You can find more of this on by Subscribe/Star (dot adult slash KajaWilder), it's posted past Ch. 110 there. You can find the same on my new (via Discord per their ToS), under /WildErotica. The DISCORD is at h-t_t-p_s-:_/-/_discord-._g-g_/-N9yDASt6Cw (taking out hyphens and underscores, 'cause FFnet). If you prefer direct links, go to my Discord and follow the 'links in general' section to find the ones you want. All of my fics are well ahead of what I post here, often 10-30 chapters ahead.

You can also read my original fiction on Kindle, or Kindle Unlimited for free. My author page: www ._amazon ._com / stores / Kaja-Wilder/ (this time taking out underscores and spaces, but leave the one hyphen).

Enjoy!

A note for those reading FwB: I'm having issues uploading that chapter for some reason. And anything else (which apparently is going around). Will update as I can, but it's available on Ao3 under the same name now and has been since yesterday morning.


Chap. 86: Floret Sandbar

"What the… is that a road marker? It is kind of hard to make out the old path here through the grass."

Zelda's question was not asked to anyone in particular. In fact, there was no one around in the hours just after dawn except for her faithful steed, Nightmare. She had camped for the night at the base of the hills that rose into the Sahasra Slope, just past the border into the unknown, unmarked area on her map, nestled between a high, rocky hill on the left, and a smoother, grass-covered, rolling one on the right.

With the mounted Bokoblins a dozen miles off or so up the mountains behind her, and unknown threats closer, Zelda had not dared light a fire to cook dinner with or keep herself warm. Thankfully, her satchel kept food preserved in the same state it had entered in, so she was still able to get a hot meal, and her winter blankets had been almost stiflingly warm in the cool, but not Mount Lanayru-frigid night.

Her dark-haired horse had fared even better, and seemed more chipper than she did as she broke her meager camp and secured her possessions before starting back on the increasingly hard-to-find road just as the sun broke the horizon.

That had been half an hour ago, and she'd made almost a mile. The guilt that had led her to walk the rest of the day had mostly faded. She'd done something silly with Nightmare. Maybe even something dumb… but she'd done it for, mostly, the right reasons. She hadn't wanted to hurt him in the sharp grass. Yes, she'd enjoyed pleasuring her horse more than she might have thought, but Zelda was a practical girl at heart, she thought, and had mostly done it because she thought it needed to be done.

She would probably do it again given the same choice. Out of necessity, of course. Much like fighting, risking her life for Hyrule and its surviving populace: it had to be done.

So she would, and she would try not to be ashamed of the need. It wasn't her fault, and she could hardly blame the animal for its nature. But the problem had needed taking care of, and she'd done it.

And that was alright.

Zelda rode once again, this time at a more leisurely pace, if only because she had some difficulty picking out the road. More than once already, Nightmare had turned left or right while she'd tried to go in the opposite direction, only for her to lose the path, and find it again where her stallion had been right all along.

That had led her here. In the shadow of a large, twisted elm, standing high over the prairie, was a small cairn. At least, she thought it might be a cairn, though it comprised of just four stones. Three buried in the ground, with another, larger, nestled between them.

"No," she murmured to herself, five stones. There's one hidden underneath, too. I wonder…

Her Sheikah Slate fell into Zelda's hands, and she brought the screen up, tapping Stasis, and then aimed it at the larger stone. "It won't take much. Just a few hits with something light should be enough."

The problem was, all of her lighter weapons were valuable. Engraved knight's blades, an assassin's sickle, or actually enchanted.

So she sighed, picked up her spiked, vertebrae-crafted Dragonbone Boko Bat from her belt, waited until it had enlarged in her hand, and then tapped the Rune one more time to activate it. Two swings, heaving more to lift the heavy club than to impact the boulder, and Zelda let herself rest. She'd already changed back to the knight's sword before Stasis deactivated.

The boulder lurched at once off the rocks, flying about six feet through the air toward the road, and landed with a loud thud that Zelda felt in her toes. She grinned. "Definitely a Korok?"

She bent, dug her fingers into the dirt, and pulled…

"Yahahaha! You found m-immmph!"

"Yeah, enough of that," Zelda chuckled, her dirt-covered fingers held over the spirit's leafy mask, "You guys are always so loud. It's too early for that. Just give me your seed, okay? I'll take them to Hestu next time I see him."

"Ah? You know Hestu? Okay, Lady! Bye!" Then in a flash of green sparkles, the Korok was gone, and a smelly bit of golden something was left behind.

Zelda pocketed it as always, then turned to stare at the rock. "Eh, not my problem. Someone might set it right if it's a road marker. Or not."

And she rode on.


At the crossroads a short while later, Zelda paused for a moment, and pulled out her canteen while she looked around. The road she was on met the other with a slightly angled T-shape. Southward, to her left, it rose upward, following the rolling hills. To the north, it wended left and right on a mostly-downward trek toward the wetlands she'd spotted from miles further back, which she now knew led to the Zora's Domain.

"But neither's my path," she murmured, "Is it? Upward, Nightmare. We need to crest that hill ahead."

It took two tugs on the reigns and an encouraging pat to get the horse to leave the easier trail northward, which was far more obvious than the barely-visible track they were leaving, indicative of a greater level of traffic. "Which isn't surprising, that's a long climb, and dangerous too," the princess mused, glancing back up the Slope for a moment.

Ahead, though, the ridge was still coated in tall grass and wildflowers of blue, white, and yellow, with a few wild herds roaming as they willed. It was a smooth walk, too, and not as steep as the road she's just come down, so while he nickered once as the climb began, Nightmare wasn't going to be strained too much by it.

Not that he couldn't handle it, Zelda knew. The horse was quite large, and very strong.

He still panicked, as did Zelda, when they first noticed that the boulder on their left was not a rock at all. It was the bell of a Guardian's body.

But it did not move or walk, and as they neared cautiously, her heart pounding and even Nightmare more than a little skittish despite his bravery, Zelda could make out the remains of several decayed, segmented legs, one of which was completely detached and laying about fifteen feet away from the body, half-buried in the grass. Moss had grown around the east and north sides, too, with rust beneath in several spots. "Decayed…?" she whispered.

Even that small noise would have, she thought, alerted one of the more broken, damaged and immobile Guardians, if the horse-hooves hadn't.

But it did not react, so Zelda tugged back on the reigns, and slipped from the horse, her fingers moving immediately to the hilt of her weapon, which came free with a soft hiss.

Poke, poke.

It didn't move, not even with her sword's sharp point prodding it.

Zelda sighed in relief, and stood up straight. "It's alright, Nightmare, this one's dead."

Her sword slipped back into the scabbard, and Zelda lowered herself to a knee. Underneath, there was minimal damage, but as she spent half an hour crawling around, Zelda was able to extract a single screw in good condition. Another dildo if I lose the first, at least, she thought to herself. Or maybe I should gift this to someone. Sagessa? No, I'm sure she gets plenty of things in her, heh. Purah maybe? She might not, if she and Symin are on the outs…

Either way, a few more minutes revealed nothing else that she could pry free or otherwise remove, so Zelda dusted off her pants and picked up the lead rope, electing to guide Nightmare for a while if only to stretch her legs and relieve her own saddle-sores a bit. Still not used to riding a lot, even if it comes naturally enough.


The pair stopped for lunch in a small grove high on a bluff that framed the eastern Hylia River. After picking up a pair of fat, dark brown Hearty Truffles to cook up later, Zelda slowly bit into her one of her sandwiches as she fastened the oat bucket to Nightmare's bridle with the other hand.

While eating, she turned her attention to the surroundings. She knew there were bridges across the Hylia aside from Proxim Bridge. She'd seen them. But from here, she couldn't make one out. To the north, the eastern meadows dropped straight into the swiftly-moving, wide river from cliffs anywhere from eight to thirty feet high as it moved back and forth to the north-northwest, and bent further east later.

That way would also take her closer to the Castle, which was still cloaked in darkness and foul magic that made her skin crawl even from here, many dozens of miles away.

Across the river, a rocky mount rose past pebbled, gentler river shores, with forest to the right, and the dark, black, foul Malice she'd only seen in any kind of quantity on the great spirit, Naydra. Here, though, even from a distance Zelda could tell it soaked the very ground, rising and bubbling upward from deep pools of something, along with the rib-bones of some long-fallen beast that had apparently crashed into the mountain itself, scarring one side forevermore.

South… South might be more promising for her.

The road upward, which she'd lost track of a while back, probably led to the bridge she could just see, if only because the distant blue glow of the Dueling Peaks Tower helped frame it in the sunlight. It led, presumably, to the dense forest west of Mable Ridge, which she knew was the closer bridge to Proxim. And she could just make out a spot of glowing blue near the horizon, which Zelda suspected was the Bosh Kala Shrine on Proxim's west side.

North might be easier on Nightmare… but it would take her closer to the castle, in terrain she had to see to plan for.

Crossing the river here would be very dangerous, she thought, as it flowed very quickly despite being wide and deep, perhaps pushed along by the torrential rains in the Zora's Domain.

"And I've already at least gotten a map of most of the southern area, so… that it is. Nabi Lake, I think I can avoid. But the forest near Batrea Lake… hmm." Zelda peered at the map intently. "There's two bridges there, so even if there is one further north it would just be out of the way. I can see them both, so I suppose it is south. Impa said the Central Stable wasn't far beyond the river anyway, so… it shouldn't be hard. And then I don't have to get too close to the miasma on the foul mountain, or the castle. South it is."

What clinched it wasn't the easy path, or the more known route, however. It was the Shrine. About three miles off, the river split into two, flowing around a moderately large island with a few trees on it, from which the bright glow of a Shrine shone like a second sun. It might be hard to reach, but she had her Cryonis blocks if nothing else, and Shrines were just too useful to pass up, even if she wasn't badly hurt.

There was another brief glimpse of a shrine's glow from across the river as the sun began to drop into the horizon some hours later, but it soon vanished behind the rolling hills.

It was truly dark by the time Zelda and Nightmare reached the rickety, but still standing Eagus Bridge that rose high over a short, mile-long gorge between the rise to the south, and the land she stood upon. They'd met a mere two travelers that day, both men on horse, who'd barely exchanged words aside from a brief greeting, and traveled in the opposite direction from each other.

More interesting than they, however, was the view of Nabi Lake.

A Skull-Rock hinted at a monster encampment of some size a couple of miles down the rock-strewn western shore, and a wooden watch-post stretched eighty or more feet into the air, far higher than most she'd seen, which rose like a giant pine from twenty feet into the water, to tower over it. A diving post, perhaps…? It's old, but it looks sturdy from here. Sturdier than the bridge, at least.

She had a much better vantage on the more distant Shrine, as well, and could see the top of a horse-head rising from the nearer trees, though it was across the further branch of the river. "That's the Stable, then… good to know there's another Shrine nearby if I ever need to go back. Hm… not sure how I can get to that nearer one, though. There's not a raft, and even Cryonis might not be still in that current. Hm.."

While the night wore on, Zelda continued to move back and forth, checking for the best place to, hopefully, use the Paraglider to reach the island safely. She did not notice the red glow of the moon until it was high overhead, and her eyes began to grow heavy with fatigue. "Blood Moon," she whispered as it began to pass, a strange chill in her bones suddenly. "I don't mind right here, I haven't seen Bokoblins or the like nearby, but it's a shame that Lizalfos nest I just cleared out is probably back. Ugh. I wonder if the eggs came back, too. I hope not."

In the end, she decided on simply climbing one of the more sparsely-covered trees near the higher cliffs, and leaped from there, hoping for the best.

The princess touched down in water, waist deep, and nearly fell from the sudden tug on her as she descended. "Ooh, that's cold," she whimpered, and immediately set about steadying herself and climbing from the water. Thankfully, the warmth of her Flameblade also made for a decent clothes-dryer, and by the time she'd gotten her bearings, Nightmare looking down at her forlornly from the cliffs high above, she was mostly dry.

Floret Sandbar, her Slate read, a round islet just north of the greater landmass between Nabi Lake and the great river lined with trees… and, as the name suggested, flowers.

They grew in a wild profusion, but in patches as if someone ages past had once raised a deliberate garden here. Wisteria, Lilac, Lily, Carnation, Rhododendrons, and all manner of other flowers, a hundred varieties if Zelda had to count them, and maybe more, filled almost the entire space. Though, as Zelda followed the shore around the island, hoping to find an easier way off once the Shrine was complete, she saw that there were carefully-arranged foot-paths circling the island as well, all inside the outer ring of flowers. "A shame," Zelda murmured, "I don't see a way in, and I can't wait forever. I'll just cross, try not to step on any."

She made it perhaps three steps before a sharp-toned woman strode out from behind a nearby tree, clearly half asleep herself. "What do you think you're doing?!" the woman shrieked, "You can't harm the flowers! Get off of them!"

Zelda, tired, but with her senses on high alert because of the Blood Moon just an hour earlier, jumped nearly out of her skin.

"What the- ah! You scared the daylights out of me!"

"I don't care! Get off the flowers," the woman screamed again, sending a flock of birds across the river into scared flight.

"Okay, okay," Zelda muttered, and carefully walked back onto the more plain, but lush grass that sprouted in a ring perhaps six feet wide on average, growing increasingly sparse as it moved toward the water. "You don't have to bite my head off. What if a monster heard you?"

The woman didn't reply until Zelda was safely out of the flowers, and she immediately stormed around her once she was, moving carefully only to crouch down and make sure not a single leaf or petal had been damaged. That inspection took a full ten minutes, while Zelda grew impatient, and finally turned to walk away.

Three steps there, before the woman snarled again, "Stay off the flowers! I mean it!"

"Fine," Zelda shot back, "I don't want to hurt them anyway. But I have to get to the Shrine. So if there's no way in, I'm going to make one, no matter what you say."

The woman hissed, "How dare you! Who do you think you are? My family's spent generations keeping this island and its flowers pristine! They have feelings, you know! They feel pain! How would you like it if someone stepped on you, huh?"

Zelda closed her eyes, her patience wearing thin as she looked up and down the woman's outfit. It was similar to the clothing worn in Hateno, though slightly different, and her dirty-brown hair was cut just above her shoulders. Much of her was stained with dirt or green, suggesting that at least she had been taking care of the flowers for a while. Still, she took a deep breath, "Okay, I'll bite. What's with the flowers, then?"

The woman smiled more kindly at that, and turned a wistful eye to the garden, "A long time ago, my great-great-grandmother met her husband on this island. They planted flowers, a field of them- those red ones in the center, see? No one even knows the names of those, any more. But from then on, our family, every one of us across the years, has met our future spouses here. We've all added more, too. That patch of blue Narciss is mine. I'm just waiting for my future husband to come, that's all. And keeping up the garden in the meantime, of course."

Zelda was touched despite herself, and her earlier annoyance. "I… see. Well, alright. You've convinced me. But is there a way to reach the Shrine? I really do need to."

"Why? You can't get in anyway, no one can. Doesn't stop us from taking our vows on the altar there, but… fine, I guess I'll show you. You aren't a distant relative of the Floret family, are you? Because if so, you should plant your flowers soon. I waited too long, and now I'm getting a bit old to be getting married, eh?"

Zelda smiled. The woman was, at least, someone who had a sense of humor. "Come, you don't look a day over thirty."

"Practically an old maid," the woman chuckled, "at least around these parts. I'm Magda."

"Zina," she replied easily, more comfortable with the name than she had been at the start.

"Zina… I've heard that from a few travelers now and then. You the adventurer?"

She smiled, "I am."

"Ah. Well, if you can get into the Shrine, then… I suppose more power to you. The blooms would look better bathed in that blue than orange, anyway. Come, I'll show you the garden entrance. It's just across the island, there…"

As they walked around the shore, Magda kept up a running commentary, and Zelda did her best to pay attention, to respond accordingly. But it was getting close to dawn once more when the gap in the flowers presented itself, and smooth, cut grass made itself known. "Here it is. Head on in, then… but mind you-"

"Don't step on the flowers," Zelda chuckled tiredly, "I got it. Thanks. I'll see you later, Magda. You don't need to wait for me."

Of course, that didn't stop the older woman from keeping hawk-like eyes on her feet as Zelda moved in, following the almost too-narrow, winding course.

Fortunately, she was not so tired that gathering a stray and probably wild large hearty radish was too difficult. Even the three Chus that she ran into, a singular and then a pair, were no match for her blade and footwork.

She almost stepped in the very first patch, which split the garden pathway in two just before she stepped up onto the porch of the Shrine. Zelda caught herself just in time her tabi-clad foot hung an inch in the air just over the uppermost flowers, and even from there, she heard Magda's sharp intake of breath, from a hundred feet or more away.

"Didn't touch them," she called, then hopped over the patch of bright red blossoms, and activated the Shrine.

She might have made a rude hand gesture to the astonished older woman as she vanished down into the ground.


"Drifting," the name of the Hila Rao Shrine's challenge, seemed appropriate for a Shrine on a sandbar in a larger river. But it was not what Zelda would call 'challenging'. The first section was simply a matter of moving across a large raft while it drifted along a current, and using that as a platform to reach a higher ledge.

The second was much the same, only it involved a wider flow, and three rafts instead of one, at an angle that ensured she had to hop from one to another.

The third only tried her patience. A combination of Cryonis and Remote Bombs took the princess more time waiting for the flow to carry her explosives around and then herself, than it did to figure out how to get the floating chest out of the water and then climb out herself.

"The Ice Arrows are nice, though," Zelda murmured into the meditative quiet as she walked, dripping once more, toward the Sage. "But I have to admit I'm mostly looking forward to not being exhausted. It's been a long day."

Of course, with the Spirit Orb, a renewed sense of arousal stole over the Princess as her fatigue and minor wounds vanished. But she wasn't going to give Magda the satisfaction. No… she could wait. For now.

Instead, while Zelda found herself on the western shore, she still hesitated to use Cryonis rafts or blocks to cross the rapid, wide river. Instead, she walked back around to the southwest, and used those blocks to cross the much shorter, slightly slower river to the south, the one that fed the deep Nabi Lake. From there, it was the work of an hour as the sun rose toward midmorning to cross the Eagus Bridge from the opposite side, find Nightmare, and ride him south once more, into the lush area around Batrea Lake.