Chapter 8
"How are you not packed already?" Zelda demanded. Her hands were on her hips. Behind her, Gralens' soldiers had their tents broken down and were folding the last few into their packs. The Gorons were loitering around, watching the Hylians' bustle of activity with open curiosity.
"What have you been doing all morning?" she continued when Link didn't immediately answer.
"Cooking," he said.
"Cooking! Cooking what?"
"Mushroom risotto. Nutcake. Pumpkin stew. Simmered fruit."
"You're saying all my favorite words," Zelda said, half-smiling despite her annoyance. "But we really need to get going. The cooking could have waited until our next stop at a stable."
"We can't leave now anyway," Link pointed out.
Her hands went back to her hips. "Why not? Gralens and his men are nearly ready to go!" She gestured behind her, where the soldiers were showing every sign of getting impatient with the preparations.
"Yunobo wants us to come and look at his new mining site," Link said.
"Now?" Zelda said.
"When else? I don't think we'll be coming back here anytime soon."
"How am I just now hearing about this?" Zelda exclaimed.
"I don't know. He told me this morning. I thought he invited you personally."
Zelda pursed her lips, looking back at the soldiers anxious to get on the road.
"Do we really need to?" she said reluctantly.
"It would mean a lot to him. And he's-"
"I know. Daruk's grandson." Zelda sighed. "I suppose we must. Although I don't think Gralens' men will like the wait."
"Send them on. They're not going the same place we are, anyway."
"We could have traveled as a procession for a while," Zelda pointed out. "Up until the fork in the Ternio Trail." She sighed again. "Oh, well. After we've completed our business in the Akkala region we'll meet up with them at Tarrey Town, I suppose."
She strode over to Gralens to inform him of the change in plans. While she was talking to him, Link turned to see Yunobo approaching.
"I'm so glad you asked to see my mining site, goro!" Yunobo said enthusiastically. "Is the princess coming too?"
"In a minute."
It didn't take long before Gralens led his men away from Goron City at a march, and then Link and Zelda spent several hours touring Yunobo's new mining site and listening to his ambitious plans for it, giving him all the encouragement and praise he seemed to crave from them both.
Finally, they made their farewells to him and to Boss Bludo and wended their way back through the Eldin region until they returned to Foothill Stable and retrieved their horses. Then they rode south until they reached Ternio Trail, taking the first branch in the road to the east and then the second branch to the north. Soon their horses were crossing the Akkala Span, and Link and Zelda found their gazes drawn to the right, where the ruins of the Akkala Citadel towered over the landscape.
"We'll have to restore that one day," Zelda said thoughtfully. "It was our strongest fortress." She pulled Renatus to a stop, looking up at the damaged tower regretfully, and Link handed over the Sheikah slate without needing to be asked. Zelda gazed at the citadel through the scope for a long time.
"The Sheikah are up there," she said at last, and she passed the scope over to Link so he could look too. "Collecting the deactivated Guardians, as I requested. It looks like they're loading up the last of them now."
"Probably taking them to Robbie," he said. "It should take only a day or two to transport them to the Akkala Ancient Tech Lab from here."
"He'll want to know what I want done with them when we get there," Zelda said slowly. "And I must make a more permanent decision regarding the Divine Beasts, as well." She glanced over at Link. She didn't have to say it, he already knew: the problem had been weighing on her mind for the entirety of their trip.
"Dismantle them, bury them, or keep them out and use them," Link summed up.
"Yes, exactly." Zelda's brow furrowed as she thought through their options. "I don't think it's a good idea to keep the Divine Beasts out in the open. Their weapons are so powerful, I feel their use would not be justified except against an extraordinary threat, such as Calamity Ganon. To leave them visible to anyone passing by merely serves as a temptation for the Yiga, or anyone else corrupted and ambitious enough to try to take them."
"So we bury them out of sight until we need them."
"That's what my ancestor did long, long ago. He didn't know, as we do now, how risky that is." Zelda's expression grew pained. "Calamity Ganon took control of the machines so easily! The moment he had them, the battle for Hyrule was effectively over. We can't let that happen again!"
Link was quiet for a moment, looking at her. "Could you give the order for them to be destroyed?" he asked.
"It hurts me to even think of it," Zelda confessed. "And I'm not certain whether I ought to act on my old feelings of affection for the Divine Beasts and the Guardians, or fight against them. I'm not exactly impartial about them, you know." She sighed regretfully. "Such clever construction! I keep thinking that if something happens again, something as devastating as Calamity Ganon, I'll be glad for the option to use them."
"Or your descendants would be, more likely," Link said. Ganon had a history of returning to Hyrule, but the records seemed to indicate there were always gaps of thousands of years.
"True." Zelda sighed heavily. "Despite the disaster we suffered, I can't think of the Divine Beasts as something evil, even if Calamity Ganon used them that way. The Sheikah Tribe took the ingenuity the Goddess blessed them with and they made something beautiful, something concrete, something meant to protect innocent lives. It seems a waste to destroy them."
"If we even can."
"I had a thought about that, actually," Zelda said, looking distant. "Earlier, I was assuming we would have to use a massive team of workers to take them apart and melt down their parts. But I think the solution is much simpler than that. We could just bring the four of them together in some distant location out in the wilds, and turn their laser weapons on each other."
Link was startled by the idea, and then wondered why they hadn't thought of it before.
"That makes sense," he said slowly, but as he pictured them carrying out the deed, he felt uneasy. Mipha and Urbosa and Daruk and Revali had worked so hard to master control of the Divine Beasts. They had done more than simply pilot a machine; they had shared a bond with those ancient creations. A partnership. The thought of turning them on each other felt disrespectful to the champions somehow.
Link looked at Zelda. Her expression was troubled. She was probably thinking the same thing.
"How can I help you?" he asked.
"You just did," she said, looking at him with unexpected gratitude. "You don't know how helpful it is to have someone to talk it over with. Someone I trust. I'm beginning to understand why my father valued his circle of advisors so highly. I always thought they were a bit redundant. My father was in charge and made all the decisions, so why did he need them? I see now that he did. It's an awful thing to feel as though you must decide something important all alone."
They started their horses once more, and soon they finished crossing Akkala Span and descended a long, sloping hill until the South Akkala Stable came into view where the road branched ahead. There were a couple of people tending to their business outside, but they noticed Link and Zelda approaching and excitedly pointed out the new arrivals to each other. Zelda's horse Renatus was always the giveaway, even at a distance; pure white horses were traditionally reserved for use by Hyrule's Royal Family.
As soon as they arrived they would carry out their usual routine, Link knew. But he felt a sudden pulse of anger at the thought, although it took him a minute to understand why.
"When we get there," Link said slowly, nodding his head toward the looming stable, "am I recruiting volunteers for the army?"
Zelda looked puzzled. "Of course. Just like all the other stables. There are always travelers eager for a new adventure." She gave Link an appraising look. "Why is that even a question?"
"I'm just making sure."
Zelda still seemed confused. "Unless... you don't want to?" she said hesitantly after a beat.
"I want to," Link said, and the words came out louder than he meant them to.
"All right then. Why are we fighting about it?"
"We're not fighting!"
"It feels like we're fighting. Did I miss something?"
All of Link's instincts were to stay silent. But for once it only took him a few seconds to push past them. He had figured out by now that Zelda would rather have things like this out in the open.
"Am I your recruiter?" he asked abruptly. "Or is Gralens?"
Zelda opened her mouth, and then closed it again. "What, because I told him to recruit at Tarrey Town?" she asked. An exasperated expression crossed her face. "Link! If you didn't like that, you should have said something!"
"Well, which is it?"
"You are my recruiter!"
"I am?"
"Yes, you are! I was just... just trying to save time, with Tarrey Town. Because you and I had to come this way to find your mother's grave! I thought you might be low again after that, and maybe not feel up to recruiting right afterward."
She was growing flustered. "Well, now I feel awful. I didn't mean to have Gralens step on your toes. I didn't realize you'd care. Of course I meant for you to give final approval to whoever he suggests as soon as we catch up to them. I suppose I should have just asked you which way you wanted to do it."
Link found that all his anger had suddenly cooled. "It's all right."
Zelda still looked embarrassed. "I'm not very good at this, am I?" she said ruefully. "My father would have known how to handle that better."
"It's all right," he repeated, feeling a little confused by his own anger. "I don't know why I cared."
They stayed up late that night, sitting together by the fire outside after the few remaining stable guests had gone to bed.
It was their own fault there were so few guests tonight; after Link's group sword-fighting lesson, an unusual number of travelers here had enthusiastically accepted his invitation to go to Tarrey Town to begin training for the army with Gralens, and a few more had chosen to head straight to Lookout Landing to join the workers building Purah's Sheikah Tower.
Zelda had sheepishly apologized to Dmitri, the stable owner, for scaring away all his business, but he had only chuckled and reassured her that there would soon be a flood of new guests wanting to hear all the news about his royal visitor.
Link laid down a handful of acorns at the edge of the cookfire and stirred them into the hot ashes with a long stick. The warm glow of pride he felt from his most successful recruiting session yet was beginning to fade. Tomorrow they would arrive at East Akkala Stable, and he didn't know whether to look forward to this trip or dread it.
On the one hand, he would hopefully find his mother's grave tomorrow. It would be good to be able to pay his respects there, just as it had been a relief to finally create a resting place for his father back at Hyrule Castle. Now that he and Zelda had memorialized each of the four champions and both their fathers, his mother would be the last lost loved one for them to put to rest. Maybe after that things would be... well, maybe not normal again. But more settled, at least.
On the other hand, Link knew it would be hard to see her grave, too. It would make her death more real. And worse, it would make more real the fact that he had missed out on most of her life while he slept in the Shrine of Resurrection.
Zelda seemed to sense the confusion in his mood tonight, and handled it in her usual gentle but direct way.
"Tell me all about our next stop," she prompted him as the fire before them snapped and crackled. "Everything you know."
Link paused a moment to collect his thoughts. Zelda had already read all his recovered memories that he had recorded in the journal she had gifted him, but she was right, it was good for him to talk about this anyway.
"My friend Kester ran East Akkala Stable for a long time after he retired as a knight," he said, "while I was in the Slumber of Restoration and you were in the castle holding back Calamity Ganon."
"I remember meeting him once," Zelda said, "but I don't think I ever heard how the two of you met in the first place."
"We were squires together. I got back some of my memories from that time when I first found the barracks in Hyrule Castle. He served with Bartelmeu, one of your Royal Guards. We met for the first time when my father joined the Guard. That was about a year before I got the Master Sword." Link stirred the ashes again, pushing the acorns into a hotter spot.
"What was he like?"
Link thought for a moment. "Everything I wasn't. Tall. Talkative. A leader. He was the oldest squire in the unit and he was the best at almost everything, but he never bragged about it. He would show anyone his techniques and he was a good teacher. He was even patient with the youngest boys that everyone else just got annoyed with."
He put another log on the fire. "And then I joined the unit, and I started to win all the squire contests, and all the younger boys followed me around wanting to see how I did everything. Kester should have hated me." He shrugged a little. "He was the first one to befriend me."
"He must have been something special," Zelda said softly.
"He was," Link said. "You know me: I was the odd one who didn't talk because I didn't know anyone there. Kester got me talking faster than anyone else has been able to do before. He helped me make friends with everyone else."
Zelda nodded in understanding. "It must have been difficult for you to be thrown into a new unit so late in your training."
"I remembered something else about Kester from the day Calamity Ganon returned," Link continued. The acorns looked roasted now, their shells cracking from the heat, so he used his stick to push them out of the fire where they could cool. "You must remember it too. The night that we lost the champions and the Divine Beasts."
"I do remember," Zelda said. "He was knighted by then. He escorted me safely to those woods between the Hylia River and your old swimming hole while you were busy fighting the corrupted Guardians that attacked his unit. He was very kind to me. Calm and confident, though he wasn't much older than either of us."
"And then when I met up with the two of you, we got attacked by more Guardians, and he got their attention and drew them off so that we could get away." It was one of the worst memories Link had recovered. After he and Zelda had parted ways with Kester, she had collapsed into the mud not long afterward, sobbing in the rain over the deaths of the champions, blaming herself for everything that had gone wrong.
"He probably saved my life," Zelda said softly. She wrapped her arms around herself, although it wasn't cold here by the fire. "I was afraid he died that night, sacrificing himself to protect us. But you say he came with your mother to visit you in the Shrine of Resurrection?"
"Every year for the rest of his life. He was stationed at Fort Hateno until there weren't enough knights to maintain patrols there anymore. Then he took his family to East Akkala Stable and they took over the business. Kester escorted Mother to the shrine to visit me in secret and made sure she stayed safe from monsters. When my mother got too old to take care of herself anymore, Kester and his family took her in. The last year Mother came to visit me, she was sick and weak and Kester carried her in as gently as he would have carried a baby."
Link felt the familiar rush of sadness at the memory. He didn't bother trying to fight the emotion anymore; that never worked. There was nothing to do but accept it. Even so, there was an edge of light to those dark clouds in his mind: Kester had cared for Mother the same way Link himself would have done if he had been there to do it. At least she hadn't been alone.
"Yes, she must be buried near his stable then," Zelda murmured.
"Kester must be, too," Link said. "And his children. He brought them in to meet me when they came of age: His daughter Maerwyn, and then a few years later his son Andriu. After Kester died, those two kept coming to see me. It must have been strange for them. They never knew me in life. But they were faithful. They kept coming until it was time for me to wake up."
"Do you think they're still around?" Zelda asked curiously. "Kester's children?"
"Maybe not. They were both really old by then. And then I spent all those months preparing to fight Ganon, and now we've been travelling around for almost as long again. They're probably gone now."
"Well, perhaps their children are around, then," Zelda said. "We will be sure to ask when we get there. Unless you already did?"
Link shook his head. "I hadn't remembered Kester yet the last time I was at East Akkala Stable. I met the stable owner, Rudi, and that was where I first met Hoz. But neither of them said anything to me about Kester. Someone outside the family must have taken over the stable after he died. Kester's family could be anywhere now."
Zelda looked disappointed. "Well, we are sure to find them eventually. Someone must know something."
The roasted acorns were cool now. They cracked them open and ate them under the stars, allowing the fire to die down to smoldering ashes, and then they went to bed at last.
The next morning they headed north, down through the lightly wooded Shadow Pass with Death Mountain looming to their left until they emerged near the Ordorac Quarry and the road veered more eastward. The Spring of Power was nearby, and Link caught Zelda looking in that direction with an unfathomable look in her eyes.
"Do we need to stop to pray?" he asked her.
She shook her head. "Not yet. I... the approach I used last time didn't work very well, did it? I begged the Goddess to solve my problem for me, and she didn't answer me at all. You remember that, don't you?"
He did. Zelda's prayer at this spring had been particularly agonized, pleading with the Goddess to unlock her powers in time to defeat Calamity Ganon. The princess had clearly expected an immediate bestowal of those powers, and had grown frustrated when it didn't come.
"I want to make a decision about the Divine Beasts and the Guardians first, and then inform the Goddess," Zelda continued. "If I'm about to make a terrible mistake, hopefully she will find a way to let me know. But I feel that she wants me to wrestle with it on my own."
They rode on. The road sloped upward gently until at last East Akkala Stable came into view. They could hear seagulls calling in the distance; they had traveled so far east that they were nearly to the coast now. At times the breeze that fluttered through their hair smelled like the sea.
As they got closer they could see there was a man standing outside East Akkala Stable wearing a plumed soldier's helm, with a spear resting on his shoulder. Link squinted his eyes and then widened them in surprise as he recognized the man.
"Is that Hoz?" Zelda blurted out, looking equally surprised. "What is he doing here?"
"That is exactly where he was standing when I first met him," Link murmured in confusion. Hoz had warned him then about a strange character hanging around the area, who had turned out to be Kilton. Strange indeed, although apparently not dangerous.
Hoz had noticed them coming, and he left his post and hurried toward them, meeting them a short distance away from the stable.
"Princess Zelda, Link," he said warmly. His mustache and pointed beard were as neatly trimmed as ever. "Welcome to East Akkala Stable! I guess you weren't expecting to see me here."
"I hope nothing is the matter at Lookout Landing?" Zelda said a little anxiously, swinging down from her saddle as Link did the same.
"Everything's going well, princess. They've made good progress on the tower and the army recruits are coming along nicely. I have Purah's latest update here." He handed a letter to Zelda. "Purah mentioned that in your last letter, you said the two of you intended to stop here, looking for Link's mother's grave? I was hoping I would make it in time to meet up with you."
"Oh," Zelda said, although it was clear she still didn't understand why Hoz was here. Link didn't either.
"You see, I grew up around here and I happen to know where Lanna is buried," Hoz said, and suddenly there was a nervous anticipation about him that Link had never seen before. And how strange that he should know Link's mother's name. Had he ever mentioned it in front of Hoz?
"It isn't far from here," Hoz continued. "I'd be glad to show you. But first I was hoping to introduce you to some people."
He turned just as the stable owner joined them, followed by a knot of people who had gathered nearby, apparently waiting for introductions.
"Princess, this is my father Rudi, who runs this stable," Hoz said.
"Your father?" Link said in surprise as Rudi bowed respectfully to Zelda. Neither of them had mentioned that before. Actually, the two of them did have similar faces and the same style of mustache and beard, although Rudi was more fair.
"And my mother, Brenna," Hoz said. A woman with silver-threaded dark hair pulled back in a bun bowed to Zelda and then gave a warm smile to Link.
"My niece Catalina and my nephews Aleric and Crispen," Hoz continued, and three small children grinned up at Link and Zelda, bobbing on their toes excitedly.
"Is that him?" the smallest one whispered loudly, and the other two quickly shushed him.
"My aunt and uncle Maude and Kenric," Hoz said, "and my cousins Khini and Aya." Link already knew the last two, who were stable workers he had encountered the last time he had visited. Khini had sold him an Akkala specialty, a unique crunchy yet chewy bun, and Aya had paid him to light the torch by the stable with the blue flame from the tech lab's ancient furnace. It had never occurred to Link that they were related to each other, or to Hoz, for that matter.
Hoz's family crowded around Link and Zelda, looking at them with eager expectation. They seemed to be waiting for something, but Link couldn't tell what.
"And there's someone else who wants to meet you, but you'll have to come inside the stable," Hoz said. "She's elderly and bedridden. This way."
Link and Zelda followed him into the stable, where a small, heavily wrinkled woman was laying in one of the beds, wrapped warmly against the drafts but wide awake. Her gray hair lay loose across the pillow. Her eyes went straight to Link as he walked up to her bedside, and a gentle smile of recognition lit up her face.
"Maerwyn!" Link breathed, and a rush of emotion washed over him at the sight of her familiar face.
"You remember me!" she said in a cracked voice, and a grateful tear slipped out of the corner of her eye. "Oh, we wondered for so long if you were even aware of us when we came, my brother and I. You always seemed to be asleep."
"Zelda, this is Kester's daughter!" Link said, excitement flooding through him. He hadn't dared to hope she would still be alive... or be easy to find even if she were. "She came to visit me in the Shrine of Resurrection!"
"I do remember you," he told Maerwyn. The rest of Hoz's family had gathered near the bed, watching their reunion with great interest. Hoz's mother seemed to have tears glittering in her eyes. "You and your brother Andriu. Is he...?" He looked around, but there was no one else laying in the stable beds.
"Died about six months ago," Maerwyn said regretfully. "He would have liked to meet you. Oh, Father used to tell us such stories about you! And not only the stories everyone else in Hyrule knows. They only talk about your heroics. Father had better stories to tell about you." She had a twinkle of mischief in her eyes. "Like the way you used to sneak away from your duties to gather food from the wilds for your culinary adventures."
"They won't put that in the history of Hyrule," Hoz said with a smile.
"They may," Zelda interjected with a hint of amusement. "I'm likely to be the one to write it."
"But how did you find Maerwyn?" Link asked Hoz, turning toward him with a puzzled expression. "How did you know?" His long slumber in the Shrine of Resurrection had been a carefully kept secret until his awakening. Only the Sheikah, Link's mother, and Kester's family had known about it.
"Oh, she's my great-aunt," Hoz said easily. "Andriu was my grandfather. This stable's been a family affair ever since great-grandpa Kester bought it. We all grew up hearing the stories about the two of you getting into trouble as squires."
"Kester was your great-grandfather?" Link blurted out, amazed. "Hoz! Why didn't you tell me that when we first met?"
"Did you know who Kester was at that time?" Hoz asked.
"No," Link admitted after a beat.
"You may recall," Hoz said, "that one of the first things I asked you when we met was whether you knew anything about this stable. And you said no. I figured that meant you had forgotten Kester. The Sheikah warned us that might happen."
"But you could have explained!" Didn't he know how desperate Link had been to remember his former life? Hoz could have jogged so many memories for him!
"We all discussed it," Hoz said seriously, looking around at his family, who nodded in agreement, "and we decided it wasn't a good idea. You were still struggling to remember the princess and your mission to defeat Calamity Ganon. We didn't want to distract you when you had a job to do. We figured the rest of it could wait until later."
"Bartelmeu!" Link suddenly blurted out. "At the memorial for the Royal Guards, back at the castle! I saw you touch his sketch. I meant to ask if you were related to him."
"No, but he trained great-grandpa Kester," Hoz said proudly, "who trained my grandfather Andriu, who trained my father Rudi, who trained me, of course." He tapped the helm he wore on his head. "This was Kester's, actually."
Link turned slowly in a circle, looking over Hoz's family - no, Kester's family - with new eyes. They all gazed back, smiling at him with glistening eyes. They had been waiting for his return all this time, and he had never known.
"You knew my mother," Link said to them slowly.
"Oh, yes," said Rudi, Hoz's father. His face grew thoughtful. "We called her Granny, my sister and I. She came to live here at the stable when she retired from cooking for the miners at Shadow Hamlet. She used to sit in a rocking chair outside, near the fire, and tell us stories to keep us entertained while our parents were helping the stable guests."
"I was eight years old before I realized she wasn't really our Granny," Hoz's aunt Maude put in with a sheepish grin. "Your mother adopted our family, or maybe we adopted her. We loved her dearly."
"Tell me everything!" Link said, hungry to hear it. "Everything you remember about her! I missed so much."
There was a flurry of activity as everyone went hunting for enough chairs so that everyone could sit. It took a few minutes, but eventually everyone was settled near Maerwyn's bed, and one by one they began to tell Link their memories of his mother. Without waiting to be asked, Zelda pulled a notebook from her pack and took rapid notes the whole time.
Maerwyn especially had a lot to say, sharing her memories generously despite her painfully cracked voice, and Link absorbed it with all the intensity of his soul. Funny stories about Mother. Touching stories. Recipes she had invented during her years with Kester's family, including the famous Akkala bun. Memories she had shared about his father Ranulf, and about Link himself. He hardly noticed night falling outside, or the fact that Hoz's cousins Khini and Aya had slipped away from the group, until the two of them unexpectedly returned with a basket of freshly baked buns and a big pot of veggie cream soup to dish up for everyone's dinner.
To Link's great pleasure, he found that Aya's soup was a perfect replica of his mother's old recipe, complete with a double portion of carrots, just the way he had always asked her to make it. It became difficult to eat from the tears threatening to spill, but he managed it.
By the time they finished their late dinner, Maerwyn was nodding off on her pillow, and Hoz's nieces and nephews were flopped across the foot of her bed looking more than a little sleepy themselves. Their parents took the children to bed, and after a quick discussion, Hoz agreed to take Link and Zelda to Lanna's grave in the morning. She was buried under the same family marker for Kester and his wife Adelina and their son Andriu, Hoz explained.
"Would you like it to be just me?" Hoz asked Link, but he shook his head.
"I want everyone to come," he said. "Everyone who wants to." It seemed right somehow that his first visit to his mother's resting place would be filled with the chatter of the family she had adopted. He thought she would have liked that.
Exhausted by the emotion of the day, Link got himself ready for bed. Then he noticed Zelda was sitting at the table in the corner of the stable, scribbling away by the light of a lantern.
"Aren't you going to bed?" he asked her, coming to stand beside her.
"In a while," she said distractedly, although she glanced up at him briefly. "I want to get these notes cleaned up while they're fresh in my mind. I don't want to miss any details from the stories they told you."
"Thank you for doing that. Thank you for..." He didn't know how to say it right. "For taking care of me. You do more for me than I do for you."
"That," Zelda said coolly, dipping her pen in the inkwell again, "is quite possibly the most ridiculous thing you have ever said to me."
In the morning they all prepared offerings to bring to the grave. Zelda went out to pick wildflowers, accompanied by Hoz's three overexcited nieces and nephews, while Link busied himself making the perfect pumpkin pie - his mother's favorite dessert - and then a batch of the honeyed apples Kester had loved as a squire. Hoz's family prepared their own offerings, and by mid-morning they all set out with their arms full.
The grave site wasn't far from the stable, tucked in a little hollow surrounded by a cluster of trees whose draping branches hid the area from view. Link ducked under the branches and found that a fine slab of stone marked the spot, carved with the names of Lanna, Kester, his wife Adelina and his son Andriu.
They had to crowd in to fit everyone under the trees. Soon the space around the stone was covered with dishes of food, cups of water, and bunches of flowers. Everyone looked at Link expectantly, and he began to speak.
He had a lot to say about Mother from all the childhood memories she had recounted for him during her many visits to the Shrine of Resurrection, and a few other precious ones he had remembered for himself. In his shattered memories he'd seen glimpses of her tender motherly love from his earliest years, and recalled her many cooking lessons delivered at the hearth at Lon Lon Ranch. He remembered her wry sense of the humor and the way Father had been crazy about her and her blonde curls. He remembered her easy smile that charmed everyone who met her and her unfailing support when Link had decided to become a squire in the hopes of one day being knighted, like his father.
Then Link couldn't resist telling about the day when a careless pair of squabbling stable boys had accidentally ruined the dinner she had just put on the table, and Mother had flown into a rare temper and given them a furious scolding they would never forget before throwing down her apron and stomping away, leaving them to clean up the mess alone. Kester's family laughed hard at that one, explaining to Link that she had never shared that story with them; she must have been ashamed of it. But the moment stood out in such sharp contrast to Mother's usual gentleness that it made Link love her all the more. It proved she had been a kind person because she had worked hard to make herself that way.
Finally, Link had said everything he could think of, and Zelda stepped forward and shared the story of when she had visited Lon Lon Ranch with Link the day before Calamity Ganon had returned. Link went still, listening to it; he had not remembered that event yet. He hadn't realized Zelda had met his mother at all.
It didn't take long before Zelda's memory jogged his, and for a few minutes he was lost in the images and sounds that came flooding back to him: Mother, making a meal for Zelda and managing to carry on a pleasant conversation with the princess of Hyrule without growing flustered or obsequious. She'd spoken to Link in private in the kitchen afterwards, reassuring him that the princess didn't seem to dislike him anymore.
That night Mother had gone through Link's childhood belongings and reminisced fondly about each of them: his ragged stuffed rabbit that had been loved too well, and his storybooks, and his wooden sword, and even some baby clothes she had saved in the hopes that one day Link could dress his own small child in them.
His childhood treasures had all been destroyed when Lon Lon Ranch was. Yet here they were in his memory, real and solid once more.
The memory ended in the predawn light, when Mother had walked Link to the stable to fetch his horse for departure. She told him she loved him and kissed him goodbye, sending him off with a pack filled with home-cooked food and a reminder to be safe.
It was the last time Link had ever seen her.
The memory faded. Zelda was standing beside Mother's grave looking at him, waiting patiently, and as soon as she saw that the memory had ended, she calmly resumed sharing her own memory with Kester's family.
By the time she was through, Link felt an emotion washing over him that was unlike anything he had felt before: A strange swirling mixture of sadness and happiness that left him feeling light, as if his feet were about to drift off the ground.
Mother was gone. He would never see her again in this life. It was painful to think about, but the pain was more dull than sharp. Lanna had lived a full and happy life, first with Ranulf and Link, and then with Kester's family. She had never been lonely or unloved. Even now she was loved by every single person who stood before her grave. Maybe she was even aware of that from where she rested in the light of the Golden Goddesses.
Link would see her again there. It might be a long wait, but he was sure he would.
A few quiet tears made their way down his face, but Link cleared his throat and was able to move on to sharing his memories of Kester. Kester's family listened with rapt attention, and then Zelda shared her memory of Kester and the memorial was complete.
They all enjoyed the foods they had brought as offerings, as was traditional, and then they headed back to the stable.
Link found himself walking beside Zelda, both of them lagging behind Kester's family on the path.
"That was the last one," Zelda said softly as they walked. She had a wildflower tucked into the braid that was woven across the crown of her head, where it had been placed at a rakish angle by Hoz's young niece.
Link nodded. There would be no more memorials. Their parents and all the champions had now been laid to rest.
"We're going to be all right, aren't we?" Zelda asked. There was a hint of pleading in her voice.
"We're going to be all right," Link agreed. "It won't be the same as it was before. But it will be all right."
"I think so, too," Zelda said.
They walked on in silence for a minute.
"I remembered showing you the animals at Lon Lon Ranch," Link said finally. "I'd forgotten you visited."
"Oh yes?"
"You thought our horses were pretty. And you liked the goats better than the cattle."
Zelda smiled with a hint of mischief. "Those goats were climbing all over everything, and they tried to take a bite of my clothes. Much more interesting than cattle, don't you think?"
"And not as interesting as frogs and lizards and bugs."
"I did say that, didn't I?" Zelda laughed lightly, and to Link's relief he was able to join in with a laugh of his own, a laugh he even managed to feel.
They arrived back at the stable. Link wasn't in a hurry to leave Kester's family, and Zelda didn't seem inclined to rush him. They stayed the rest of the day, getting to know each other better, and prepared to sleep another night at the stable. In the morning they intended to walk up the path to the north and visit Robbie at the Akkala Ancient Tech Lab.
Hoz was leaving in the morning too, though in the opposite direction. He would return to his work at Lookout Landing, taking with him the rupees the Zora had gifted Zelda as they departed the Domain.
In the early morning, Link woke up to find Zelda's bed empty already. Usually she slept later than him. Curious, he got dressed and went outside in the predawn light to find her pacing back and forth beside the fire. No one else was awake yet.
"Link!" Zelda said excitedly, and hurried over to him.
"Trouble sleeping?" he asked her confusedly.
"Oh, I hardly slept at all," Zelda blurted out. "My mind was racing and racing. I couldn't stop thinking about the conundrum with the Divine Beasts and the Guardians. What to do with them, I mean. And then I got an idea! A wonderful idea. At least, I think it is. I'll tell you what it is, but first, I must know: What do you think we should do about them? Yes, it is my decision in the end, but I would really like to know what you would do if the decision was yours. If your answer is very different from mine, I will go back and revisit mine. So what do you think?"
Link took a moment to get his thoughts into order, suppressing a moment of annoyance. Zelda knew he needed to eat breakfast before he could really think in the mornings! And then, as if she had read his mind, she pushed a glass of milk into his hands.
"I knew you'd want something, but I'm such an uninspired cook," she said apologetically. "But I can warm up milk, and I even added some honey! I think it's all right."
Link took a taste, and nodded appreciatively. She had done all right.
"I think," he said at last, once the milk had filled the hollow feeling in his middle, "that we shouldn't keep them out in the open. It's too tempting for anyone with bad intentions."
"So far, so good," Zelda said, giving him her full attention. They had always been in agreement on that point.
"And I don't think we should destroy them," Link said slowly. "Something about that doesn't feel right. It's like you said: It's a waste. The Divine Beasts were made for good. We used them for good, defeating Calamity Ganon. We might need them again someday."
"Then-"
"I think we should bury them," he said decisively. "But you're right that it won't be enough. We need to do something else, something to keep them from being taken over so easily, the way Ganon did. I don't know what that is. I'm not a researcher like you. But maybe the Sheikah could study them with you and help you figure out a new security system."
Zelda's face lit up. "Perfect! Yes, that is essentially what I decided last night. Except I think I already have an idea for how to make them more secure. Well, I've already done it with one of them: Vah Rudania." She pulled some things out of her pack, and Link saw by the light of the fire that she was holding the three components she had removed from each of Vah Rudania's critical systems: one from the laser weapon, one from the locomotion system, and one from the Sentry control system.
"I think we should do the same with the other three Divine Beasts before we bury them," she said breathlessly.
Link frowned. That would effectively disable them all, but...
"And then just carry around the parts with you for the rest of your life?" he asked. "So no one else gets their hands on them?"
"No, that wouldn't be practical," Zelda said excitedly. She had clearly thought this out. "They need to be hidden, but guarded by someone responsible. And they certainly shouldn't all be put in the same place. Not even with me and my descendants. We don't want anyone to get all four of the Divine Beasts at once the way Ganon did. I want to ensure that anyone who goes on a quest to reactivate one must prove their case that the use of them is justified. Control, that's the key. At all costs we must control who gets them and how."
"So who gets the components?" Link asked.
"We spread them out. The Zora get the components to the Gerudo Divine Beast. The Rito get the components to the Zora Divine Beast. The Gorons get the components to the Rito Divine Beast. And so on."
Link frowned. "They don't get the parts to their own Divine Beast?"
"Of course not! Imagine if one of the races ends up with a corrupted leader! It's happened before. No, we must ensure that anyone who wants to activate one of these terrible weapons must make their case to their neighbors before they get that power. If it's a true emergency, they'll be able to persuade each other. If it isn't, those Divine Beasts will stay safely inert."
"I like it!" Link said, catching on to her enthusiasm. "Wait. How will they know how to put the components back in? And how to pilot the Divine Beasts again? Not everyone is as clever as you are."
"Oh, I'll write up a manual explaining it all in great detail. We'll hide it in a different place from everything else. Perhaps somewhere in the castle, or maybe I'll let the Great Deku Tree watch over it. He's proven he can be trusted with valuable items. Anyway, if a kingdom-wide emergency occurs the Royal Family will know where to send a representative to gather components and get the Divine Beasts functional again. I'll pass that information down to my heirs, since it might not be needed for a long time."
"What about the Guardians?" Robbie was sure to ask Zelda today what she wanted done with them.
"Something similar. I'll let Robbie and Purah keep a couple of intact ones each so they can be studied; I trust them. But the rest should be buried once we've removed their ancient cores. Purah asked in her latest letter if she could scavenge some cores anyway. She wants to use them to power the tower she is building at Lookout Landing, and the rest of them, too."
"The rest of the towers?" Link asked, startled.
"Yes, now that she has the design worked out she wants to build a tower in every region of Hyrule. Eventually we will have a whole network of them spread across the land. It will be invaluable for mapping and for fast travel. She'll need a lot of cores, I would imagine."
The whickering of a horse drew their attention, and they turned to see that Hoz was preparing his horse for departure. The sun was beginning to come up.
"Let's say goodbye to him and then visit the Spring of Power before we go to the lab," Zelda said. "I'll inform the Goddess of my decision and see if she wishes to show any sign of approval or... or disapproval."
Link nodded, and he strode over to talk to Hoz while Zelda slipped back into the stable to dash off a letter to Purah that Hoz could carry for her.
"Thank you for everything," Link told Hoz as he worked to saddle up his horse, putting as much feeling as he could into his words. "Your hospitality, your kindness. The memorial wouldn't have been the same without your family there."
Hoz smiled a little. "I hope you think of our family as your family," he said, just as his father Rudi came over to join them. "We were talking last night, and we all agreed that your mother would have liked that. Great-grandpa Kester would have liked it too."
"Come and visit as often as you like, Link," Rudi added. "We'll always have a bed open for you, at no charge, of course. Family always stays for free."
Overwhelmed by their kindness, Link could only manage to get out another "thank you."
"You know, your mother used to talk to us about her hopes for your future," Rudi said quietly. "She knew she wouldn't get to meet them herself, but she hoped she would get a daughter-in-law and grandchildren one day. She didn't like to think of you alone."
Link merely nodded, uncertain what to say to that. Rudi and Hoz looked at him with an air of faint expectation, but when he didn't say anything more they exchanged enigmatic looks just as Zelda returned from inside the stable, wearing her white dress and sandals for worship at the spring and holding a letter out toward Hoz.
"For Purah," she said, and he took it and tucked it inside his tunic. "Thank you both for your hospitality, and your kindness to Link. You made a difficult stop on our journey unexpectedly uplifting. I'm glad we found you."
They bowed respectfully to Zelda, and Hoz swung up into his saddle and waved goodbye before heading down the southern road, bound for Lookout Landing. Rudi efficiently saddled up Renatus for Zelda while Link saddled up Lucky, and soon the two of them left the stable and the well-traveled road behind, cutting across the grassy landscape headed directly for the Spring of Power with the rising sun behind them.
When they reached the quarry, they left their horses to graze and descended on foot until they arrived at the entrance to the spring. Two great trees spread their branches over the pool of water fed by several waterfalls. A stone pathway led to the great statue of the Goddess that watched over the silent alcove.
Link and Zelda exchanged glances. This all felt achingly familiar from their last visit here. The visit where Zelda had grown tearful and angry over the Goddess's silence in response to her pleas.
"It'll be different this time," Link told Zelda. "This time you're prepared."
"We'll see," she said, twisting her hands together anxiously before consciously making herself stop. Taking a deep breath, she stepped into the water, her feet brushing against a silent princess bloom as she went. Link turned his back to give her privacy.
Zelda began to pray in a low murmur. Link tried not to listen, even though he knew what she intended to say. What would the Goddess think of the princess's plan to bury the Divine Beasts and Guardians after removing critical components from them?
If she showed no signs of displeasure, then they would need to carry out the plan. It would require a lot of traveling to get back to each of the four regions they had already visited, and even more to distribute the components to the various races in the way Zelda intended. They had already been on the road for months and now they might need to retrace their steps all over again, even though they hadn't even visited their own Hylian settlements yet.
Link had been looking forward to that part of their journey, but he braced himself now for the possibility that it would be delayed for months more. Settling the question of the Divine Beasts was more urgent; whatever they ended up doing, it should be done quickly, before the Yiga chose a new leader and began making new attempts to take over the machines.
Zelda's soft voice stopped; she had said all that she came to say. There was a long silence in which the only sound was the water descending from the falls around this sacred place. Link held his breath and prayed that Zelda would get some kind of response, even if it was only a subtle one. She had worked so hard on this. The decision had weighed on her from the moment they had defeated Calamity Ganon.
Link took in a startled breath; something was happening. Golden light was streaming from behind him, even though he was facing toward the rising sun. Without thinking he turned around.
Zelda was standing waist-deep in the spring, the white fabric of her dress floating in the gently lapping waves as she gazed up at the Goddess statue, her back to Link, her hands folded in prayer.
Her entire body was outlined with gold light, as he had seen her twice before: when she had first gained her Goddess powers and desperately tried to save his life on Blatchery Plain, and again when she had Sealed away Calamity Ganon.
The light intensified and instinctively Link fell to his knees, turning his face aside and lifting one hand to shield his eyes from the golden brilliance. Zelda vanished in a flash, and then a small but brightly pulsing sphere of golden light soared over to him and came to a stop just in front of where he knelt.
The sphere rematerialized, and Zelda was standing before him once more, aglow with the light of the Goddess.
"Link!" she said, her voice ringing with triumph. "The Goddess has returned to me the gift of transforming myself into light!" She smiled down on him, and her smile was as brilliant as the light that emanated from her. "I can carry out my plan very quickly now. Perhaps in a day. Will you come with me?"
She held out one hand toward him.
"Always," Link said, shaking off his awe to lock eyes with her, and he took her hand and let her pull him back onto his feet.
A moment later, they both transformed into light, and side by side they soared up into the sky and then sped their way over the land of Hyrule. Trees and lakes and rivers rushed beneath them, and in almost no time they passed over Hyrule Castle, its tattered banners fluttering in the wind.
They soared on, passing over the Great Plateau and then the winding Gerudo Canyon. Sand dunes spread out below them, and then they saw Vah Naboris beside the southeast cliffs, right where they had left it. It was still generating a sandstorm that crackled with angry lightning, but the storm was powerless to harm their light. They zipped inside the Divine Beast and rematerialized back into their bodies, safe from the storm that howled outside.
Link gasped for breath with his hand clutched to his heart, unbalanced by the sudden transformations and the flight that had just taken them across the entire kingdom with breathtaking speed, but Zelda looked exhilarated, as he had never seen her before.
She pulled him from place to place and he watched as she crawled deep into the machinery without hesitation, pulling components out from the laser assembly, the locomotion system and the electricity generation system with supreme confidence. When the work was done, she whisked them both up to the main terminal of Vah Naboris.
Tucking away the components Zelda handed him, Link watched over her shoulder as she shut down the sandstorm Vah Naboris was generating and then deliberately piloted the Divine Beast at its top speed directly into the cliff walls before them. Link grabbed onto the nearest wall for support as they crashed into the rock with a shuddering impact, and the loud bangs coming from overhead made it clear that boulders were raining down onto the Divine Beast.
Zelda shot Link a satisfied look and said nothing, but merely transformed them into light once more and zipped them out of Vah Naboris and into the clearing skies outside. Pulsing in the air, they gazed down at the Divine Beast.
It was mostly buried by the rock slide, although glimpses of its outer shell were visible here and there. Zelda rematerialized and coolly raised her right hand to send balls of light at the cliffs above, knocking more boulders loose here and there until at last the Divine Beast was completely out of sight. Then she zipped down and landed them on the ground near the jumble of rock.
It took her some time and careful planning, but Zelda began to slowly carve a path through the fallen rock by casting a golden bubble around them both and then with a sharp gesture expanding it a short distance outward, compacting the rock around them to build a stable, round tunnel. Sooner than Link expected, Zelda expanded one final bubble and he realized they were back at the locked entrance to Vah Naboris.
They exited through the tunnel Zelda had just created, and she knocked one final boulder into place, hiding the entrance. Link glanced at the map on the Sheikah slate and made a mental note of the coordinates here. It wouldn't be safe to mark the place on the map, but he could remember the location in case they ever needed to come back.
They exchanged looks. Zelda looked as pleased as Link was. This felt good. This felt right. Vah Naboris would be safely hidden here, but accessible in case of emergency. Just as they had planned.
"One down," Zelda said with satisfaction, "three to go."
They transformed into light, and in seconds they were soaring through the sky on their way to the Tabantha region, where Vah Medoh was still circling over the land.
One by one, Zelda and Link visited the Divine Beasts, each time removing a trio of components and then hiding the Divine Beast in the local terrain, making sure to leave a well-hidden access point. Each stop took them several hours, but they finished with Vah Rudania just as the sun was setting.
After that, they only needed to distribute the components. Sped on their way by Zelda's transformational light, the two of them met individually with King Dorephan, Chief Riju, Boss Bludo and the new Rito elder Tiba in the secrecy of the night, giving each of them the components from another race's Divine Beast with strict instructions to hide them well and use them only in a true emergency. Each ruler seemed to understand the gravity of the situation and solemnly vowed to keep the existence of the components a secret to all except their eventual successors.
Weary to the bones but satisfied they had done good work, Link and Zelda soared back to the Spring of Power and rematerialized into the stillness of the sacred alcove.
The sun was beginning to rise. They had done it all in a single day and night.
They were both exhausted from their extraordinary journey, but Zelda mustered her strength and waded back into the water, folding her hands in prayer before the Goddess to thank her with all the devotion she possessed for the help they had received.
As if in response, the golden light outlining Zelda faded at last, and when she waded back out of the spring she looked like an ordinary young woman once more.
Not that Link could ever see her as ordinary again, even if she no longer shone with the light of the sun.
TO BE CONTINUED
Author's note: I love hearing from my readers! Let me know what you think of the latest developments.