Author's Note:

Big thanks to DrSteggy for the help with the battle scene in this chapter!
You should do yourselves a favor and read her story Uneasy Lies the Chosen of Farore on AO3, it's insanely good!

Chapter 22: Escalation

The Seres Scablands, night of the fifth day after Hero's Day

Remiss was particularly grateful for Shade's Sheikah lamp: not only did the bright steady light make walking in the uneven terrain much easier, it was also keeping the poes away. The malevolent spirits would float towards them with their customary cackles, only to stop several steps away, when the glow became too strong for them to tolerate, and retreat back the way they'd came.

Even with the poes not being an active threat, the Seres scablands were still unnerving. Remiss had never actually been here before, but he had seen paintings and had known roughly what to expect: namely, giant trees that looked more like some kind of stone mushrooms. Shade's light didn't reach the tops of the trees, but even the trunks looked strange, more like rock than bark, as if the trees were petrified. The rest of the wildlife did not diminish the strangeness of the land either, mostly because there was very little of it, more like a tundra than a prairie. All that was there was low grass and a few shrubs; no trees to be seen other than the strange giant ones… Remiss wasn't sure whether he'd like the Scablands during the day, but he certainly didn't like them at night.

It didn't help that although they were keeping their distance, the sight and sounds of all the poes around them was really not adding any charm to their surroundings.

Perhaps because she realized that anyone could see where they were going, Shade walked for over an hour, guiding Remiss deep into the eerie petrified giant mushroom tundra. She finally stopped by the thick trunk of one of the strange trees. Remiss stopped when she did and crossed his arms, waiting.

Shade braced herself as she faced her companion. Remiss, for all that he was far too quick to believe any rumor and conspiracy theory, was loyal and honest. She'd told him before that she trusted him, and she had meant it. That well earned trust made the transgression of sharing what she knew feel a bit less like a wrongdoing, even if she was unarguably going against standing orders by sharing secret information she was officially not even supposed to know herself.

"It was no mere happenstance that Sir Pyr was assigned to training the Hero. Sorry, to training Link," she started.

Maybe approaching the forbidden fact obliquely would prevent her from locking up without being able to voice it.

"The King had been looking for a safe assignment that Sir Pyr wouldn't find insulting. His Majesty won't risk him, that's why Pyr hardly ever does anything, and THAT's why he doesn't like being called a Sir, he feels like he doesn't get to do the work for it…" she stopped, realizing she was rambling.

Remiss tilted his head. Shade took a deep breath.

"I cannot possibly overstate how very, VERY confidential this is," she said emphatically. "The only reason I'm privy to this information is that it is unavoidable that I should overhear some secrets in the course of my normal duties, and I overheard this one in particular. Officially, if anyone asks, anyone at all, I DON'T know what I'm about to tell you."

She took another shaky breath. If her judgement on this was deemed wrong, it would also be deemed treasonous; but what option did she have but to risk it? She couldn't even be sure that she wasn't meant to react precisely the way she was.

"As you can probably guess," she continued, "I'm under strict orders not to divulge secrets I become aware of in the course of my duties, to anyone, for any reason. This includes this secret, of course, but circumstances right now force me to belay that order. It's entirely possible that I'll be declared a traitor for this if my superiors disagree with my decision, but I cannot see any other reasonable option. This is not up for debate, it is my decision, and I trust you won't insult me by trying to prevent me from sharing what I feel I must with you."

Remiss raised an eyebrow. "Could you please get on with whatever this is before the poes decide your light is not so repulsive after all?"

Shade bit her lips, took another deep breath, and spit it out. "Sir Pyr is the Sage of Generosity. This is a crown secret, Colonel Remiss. Even Link is completely unaware."

Remiss was shocked into silence.

A Sage.

There was an identified SAGE.

And he was MISSING.

A SAGE was MISSING.

Thoughts of seven descendants – really the new sages themselves - being captured by Ganon's puppet in the time of the Hero of Legends to free the demon from the Dark World came instantly to mind. Thoughts of the fact it had happened again at least twice since, that historians knew of, weren't far behind.

Remiss swallowed, inhaled deeply and forced his thoughts to fall back, as per his training, to finding the facts he needed to decide on a course of action.

"Is the Crown aware?" he asked. He immediately regretted the customary question: he already KNEW the Crown was aware.

Shade let the pointlessness slide and merely nodded.

"Are we sure? Does he have… powers? I mean, what does being the sage of generosity look like?"

"There is no doubt whatsoever," Shade replied. "He does possess innate magic, as forbidden as he has been to use it. Sage Pyr's power is akin to the generosity of Din's fertile red earth. In other words, he can grow plants. Link accidentally got him into trouble a few years back by mentioning his mother missed Pyr's green thumb helping with her garden."

Remiss internalized that. Then: "Has the Crown issued orders for us?" he asked. "Through some kind of code in the newsletter, perhaps?"

Shade bit her lips. "Not… as such," she said. "You are not fully grasping the scale of this situation, Colonel. The King cannot assign all his guards and knights to searching for Pyr or protecting the other known Sages without revealing that there are Sages and that at least one of them is missing. The existence of the Sages has been kept secret both to protect them and to avoid making the population even more anxious than they already are. In order both to avoid a panic and to protect the remaining Sages, his Majesty will likely choose to keep any effort to locate Sage Pyr and to protect the others as discrete as he possibly can."

Remiss's eyebrows shot up. "You are one of the King's own shadows," he thought aloud. "A position of complete trust."

Shade nodded. "And you are held in the highest regard," she said.

"You believe the King, although he cannot possibly directly order us to, arranged for Sir Pyr's disappearance to be widely publicized so that you would find out about it and react accordingly, including enlisting my assistance," Remiss said.

"I have no way to be sure, and I certainly hope we won't be completely alone in searching for Sage Pyr and the others, but I believe it is possible, even a bit likely, that we are meant to do just that, and I believe that we should react accordingly, as you say, whether or not I am correct in this belief."

Remiss mulled it over. "I have no idea whether you're delusional here, but we're both off duty, we can go anywhere we please, or at least anywhere you please, with no uniform… we are perfect for this."

Shade nodded. "I'm glad we're in agreement. There is, however, one problem: I don't know who the other Sages are. I've heard conversations about a Gerudo, but at Cefaris' insistence, her name was not so much as spoken. I don't remember what she was the Sage OF, either... I'm not MEANT to remember what I overhear, so of course I don't try to. Sage Pyr is an exception because... well, he's famous! I know him, I've met him a few times. I cannot not remember him!"

"Do you know how many are identified?" Remiss asked.

Shade shook her head. "I'm pretty sure there's at least a third one, but I never heard of them directly and I don't even know what race they are. But there's no reason I should know any of this, so that means nothing. After all, I'm obviously not always on duty and even when I am, I'm not always within earshot of the King. Often, but not always."

Remiss mulled that over as well.

"So. In summary, one Sage is missing in spite of being someone who would be expected to be able to look after himself. This particular Sage is a close acquaintance to Link of Given. Possibly a friend. Point is they know each other reasonably well."

Shade frowned. "Do you believe Sage Pyr's disappearance might be linked to being an acquaintance of Link rather than to being a Sage?"

Remiss nodded. "I'm not saying it is. A lot of people are acquainted with Link and the only one who we know disappeared is a Sage. But then the only Sage we know who disappeared is acquainted with Link. I'm just saying we don't know."

Shade tapped her chin. "I would like to work on the assumption that his disappearance is due to his being a Sage for now," she said. "Although we don't actually know one way or the other, if his absence is instead due to his acquaintance to Link, it is of no real consequence."

"I agree," Remiss said. "I'm also far more concerned with the possibility of more Sages going missing than more of Link's acquaintances. It's not that I want anyone to be in trouble, but… in the grand scheme of things, we need to protect the people who the entire Kingdom might depend on for surviving this age. Especially with the true Hero unfound..."

He suddenly noticed that Shade was looking past him, her eyes narrowed.

"What is it?" he asked, his hand automatically going to the pommel of his sword. "The poes ignoring your light?"

"No," Shade said. She produced small bombs from some hidden pouch near her waist. "Sheikah lamps never fail to keep poes away. Do you have anything on you that can create fire?"

"Some flint," Remiss answered. "Straight talk, Shade, what's behind me?"

Shade swallowed. "Gibdos. I can see five of them just at the edge of my light, which means that at their slow pace, they would be on us in about one minute. Do you happen to know the range of their cry?"

Remiss shook his head and turned around. "Will your bombs set the grass on fire when they detonate?" he asked.

"Unlikely," Shade said. "They're only meant to create a smoke screen."

"Do you have a plan?" Remiss said. "Recommendations, suggestions?"

Shade swallowed. "No. We will be paralyzed by their screams by the time we cut through the first two, and I'm now seeing ten. At this point I believe it's safe to assume there are more just outside the range of my lamp's light."

"I have a plan," Remiss said. "Will you follow my lead?"

"Yes," came the immediate response.

"Hands on your ears and sing something as loudly as you can," Remiss said. "Their scream cannot paralyze you if you don't hear it. Low tech but effective, worked before, trust me, NOW!"

Saying so, Remiss jammed his own hands on his hears and started loudly singing the Akkala Citadel's anthem.

Shade's eyes widened briefly, but she stowed the bombs away again, pressed her hands against her ears and started singing the Hero's March.

Remiss started walking, finding gaps between the approaching Gibdos. Shade followed.

She did hear when they screeched, but the sound was dimmed enough that it merely made her shudder. She sang all the louder and continued to follow the Colonel.

It took well over an hour to walk back due to having to avoid the Gibdos, and Shade's throat was raw by the time they finally made it out of the Gibdo's territory.

But they were alive and it was thanks to the Colonel. The man really was good in addition to being trustworthy. They might just have a chance to pull off this Sage saving venture.

Frontier Town, morning of the sixth day after Hero's Day

Zelda woke up to Link dressed and sitting once more with his back to her. He had an orange shirt on today, with grey pants. The orange of the shirt, like the red from yesterday, brought out the reddish tone in his dark brown hair in a very nice way.

From a purely color aesthetic point of view, of course. She looked away from him, grateful once again that his charms had no hold on her. They had avoided socializing ever since he'd been discovered as the Hero precisely to avoid their being a potentially catastrophic distraction and weakness to each other, and it was paying off. She wasn't blind, she knew how he looked, but it simply had no effect on her. No more so than how smoothly he always moved, and no more so than how kind and selfless he was. He was the Hero, of course he was skilled and kind and selfless.

"We're back to my being the one to oversleep," she said with a stretch. "Good morning."

"Good morning, Princess," Link said. "It is actually still very early. I do hope I didn't wake you."

"Not at all," she replied. "Do you mean you rose even earlier than you usually do?"

Link bit his tongue. He had, but he hadn't meant to actually reveal it. "I did, although I didn't mean to point it out," he said. He almost continued, guessing she would ask why, but since it was only a guess, he decided not to impose by blabbering on.

"Did you have trouble sleeping?" she asked.

Link held back a dry chuckle: he'd guessed right. "I've been feeling restless, Princess," he admitted. It was such an understatement that it didn't feel like he was complaining – if anything, by this point, he thought not saying anything might be dishonest.

"Very understandably so," the Princess said. "I've been having uneasy dreams myself, not all of them prophetic. Riding for two full days and still not finding any of the monsters roaming about did not help with my frustration level, and I would imagine it might have had the same effect on yours."

"It did," Link admitted again. "I've also been checking on the Master Sword now and then, and it has been steadily getting worse. I think the damage will soon reach the hilt and be visible even with the sword in its sheath." He sighed. "I can hide it under a cover made for just that purpose, but hiding it does not cure the damage. And that's in addition to my being unable to find the Enemy or any hint of where they might be, and of being equally unable to stem this monster outbreak. I am failing completely."

He took a deep breath. He'd said a lot more than he'd intended. "I'm sorry, Princess, I did not mean to burden you. I will find a way to save Hyrule."

"I know you will," Zelda replied gently, "and your sharing your concerns is no burden. I must correct you, however: you are NOT failing. And..." she hesitated for one moment before continuing. "I haven't shared this before, because the lack of useful information only adds to my own frustration, but I've been having a recurring dream, every single night since we've reunited."

Link cocked his head. Dreams were serious when it came to someone with the power of prophecy like the Princess.

"The dream is short and to the point," Zelda continued. "In it, you are holding a restored Master Sword. I cannot see anything else around, just you and the sword, but it is pristine."

After a moment, Link asked: "Is this dream prophetic?"

"I wasn't sure at first, but the fact I remember it clearly every time, and the fact that I keep having it, lead me to believe that it is. Unfortunately, it gives me no information on how to restore the Master Sword."

Link's heart started hammering. "But it confirms that it will be, and within my lifetime?" he asked.

"I think so, yes," Zelda said.

Link let out a long breath, and found himself having to control his breathing to keep it from becoming frantic. He wanted to scream, he felt like jumping in relief, and even had to squash down the ridiculous urge to turn to the Princess and hug her.

"This is Uncle Riph all over again," he said with a chuckle. "Princess Zelda, thank you for telling me. I'm ashamed to say that even though we appear to be following a trail given us by the Goddesses themselves, I've been finding it difficult to remain optimistic."

Zelda smiled at his back and nearly told him to just turn around and face her. But she was not wearing a scarf, she was not shaved, and in the end, she could not do it.

"If I had known it would be such a relief to you, I would have told you before now," she said. "You're welcome. I... I'll get ready."

The Inn Keeper was waiting between their room and the stairs that led to the main dining room when Link and Zelda came out.

"Princess!" he exclaimed with a smile, bowing. "Hero! Good morning to you both!"

"Good morning," Zelda said with a smile.

"Good morning to you, Master Link," Link said, inclining his head. "May the Goddesses bless you and yours."

"Well, ah! Same to you, I'm sure," the Inn Keeper said. "Including the Master Link part, ah ah!"

"We were just heading for breakfast," Zelda said.

Link was tempted to interject to clarify that they were pressed for time, but Zelda's words and her tone had implied it already and it felt rude to add on to it.

"About that," the Inn Keeper said. "I was wondering whether you'd prefer to eat in your room again? I mentioned last night that you're both exceptional visitors. I wouldn't want my other patrons to bother you."

Link and Zelda exchanged a glance.

"We do have some business to conduct this morning," Zelda said, her eyes still on Link. "Hero, how do you feel about eating by ourselves again?"

"I think Master Link's generous offer could in fact make our morning easier and see us ready to conduct our business quicker, Princess. If it is agreeable to you, I would suggest accepting it."

"Then it's settled. What can you offer for breakfast, Master Link?"

The Inn Keeper rattled off several options, Link and Zelda picked some, and then Master Link hurried off to go fetch their selections while Link and Zelda walked right back inside their room.

Away from prying eyes, and at no risk of offending the Inn's other patrons.

The Princess was reading, and Link was getting in a bit of light exercise while they waited for the food, doing one handed push-ups with the intent of moving to squats next, but a sudden loud noise outside put a stop to those plans. It sounded a little like a waterfall, but not quite.

Link jumped to his feet and to their room's window just as there was a knock on the door. He heard the Inn Keeper's voice, muffled, asking what that noise was.

"I'll get the door," the Princess said. "Can you see what that was?"

"Thank you, Princess, one moment please," Link replied, scanning the view from their room, which was of Lake Illumeni.

The waters were agitated, and as Link looked, a large maelstrom formed, its eye in the middle of the lake.

"Is that from outside?" the Inn Keeper asked, his voice much clearer now that the Princess had let him in the room.

"There's a maelstrom in the lake," Link said, turning to the Inn Keeper. "Master Link, has that ever happened before?"

The Inn Keeper's eyes were wide and he ran more than he walked to the window. Link stepped aside slightly while making sure he could also still see what was happening.

"Goddess!" the Inn Keeper exclaimed. "No! Never! What in the world…"

A huge splashing sound cut him off: a gigantic creature, nearly as big as the lake itself, was surfacing.

Link instinctively reached for his bow. "Princess! Please take cover! You as well, Master Link!" The request was made on pure reflex and Link instantly felt ridiculous for it: they were not very far from the lake, but there were far enough that there was no chance of the monster's tentacles reaching them. Just the same, he did not retract the advice.

The creature was uglier the more of it you could see. A monstrous head, a light purplish-grey in color, with a dozen eyes and as many mouths, and a seemingly endless supply of tentacles below that.

It was at least surfacing slowly, so the waves it was creating were unlikely to do worse than make some things wet along the shores of the lake. There was nobody around, either, Link figured due to the early hour.

He looked back at the Princess: she and Master Link had both retreated to behind the table. He turned back to the window just in time to see something large and wet and full of suckers coming towards him very, very fast.

He dove and took out Maran's bigger sword out of his pouch at the same time. A first tentacle crashed through the window, the window's frame, and the wall surrounding it. It missed Link by a hair. A second one followed right on the first one's heel, crashing straight through the wall a hand's width away from the newly enlarged window. It went wide of Link altogether.

Link stabbed Maran's sword straight through the still moving flesh of the closest tentacle and was jerked towards the centre of the room as he held on to the handle of the sword. "That's for sucking all the fun out of this morning..." he muttered at the tentacle.

There were two screams.

Link's eyes widened in panic and searched for the Princess and the Inn Keeper. He found them in the worst possible places: each at the end of one of the tentacles that had come crashing through the windows, the monster's limbs wrapped tightly around them both.

His sword was in the tentacle holding the Princess, but he didn't have time to even think of a move before a bright light pierced his eyes and both tentacles suddenly retracted. Link was slammed against what was left of the wall, the force of the impact ripping the handle of Maran's sword out of his hand. He desperately reached out for the Princess but she was no longer in the monster's grasp.

"Link! It still has the Inn Keeper! I couldn't stab the other tentacle in time!" the Princess cried out from further within the room.

Link glanced at her: she seemed fine, and still had a light arrow in her hands. "Princess," he cried out, "please retreat to safety! I'll deal with the monster!"

She nodded and ran for the door.

Link jumped straight out of the window, counting on his legs to absorb the impact of the jump from a high second story well enough that it wouldn't slow him down.

He never found out whether it would have: a new tentacle lashed at him and he only just had time to cast Nayru's Love before the monstrous limb impacted him. The shield thankfully held but Link was still sent flying. The shield, with Link inside of it, hit the cobbled street at an angle and bounced like a rock being skipped across a lake, finally coming to a stop by crashing into a wall.

Link let go of the shield then, jumped back to his feet and ran towards the lake, zigzagging to make himself a harder target. He fished a green potion out of his pouch as he went, drank it, and started analyzing the situation.

The monster was fast, very fast. And it hit very hard. It was also something Link had never fought before, so he had no pre-existing strategy. It had a lot of eyes and mouths, however, which were always a good target, and it was entirely possible that it wasn't overly resistant to being cut up into small pieces. So, the lack of prior information might not that be that much of a problem.

The main cause of concern was that the beast had the Inn Keeper in its grasp, and Link couldn't hear him yelling or screaming. Link needed to rescue him as fast as possible: as much as he didn't want to think of it, it was entirely possible the Inn Keeper was in need of a potion or even a fairy.

The need for speed was thus two fold: he needed to dodge blows from the blazingly fast tentacles, and he needed to reach the Inn Keeper and get him to safety.

He pulled his raft out of his pouch as he approached the edge of the water.

The raft was enchanted to stay afloat on anything, and expansive testing had allowed Link to confirm that it could handle any wave, whirlpool or choppy water while remaining nearly perfectly horizontal and therefore very easy to stay on so long as you kept your center of gravity low to help with balance. The magic also had the side effect that Link could control its direction easily by shifting his weight. He wasn't sure if that was a pure side effect of the balancing or just an added feature to the spell on the raft, but either way, it worked wonderfully well, and it could go very, very fast.

The testing had been completely necessary, and not at all conducted because it was incredibly fun to ride the waves home: that was just a fortunate unavoidable bonus.

The Inn Keeper was being held high above to Link's right. Link threw the raft in the next wave that lapped up close to him and jumped on it, crouching low with his feet set shoulder width apart, and immediately leaning forward and to the right, circling the monster towards its prisoner.

A tentacle just missed him, piercing straight into the water right behind him and giving Link another surge of speed as the water splashed outward from its point of impact. "That was a sucky attempt!" he informed the monster, and winced. Wasn't it bad enough that he kept thinking up bad jokes without also repeating himself? Two jokes about the suckers? Really?

He took his bow out, along with three arrows, and shot towards three eyes in quick succession, not slowing down. All three arrows bullseyed and the monster screeched, tentacles trashing madly about. Link's eyes narrowed and went straight to the tip of the tentacle holding the Inn Keeper.

His eyes widened and his breath hitched; his heart started hammering: the tentacle holding the Inn Keeper was swinging around just like the others, but there was hardly any chance it would injure the poor man further: Master Link was limp, his body bent at an impossible angle, eyes staring unseeing through a blood soaked face.

The Inn Keeper was dead, crushed by the monster Link had failed to prevent from grabbing him in the first place. The Inn Keeper who had welcomed them in a town where nobody else was likely to, as prudent as that welcome had been, was dead on Link's watch, killed right in front of the very soul sworn to protect everyone in Hyrule.

Link clenched his jaw, pushing back the regrets, fighting back the panic that was threatening to take over. There was still a chance. If he was quick enough, there was still a chance for the Inn Keeper. He had made a terrible mistake: the monster did not need to be defeated quickly, it needed to be defeated IMMEDIATELY.

He leaned forward on the raft as far as he could, hand in his pouch, and rammed the monster's main body. He took the digging mitts once owned by the Hero of the Sky out of his pouch, put them on and jammed his now clawed fingers straight into the monster's flesh.

Arrows to the eyes had been the obvious move, the logical strategy, and given how much pain the three he'd shot already had caused, it would probably have worked fairly quickly: three, maybe four more volleys to hit all the eyes, and the beast would no doubt have perished. Two minutes at most, more likely one minute.

The Inn Keeper did not HAVE two minutes anymore. There was no telling if he had one, there was no telling if he had half of one. Link needed a finishing blow and he needed it now.

Climbing on the monster itself was an expedient way to reach his target – the closest of the creature's many mouths – and also had the advantage of making it more difficult for the monster to try and hit Link.

The mitts' claws had pierced the monster's flesh, but just as Link had hoped, the monster's skin was thick enough that he could pull himself up without causing the claws to just tear downward. He hoisted himself up and climbed as quickly as he could, forgoing a zigzagging pattern for sheer speed.

The monster didn't seem to feel the sting of the mitts much. It attempted to swat at Link, the tentacle slapping a few hands' width below the quickly moving target that Link was, but it was not trashing in pain.

Link reached the mouth he had been aiming for in a bit less than half a minute. The maw stood opened, a gaping hole on the monster's surface lined with thin, very sharp looking teeth. A purple tongue twitched inside it.

"Hope you like it hot and spicy..." Link lifted one hand skyward, closed his fist on an imaginary speck of energy, and jammed the fist in the monster's mouth. The introduction of a foreign object, predictably, caused the monster to clamp down. The teeth sank into Link's arm above and below his elbow.

As much as Link had expected the bite and the pain, it still nearly undid him. His sleeves were short and the golden gauntlets did not reach the portion of his arm the teeth sank into, so there was nothing at all to stop the countless sharp little blades from piercing right into his skin, reaching deep into muscles, tendons and nerves and, even, by the feels of it, scraping the bones.

The pain was significantly worse than Link had realized it would be: he hadn't been bitten in ages, and never by anything with so many incredibly sharp teeth. The shock nearly made him drop the spell, and the urge to rip his arm back out of the monster's mouth was surprisingly strong considering how little sense it would make to try.

Link pushed the pain down in his mind: it was nothing potion wouldn't fix and there was no time to worry about it. He unleashed Din's Fire.

The flames exploded outward from his hand inside the monster's mouth and burst out of every other of the creature's mouths and eyes. The monster screeched, its whole body tensed, and then it started collapsing into black dust. The Inn Keeper went right through the tentacle that had been holding him and plunged into the lake like a rock.

Link yanked his arm out of the quickly dissipating mouth, the teeth already too fragile to be an obstacle and the gesture satisfying the primal urge to get out of the bite.

He hit the water feet first, sinking quickly below the surface tainted with black from the monster's dust, the blood from his arm not visible but keenly felt. He took a red potion out of his pouch with his good arm, and with the ease of practice, stuck the stoppered end in his mouth while allowing as little water to get in as he could, and bit the stopper out with the side of his mouth, making a seal with his lips so that the potion wouldn't be lost in the lake, stuffed the stopper between his teeth and his cheek and downed the potion.

The effect was blissfully quick and complete: the pain disappeared entirely and his arm, which had gone unresponsive, could move just fine again.

Link spit out the stopper, put it and the bottle away, and took Queen Mira's scale out of his pouch. It was meant for the Princess, but he had no time to change into the Zora armor meant for his own use.

He pressed the scale to his chest and was immediately enveloped by a second skin, that of green Zora warrior. He swam hurriedly towards the point where the Inn Keeper had hit the water, infusing his own strength into the Zora body's muscles to push through the water as fast as he possibly could.

He soon found the body, drifting and still bent at the angle caused by the crushing tentacle, eyes still opened. Link put on another burst of speed, grabbed the body and swam up towards the surface. He quickly positioned the Inn Keeper's head to stay afloat and, because his pouch could not be accessed when under his temporary zora skin, removed the scale from his chest, turning back into himself.

Link was a decent swimmer even in his own body, more than good enough to float while holding someone else for a bit. He reached into his pouch for a fairy in a bottle and opened the bottle with the opening pointed straight at the Inn Keeper.

Less than a minute had passed since he'd realized the Inn Keeper was dead. "Nayru, please have mercy…" Link begged.

The fairy set to work, flying circles around the Inn Keeper.

Seagulls screeched overhead. From the shore, voices started to rise, people gathering near the lake now that the danger was passed.

The fairy was still flying around the Inn Keeper.

"Hylia, I beg you, please…!" Link moaned, his arms tightening around the Inn Keeper's prone form.

The Inn Keeper suddenly gasped and his body nearly jerked right out of Link's arms.

Link's eyes flooded in relief. Not remembering which one he'd actually prayed to, he silently thanked Hylia and the Three and schooled his face into a calm expression.

"Master Link, please don't move too much, we are in the middle of the lake," Link said gently, trying to infuse his voice, like his face, with a calm he didn't feel. The man had just died, right under Link's watch, and right until he had jerked back to life, Link had not at all been sure he'd be able to save him.

"Wha… what?" the Inn Keeper sputtered.

"You were seized by a giant monster that appeared in the lake," Link explained. "Are you still hurt?"

"Everything hurts..." the Inn Keeper groaned. "I take it I'm lucky to be alive..."

"I didn't think the tentacles could reach the room," Link said. "I'm very sorry. Here." He took a red potion out of his pouch and handed it over to the Inn Keeper. "Please drink this."

Thankfully, the Inn Keeper didn't argue, taking the potion, removing the stopper from the bottle and drinking it in one gulp. He startled when the potion went down, eyes wide, which hinted that it might be his first time drinking it straight.

"Are you feeling all right now?" Link asked. "Can you swim to shore?"

The Inn Keeper nodded, eyes still wide. "Strong stuff..." he muttered. "Yeah, I can swim."

Link released him and after a bit of awkward repositioning, the Inn Keeper started swimming to shore. It wasn't far, so Link left him to it and put the zora scale back on his chest: he needed to recover Maran's sword from wherever it had sunk.

His heart was still hammering. That had been too close, that had been way too close. And realistically, he had no way whatsoever to make sure something similar wouldn't happen again. Not until the Enemy was found and defeated.

More Author's Notes:

I am fully aware of what you're all thinking.
Here's a VERY little bonus scene, from back when Link would have been training with Pyr.

"Hey Pyr?" Link asked.

Pyr cocked his head. Link seemed to be staring at the left side of his chest, where his coat of arms was. "You're wondering about my coat of arms?" he asked.

"Why the three blue diamonds and the white horse?" Link asked. "They usually do have some meanings, don't they?"

"They do. A few generations back, there were two brothers and one sister in my family, and they did a lot of great deeds. They were nicknamed the three diamonds, and we still consider them a source of inspiration. The white horse is my addition - when I became a knight, I wanted to be perfect. And to me, a white steed represented that. It was a foolish ambition... nobody is perfect. But still, like the diamonds... inspiration."

Link smiled. "I like it," he said.

Pyr grinned at him. "I do too. A bit of a rarity to have jewels on a knight's coat of arms, but I'm all right with that."