turned her attention back to the mushroom, like she was tasting the word, trying it out for the first time. "That's how it feels, yes. An outsider in my own body, sometimes… an outsider in Hyrule. I certainly don't feel like I'm it's princess. And then, other times, like- like at the altar, at Purifier Lake? That… it felt so natural, even if I don't know why I did any of it."
She hurried to look up at Celessa again, "I don't mean to say that I regret it, because I don't. It… it was strange, yes. Not being with you… that felt natural, too. But the… well, everything surrounding that, I suppose. You mentioned earlier my eyes glowing, and acting strangely. I don't recall acting strangely. I remember every moment, but at the time it felt perfectly normal, like it each little motion was the most normal thing, the expected thing. Like it was part of some great plan, or something I'd done a hundred times before. Now, in hindsight, it seems strange, but it didn't then. Now I'm an outsider once more. Unfamiliar with the landscape and plants growing in what is, in theory, my own kingdom."
Celessa listened intently, sympathetic and empathetic both, until that last line, where she snorted, "Oh, I doubt very much there are a lot of royalty, be they emperor, king, or lowly prince or princess, tenth in line for the throne, who know much about that. Being out and about, seeing how their people live, what it's really like in the fields and farms and forests of their lands, from the high peak to the deepest lakes, is not exactly something I've heard of them doing often. You're probably an outsider for enjoying it, to be honest, or even having curiosity about it."
"Maybe," Zelda sighed, "but it's no use dwelling on it, really. I… it's not something either of us are likely to find a way to change, at any rate. At least not soon. These really are fascinating specimens, though."
Zelda picked the cap up gently, but even as she touched it, the spores powdered the snow around it in deep purple. She recoiled, but then murmured, "Well, the Slate said they aren't toxic, so the spores should be alright, as well. They're even edible. I wonder what… hmm."
"Oh, no," Celessa chuckled, reaching down and plucking up a few more after tapping the caps so they released their spores, "I'm not eating anything you cook with them."
"What?" Zelda asked, feeling oddly hurt, "I'm a decent cook, I think."
"Oh, no, your cooking is fine," the warrior continued, grinning over at her as she started forming a small stack for Zelda to shovel into her satchel, "I just don't want to eat anything named Chillshroom when I'm already half-frozen, that's all."
"Oh," the princess giggled, "I thought… never mind. Thank you. Do you want to carry some yourself…?"
"No way," was the reply, still accompanied by a smile and another pair of the face-sized caps, "I don't really like mushrooms to begin with, and I certainly don't want to weigh down my pack with them. Your satchel seems endless, so you can carry them."
"Alright," Zelda smiled, "I don't mind them, and I'm kind of eager to taste these… but I think you're right, I'll save it for when we're down, off the mountain at least."
After they'd gathered the patches they could reach, careful to leave three or four in each stand so they could regrow, the women started for the berries, too. They grew in hand-sized clumps, each berry about the size of a grape but clustered closer, more like a huge raspberry. "Frostberries, also known simply as Wildberries by the Sheikah," Zelda read off, "quite edible, but eating more than two bundles uncooked can make one ill… interesting. Very good for jams and jellies, and is highly prized for them… used in making savory-sweet sauces for meat dishes. Ooh, that sounds good."
"It does," Celessa agreed, already pulling down bunches of the large bush, "Let's leave about half, I think. That should let it seed plenty next season, too."
"I hope," Zelda replied, pulling one bulb off the bunch and popping it into her mouth. "Mm! They are tasty, a bit tart, but quite sweet. I rather like them."
"Don't gorge yourself though," Celessa reminder her with a laugh.
It took another hour for the two to gather up what mushrooms and berries they could see from the mostly-buried remains of the path. Wandering back and forth through the forest had definitely slowed their overall progress, but the activity had kept them warm through lunch, as well. That, and the red-hot steel strapped to Zelda's pack that somehow just refused to scorch her bedroll, the leather, or cloth that held it in place.
Magic, especially Sheikah magic, was strange… but highly useful. "I wonder how it can emanate so much heat, and even burn, igniting fire when you want it to… but it doesn't burn when it's just sitting there."
"No idea," Celessa said with a shrug as she finished her lunch. The sword was currently sitting across Zelda's lap so that it was between them as they ate. The princess had mostly occupied herself with tracing the lines of runes, using what she'd slowly figured out from the Sheikah Slate's map labels to translate as much as she could.
"Bring the wrath of the sun, burn thine enemies… and the next line makes no sense. Freeze cold the barrier of life, shield from the doom of flame. I must be translating it wrong," Zelda muttered. Celessa rolled her eyes. The stories she'd heard of Zelda had made her out to be quite the burgeoning scholar.
The young woman in front of her, no matter what she said about not feeling like the same person, displayed very much the same trait. She seemed not only endlessly curious, but unable to stop herself from trying to learn all she could about, well, everything. Even translating ancient Sheikah? There were probably less than a dozen people in all of Hyrule, and all of the Sheikah, that could. More realistically, the number was three or four, maybe five, plus the princess herself. And she'd figured out how to do it on her own, with no basis of knowledge?
Yes, she was definitely a smart one. Just being around her made Celessa want to learn more herself. She'd noticed her speech patterns had changed a bit too, no doubt subconsciously trying to impress the young woman she so admired. What she wouldn't give for another approving smile…
Celessa forced herself to hold back the groan as she realized what that meant for herself. She wasn't some love-sick school girl, she was an adventurer, a warrior, a grown woman. Ridiculous, that's what she was. Truly ridiculous.
Yet, as she watched Zelda's frustration mount, she couldn't help but be amused and watch her fondly. No… she couldn't help it, and more-so, she didn't want to.
The upper end of the Snowfield was much as Zelda had expected based on the map. There was one key difference however. It was not flat precisely, but covered in rolling hills almost like dunes of white powder. The broken, snow-covered roadway became oddly easier to see as they left the forest behind. The snow around them had grown deeper without the pines to carry their share, but as it had gotten steeper, what had once been a path had become stone stairs. Some, carved roughly into the rock, shaped out of what was probably natural erosion. Others had been set more carefully, carved in neat rows for a dozen or so, though they had been broken up by geological pressures since, leaving them uneven now. Yet more were actual bricks, most crushed to powder by the passage of time and weight of snow, leaving only the vague impression of once-grand causeways leading inexorably upward for those taking the sacred pilgrimage to the Spring of Wisdom atop the highest mountain in southeast Hyrule.
It was also relatively barren, so as Zelda scanned over it from half-way up the road that continued on the south side, she had mostly elected not to bother exploring it. It would have been, she thought and Celessa argued, a complete waste of time and take the remainder of their day to forge a path through the driving snow and back. Driven now by a biting wind off the mountain above them, rather than falling properly, for the sky had begun to clear finally an hour after they had broken their lunch.
Celessa had already started heading further up the increasingly steep, wind-swept path when Zelda spotted it. A glimpse of white, pearly, shining. The sun on snow, the thought at first, but it had been one spot, not an entire dune or series of them.
And then it moved.
Through two miles or so of distance, Zelda only spotted it through the Slate's scope. "Uh… Celessa?"
"Yeah?"
"I… think I need to go out there. If you don't want to, you can just wait, I suppose? I'll try and hurry."
Celessa frowned down from a dozen feet away and five higher, "Why? And no, I'm not leaving you alone, and you'd best not leave me alone. Hiking like this is dangerous, it's always best to have backup in case something happens. Especially in the cold."
"Fair enough," Zelda nodded, but pointed at the Slate, and then out at the snowfield as she climbed to meet her companion. "There's something shining and moving out there. Not the sun, I thought that at first, but it's the wrong color, and it moved. Twice, now. It's not the color of the sun, or snow, but it is white. More like an egg, or a cloud."
Her companion glanced at the sky, turning in all four directions, "Only clouds are west of us now. Could it be reflecting those? Maybe a patch of water?"
"I'd say it's possible, and perhaps it still is," Zelda shrugged in response, "but again, it's moving. Now four times. Look, watch it, it's moving, stopping, and moving again. Almost like a fox or something avoiding a predator."
"It might be a fox, covered in snow, or white fur."
That made Zelda frown and nod, "It could be… but I don't think it is. I can't explain it, but I've seen something like this before. I think it's a Korok."
That made Celessa's frown return, "One of those creepy 'forest spirits'?"
"They aren't creepy," Zelda laughed, giving her friend a light shove on the shoulder, "They're cute. Well, mostly. Two of them I've met have been creepy, but not like, because they're spirits."
One of Celessa's eyebrows raised suggestively as she grinned, "Oh? Do tell. What kind of creepy are these spirits of yours?"
Making a great show of rolling her green eyes, Zelda huffed, "The pervy kind, of course, what did you think I meant? The first one watched me, um… enjoying myself. And the other one, I suppose, did the same, only with… with something else."
Celessa's laugh could've brought down an avalanche, though they were, thankfully, far enough from the mountain to keep that from happening. At least, not that Zelda could see. "Really? They watched you finger yourself, and then, what, put one of Cece's toys in your body, or something?"
Zelda blinked, "Well, no, not exactly… at least, not the second one. It was a- a Moblin horn, actually. And don't judge me, I was desperate, alright? It felt good, too, and I even kept it, so shush. And who's Cece?"
"You don't know- Oh, you sweet, innocent child," Celessa laughed, then glanced about as if she were looking for eavesdroppers despite being literal miles from probably another living human. Then she dropped her backpack from one arm to the ground and started rifling through it. Down at the bottom, she clutched something with a grin, and then pulled it up, brandishing it almost like a dagger or knife. "This is a 'Cece Creation'. Cece: Maker of the finest pleasure toys in Hyrule! Or so she markets herself, anyway."
She was holding an erect dick. Well, not a penis, precisely, Zelda realized, but a carved wooden replica of one, done in impeccable detail. Six inches long plus the handle she held it by, which curved for a better grip in reverse. It was, clearly, intended to be used by the person holding it, on themselves. Stained cherry red, highly polished.
"So you…"
Zelda froze. She didn't know what she wanted to ask, wanted to say.
Celessa seemed to understand, though, "Yep. I've never had sex with a man, and never been close with a woman until you, Princess, but this old boy's gotten me through many a lonely night in the last few months. Anyway, Cece's Sophie and Seldon's older sister. At least, I think she's the oldest of the three. Kind of looks after them… think she's almost ten years older than Sophie, anyway. Hard to hear that girl sometimes. She makes sex toys, like this. Even some for guys, using bladders, though those take oil or something I guess. I didn't look too close, since it's not my thing."
"Weird," Zelda exhaled, reached out and touched it before she realized what she was doing. She yanked her hand back the moment she did though, and, she imagined, turned as bright red as her magical sword. "I mean, not weird that you have one, or that she makes one, or that it's weird itself, it's just, uh- I… I didn't think… well, that anyone else would…"
Again, Celessa laughed, and shoved the phallus back into her pack, though she didn't bother hiding it this time, merely slipped it vertically inside. "Didn't think other people liked to feel good, too? Sophie doesn't like to talk about it, and of course Seldon's embarrassed I guess, but Cece… well, if you'd met her proper, you'd know she isn't embarrassed. Went from prostitute to toy-maker, I guess, when making toys for children wasn't paying the bills. No idea who taught her to carve wood, but she's really good at it."
"I'll say," Zelda muttered. She couldn't get the image of that thing out of her head. The Moblin Horn and even Ancient Screw had both been amazing in their own way, as had Thalla's modest dick, but what would that one feel like? It was about the size of the Yiga's, but it would be guided by her own hand, not forced upon her when drugged and bound…
She shivered, and not from the cold, "Er, w- We should probably get going. Don't want to waste any more time."
"Sure," Celessa agreed at once, hoisting her pack back on. "Where you lead, I follow. Unless you've got orders, or something, I guess. I don't know. What do Knights of Hyrule do, anyway? Aside from keep you and the kingdom safe, of course. I think I get that part."
"Honestly? I've no idea," Zelda replied with a chuckle as she led the way down to, hopefully, find an Korok rather than chase some wild fairy lights to no avail.
