There has been plenty of talk of heroes lately. From Kakariko to Lake Hylia, from the eastern cliffs of the Gerudo Valley to the fiery halls of Goron City, there is hardly word of anything but heroes. Namely, the suspicious lack of them.

The darkness that descended on Hyrule has spread rapidly and unhindered to nearly every corner of the land. Castletown has fallen into decay, occupied now only by the restless dead (and, according to the more fanciful tales, their reanimated corpses, hungry for the flesh of the living). Ghosts have started to slip from the cracks in the walls of Kakariko's graveyard—Sheikah souls who had died in the Civil War, specters of ancestors of the Hyrulean royal line, generals and composers and naturalists, each glowing angry violet under the endless storm clouds. Lakebeds are drying, crops are failing, and winter descends early and mercilessly from the mountains, blowing across the potter's fields and bringing the howling of the waking dead with it. No homestead in the nation remains untouched by the relentless shadows that spread from the seat of the capital.

It has never been a worse time to be a hero, or a better one. So I, like many unfortunate young warriors before me, take up the mantle.

Impa tells me Sheik was a fighter of laudable repute. He was the one from which her tribe derives their name—the first man to master the subtleties of shadow, the first to stare into the eye of the abyss without fear, the first to merge himself with darkness for so long he became it. He was the first man to look at the specter of death and see the truth: that it is a trick of the mind, a powerful illusion with which we lure fear into our own hearts.

I do not understand the extant wisdom of the hero Sheik enough to be worthy of his name, but I take it anyway. I take his face, I take his red eyes and dark skin, I take the emblem of his people, slipping it from his identity to my own like a cheap pickpocket. Impa tells me I might even be playing his harp, though it is impossible to tell for sure. With each pluck of that arcane lyre I become a little more like him, a little more like me, and a little less like the exiled, spineless princess of Hyrule. She flees from me as she fled from her castle—and I cherish the freedom from her. Zelda was weak; she could not protect herself or her kingdom from invaders and usurpers. Sheik can.

But first Sheik has to learn to hold his liquor. He has to keep his face from reddening and his bloodshot eyes from closing as his companions drink him piteously under the table. He has to pay attention to the words around him, he has to remember the Goronic name of the contents of the ceramic pot he now brings to his uncovered mouth (its colloquial name, he learns, is "dragon spit," and it has the volcanic singe to live up to it).

Impa sits cross-legged before a hearty fire and confesses she hasn't laughed this much in years. Outside, the early winter snows bury the slopes of Eldin Province, falling over frozen fields and muffling the land in silence. The Goron patriarch who has invited us into the warmth of his home, a round, muscled creature, drinks his dragon spit like elixir. When he laughs he bellows, his joyful fist hammers the floor, cracks running from a worn depression where he has laughed many times before. With each pound, a tremor jolts through the stone and into my sore muscles, reigniting my pains until I take another hearty gulp from my pot. The burning of my tongue distracts me from the bruises and aches in my sides and legs.

Darunia is an old friend from the War. He has thrown me to the stone floor more times today than I can count, he has twisted my arms and knocked the wind from me so efficiently I still have trouble breathing. It is as much as we all expected.

Impa says no true warrior learns from one master alone. This is why she shows me the essence of Goronic wrestling, an art Sheikah have adopted over the centuries and one that Impa herself had mastered during the War. When I fly into the wall for the dozenth time, wiping blood from my mouth as Darunia teases me, she steps up to demonstrate. She slips through the Goron's grasp and lifts him from the ground as easily as she does me, bludgeoning the floor with his massive body in a spray of chipped rock. I watch as they revolve about each other with the slow deliberation of planets, waiting for an opening. Impa falls as much as Darunia, but she twists and redirects her momentum so she recovers without a bruise. When she tires of the game (and tires of seeing her supposedly precocious student repeatedly trounced so thoroughly), we stop for the night.

I drink to stifle the pain and embarrassment, but Impa and Darunia drink for their own pleasure. At first Impa is reluctant to let me try dragon spit, but Darunia tells her that if I am so young and soft, I will not be able to brave the horrid taste anyway. I will not let him win this round as well, so I take another gulp, cringing and shaking my head, much to the amusement of the others.

When Darunia asks who I am, Impa answers him with a quintessentially Sheikah half-truth. I am her disciple. As an infant I avoided the carnage of the Civil War, though both my parents are gone. He smiles and questions no further, only offers her another pot of dragon spit and says nothing about a lost princess or the duty of Impa as a retainer to the royal family. I am not sure how much he has inferred. His eyes are black marbles—smooth and unreadable.

"Brother Impa, you think you can mold a hero from such soft clay?" he grins, gesturing to me.

"You don't trust me?" Impa narrows her eyes over her steaming drink. "I've made warriors out of worse."

"I have seen it myself. But I doubt even the best Goronic techniques can wrestle this land back from that usurper. There have been attempts—surely you've heard."

"Well-intentioned young idiots lining up to die on the end of a Gerudo pike," Impa says. "Yes, I have heard."

"And the search for a hero continues. There was one boy I met, a long time ago, who showed potential. But he has likely died with the rest of them."

"Likely," Impa says. "If the War has taught me anything, it is that heroism is usually defined by failure."

"Or worse, success. The greatest heroes make the greatest tyrants."

"You're speaking of Ganondorf?"

"No! Damn him to the worst of all hells!" Darunia roars. "But it is an easy mistake to make, now that I think on it. A truly great warrior, he was. But he is nothing compared to Darmin." He raises his eyes to the shape of a Goron warrior carved against the wall.

"A sad tale, that was," Impa sighs. "I remember it well."

"No you don't! You've heard it once—and drunk in a bunker at that. None of us could find our own asses that night, much less memorize an ancient story." I cannot imagine Impa drunk—even though I am fairly sure I am witnessing the spectacle right now. She does not slur, she does not sway. Her smile is wider than usual, but it might simply be an effect of Darunia's presence. Even Sheik is smiling tonight, under the grimace.

"I remember every word," Impa says.

"Prove it." His brows wrinkle playfully.

"Is everything a contest with you?"

"Why not? I win every time." Darunia sits back, crossing his hard-muscled brown arms. "For each mistake I catch, you take a drink. You'll be dead by the end of it."

Impa laughs. "Very well. Sheik will enjoy a good story."

"I always do," I mumble, with much difficulty.

Impa's red eyes shine in the flames, tattoos wrinkled from her smile.

In the early days of this fiery land, before there were trees or rivers or rain, when the flaking, smoldering shell of Volagnid's great egg was still piping hot—

(A mistake already, Brother Impa! You have not told this one who Volagnid is yet.

So I haven't. Volagnid is the progenitor of the world, Sheik. He created the land when he hatched from a gargantuan red-hot egg he himself had laid.

How does that work?

Darunia, please explain how that works.

Damned if I know. He's a god.

He burst from his own egg, cracking the shell into mountains and releasing the magma yolk, before flying into the sky and becoming the fire of the stars.)

The broken, jagged shell of the world-egg was so hot, it was inhospitable to any creatures Gorons. In those days the volcanoes gurgled merrily, full to the brim with nutritious magma. Fire and smoke poured from the mouths of the mountains, filling the sky and lighting the heart and home of every Goron. For hundreds of years the world prospered with the bounty of Volagnid's yolk, but over time the eggshells of the surface began to cool. Great flames sputtered to glowing ashes, the free-flowing lava dried and cracked into red rock, and the mouths of the mountains closed and dried shut. Soon the only molten rocks to be found were concealed deep underground.

When the rumblings of the mountains died, so began the rumblings of Goron stomachs. Houses and caves darkened with cold as the fires of the world sputtered out. Gorons fought over what little food was left between them. They hoarded and killed, they betrayed one another as desperation starved the spirit of fellowship in their souls. To make matters worse, fell dragons began to crawl from the cracks in the earth, starving and all too willing to feast on Goronic flesh.

The Gorons raised their eyes to the sky and wondered what sins they had committed that had brought on this misery. They prayed and prayed to the stars of Volagnid to deliver them from the cold and hunger, but the god stayed silent in the sky, too far to hear their pleas.

Many of them began to turn their hopes earthward—namely, in a young Goron warrior named Darmin, whose strength and bravery propelled him to the heights of respect among his people. Like the others, this Goron had grown tough and resilient through hardship; his arms were thin but lean, his face chiseled and plain like the barren rock on which he had been raised. But his mind was sharp and clear as obsidian, and his will was stronger than the steel of his hammer. He was the clan's patriarch, as was his father, and his grandfather, and his great-grandfather—a line of noble Darmins all the way back to the conception of his race—

(Ah, drink again, Brother Impa, you forget the fourth patriarch down that line was Darmani. He was a second son.

Must you nitpick, Darunia? Darmin, Darmani, they're all related.

You must give the little brothers some credit where credit is due! Darmin IV died in battle before he had a son so Darmani took his place. It's common knowledge.)

Darmin, unlike his forefathers, was not content to scavenge slivers and flecks of edible rock from the barren lands around him. So one day, he slung his hammer over his shoulder and decided to leave his ancestral home, where the mountains slept in cold silence, and seek better, warmer lands. He and his many sons and brothers wandered for seasons and seasons, moving from one dead mountain to the next, barely scraping up enough edible rock to keep them alive. As they journeyed, the sky slowly cleared and cooled, banishing the warmth of the smog and ash that blanketed the world. When the last columns of smoke dissipated, the Gorons were horrified to find the sky was a sickly, freezing blue. Snowcaps covered the coldest mountains, melting and freezing and melting again, displacing the rivers of lava with impassible rivers of water. Rain fell from the sky and stung their backs, streams carved gashes into the faces of the slopes, cold white clouds gathered above and blocked the warmth of the sun. Stalks of leaf and bark split the skin of the earth and crawled across the landscape like a disease. It was a tumultuous time for the world, and each day, Darmin and his people got thinner and colder, until it seemed they were made of ice rather than rock.

After a hundred years of wandering (for Gorons live quite long, you see, like the mountains from which they are carved), Darmin's eldest son came back to their camp with wonderful news. A peak, lonesome and far in the distance, still lived. From the rocky ledge of their hiding place they could see it clearly—the red-hot tip of a smoky volcano.

At last, the survival of Darmin's people seemed within reach. He led them through the valleys of what is now known as Eldin, all the way to the base of that rumbling mountain. They sang and drummed all the way; their ditties painted pictures of fiery homes, of the warm kiss of magma, of rubies and opals and all manner of delicious rocks one can grind between one's teeth.

(Grind, Brother Impa? You make it sound so unpleasant.

It is unpleasant. I will never forgive you for the time you tried to feed me lapis.

How are you old teeth, by the way?

Let me tell the story, Brother. You can worry about my teeth later.)

When the Gorons arrived at the base of the mountain, they found the path up was blocked. Before them, scaly and plump, slept a gargantuan creature. The Gorons knew better than to wake it, but as they turned to flee, they saw the shadow shuddering and lifting itself from the barren dirt.

Unfurling before them, slithering in a black arc against the endless sky, rose the knotted spine of a great dragon. Its eyes were brighter than the hottest flames, its teeth blacker than obsidian, and even the slightest whips of its long tail turned the water in the air to steam. It folded its long-nailed claws, arching its neck to get a good view of its tiny visitors. "So the meal comes to me!" it bellowed. "Truly, these are bountiful times!" The force of its voice shook the pebbles from the ground and dislodged the weaker plants from the hillside.

Now, Darmin was a great warrior, but he was not stupid. He knew he could not take on a dragon of this size, and with scales of such pure steel, at least not while he was underfed and weary from travel. But he knew a bit about these travesties of Volagnid, and had heard stories that these creatures had a heart similar to the Gorons'—similar in strength, and similar in weakness.

"Esteemed beast," Darmin started. He dropped his hammer, much to the dismay of his compatriots, and knelt. "Have your pick of any one of us, for this world has treated us with nothing but cruelty. Your warm stomach will be a relief from this freezing world. Look at us, at our thin limbs and sunken faces; look at how our backs flake and crumble, at the way our bodies are nothing but steely bones and leathery skin."

The dragon made a noise of disgust, but it crept closer regardless. "A meal is a meal."

"Indeed it is. No matter how horrible it might taste." Darmin lowered his head, and the Gorons, recognizing a ruse, began to cough and wail, rolling in misery on the ground, showing off their protruding ribcages and calloused, filthy limbs, lean and leathery from hardship.

The dragon looked its free meal over and decided it was not worth the price. "You have soiled my appetite," it said. "Be on your way, before I change my mind."

Many of the Gorons were thankful they had simply avoided being eaten, but Darmin had his sights set high, on the flaming peak above them, so full of the promise of warmth and delicious jewels.

"Oh, cruel dragon!" Darmin wailed. "You are sending us away, back into the world that has starved us! I am telling you—eat us! It is warmer in your belly than it is in the wilderness!"

"I will not eat you, but there is nothing stopping me from killing you," the dragon growled, rising to its full height. Its spines rose and its menacing teeth snapped at them. A few of the Gorons scattered, but Darmin refused to move.

"If we are too thin," he said, "let us fatten ourselves up for you. Let us into your mountain, esteemed one, so that we might make ourselves more appetizing to you."

"And let you eat my treasures?" the dragon laughed. "Let you chew on my rubies and melt my gold to sip from your clay cups? I think not."

"I ask not that you part with your riches," (Darmin, like everyone, knew better than to ask that of a dragon), "but to let us go deeper into the mountain, to crawl down the small tunnels you cannot, and collect food for ourselves. If you allow us to use your mountain to fatten ourselves up, then you might want to eat us."

The dragon mulled this over. It knew in the deepest belly of its mountain there lay chambers of rare jewels, veins and arteries of gold and silver, boulders of jade and quartz, all inaccessible. It knew it could not dig nearly as well as Gorons, nor could its size allow it to reach the deepest caverns where the greatest riches lay. "I will allow you to enter my mountain," it said, thinking itself clever, "on these conditions: one, you may only keep one jewel out of every five you mine, and two, on each fortnight you will offer me one of your brothers to eat. There is no point in fattening you up if I do not get to reap the rewards of the offer."

Despite the vehemently shaking heads of his compatriots, Darmin acquiesced. "Truly, you are a kind and generous creature."

The dragon was rather pleased to have secured a steady supply of meals for the next few years. "It is a dangerous world out there," it said with a wide smile. "And I know better than anyone. I can see from my mountaintop the changes of the land: the volcanoes are cooling, the sky is emptying, food is scarce, and new creatures are crawling from the earth by the day. You will be safest and happiest with me, I can assure you." It proudly showed its teeth. "But remember, if I suspect you are hoarding the fruits of my land for yourself, or if you in any way fail to uphold your end of our deal, you will regret the day you cheated Volvagia of Death Mountain."

(Oh, a horrible mistake, Brother Impa!

What is it this time?

The dragon did not give the name Death Mountain to his home, it was my forefather who named it that. Another drink!

I'm starting to believe you're nitpicking so for once you can outdrink me.

Are you listening to this, Brother Sheik? "For once," he says. As if he wants to erase all those times during the War. They happened, Brother Impa. You just can't remember them.)

The Gorons, needless to say, were not happy with Darmin's arrangement. But they trusted his choice—after all, they figured it was better to have only one of them die every fortnight than to have all of them starve in the wilderness. So, reluctantly, the Gorons got to work. With Volvagia meticulously keeping watch, they slaved away in the belly of the mountain. They began in the huge gashes the dragon's claws had made as it tried to dig deeper into the rich earth, and it did not take them long to come across the treasures Volvagia could not reach.

The belly of the mountain held more bounty than the Gorons could believe: shining caves and chambers of jewels, solidified rivers of gold and silver, shining stalactites and pools of the most relaxing boiling magma. They were overtaken by joyful relief, but they only feasted as much as they dared. They mined and ate, ate and mined, and within days they felt their strength return to them. Even when they left the majority of their spoils at the feet of Volvagia (who was quite pleased with the affair so far), there was enough left to feed them. Everyone, even Darmin, seemed to forget about the price the dragon had demanded in exchange.

Darmin's youngest son, Darunia—

(Name sound familiar, Brother Sheik?

Gods almighty, let me tell the story!)

Darunia was the only one who seemed to be worried about the oncoming new moon, which marked the end of the fortnight. He was not worried he would be offered up to Volvagia, for he was Darmin's son (and still small enough that he would not make a satisfactory meal for a dragon), but he cared for his brothers very deeply. One night, after Darmin and the others had satiated themselves on what had been left to them, Darunia approached his father.

"Surely you're not going to give up one of us to be eaten," he said.

"Of course I'm not," Darmin replied. "Do you think so little of me that I'd trade the lives of my brethren for food?"

"I say we take what we can and run," Darunia suggested.

"Back into the wilderness? No, my littlest, I hate to say it, but Volvagia is right. The world out there has become too dangerous. New threats rise by the day. This is the last hospitable place left to us."

"Then perhaps we can live in the deepest tunnels, where Volvagia cannot reach us."

"Then it will only spew its hideous breath down there and smoke us out." Darmin thought for a long moment. "Listen. Volvagia sleeps still in its chamber. Gather the others, for I have come up with a plan."

Darunia summoned the Gorons with fervent whispers, and they stood before Darmin to hear his words. "Brothers—you have grown stronger and happier in the past few days—your faces have a healthy glow, like molten rock. But we must not forget the price we have to pay for it. One of us must go up to the dragon's lair. On the new moon, when Volvagia asks for a sacrifice, I will offer myself to be eaten."

The other Gorons hissed in protest, paralyzed by the mere thought of offering up their leader to the creature.

"Quiet, you lot! Now, listen. When I go up to Volvagia's chamber, I'm going to bring my hammer with me. It will think I have come on behalf of my people to spare them—but I will crush its head before the thought even sparks in its brain. Volvagia no doubt thinks I am too weak to fight back, and that's right. As weak as I am now, I would doubtless lose. But there are many nutritious rocks in this mountain—more than I've seen in centuries. I ask that you give me the best jewels and let me eat the most, for if I'm to face Volvagia I must be at my strongest. I know you might have to forgo a few meals for my sake, but if I have no strength, even my beloved hammer will be of no help to me."

The other Gorons agreed. They knew if anyone would be strong enough to face a dragon, it would be Darmin.

"We will have to be sneaky about it, my brethren. The dragon watches us closely, because it fears our trickery. As it should. Come the new moon I will be strong enough to fight it. And I will not fail."

He said it with such confidence the other Gorons could not help but believe him. So they offered up their fair share of food, knowing that after Darmin killed the dragon, they would have the immense stores of the mountain to feed from—and even more when the next eruption came. So as the days wore on, Darmin grew stronger. He practiced with his hammer, he trained with his sons, he ate and ate and ate and ate. On the night of the new moon, when he had promised to provide Volvagia with a sacrifice, he was as strong as he had ever been.

He grabbed his hammer, his sons and brothers bid him good luck, and he went up to Volvagia's chamber to kill the beast.

"Ah, so the biggest brother offers himself," the dragon said when it saw Darmin's outline in the shadows of its chamber. "That is truly honorable."

"A dragon should know," Darmin replied. "For I have heard from stories your kind have hearts much like ours."

"You think flattery can save you?" the dragon laughed. "Do not try to appeal to me. You know the terms of our deal. Now, step forward so I can get a good look at my supper."

When Darmin stepped into the light, Volvagia saw the outline of his hammer. The dragon at once knew that Darmin had gone back on their deal. A great anger overtook the creature, and he lunged at the Goron, ready to tear him limb from limb.

The battle raged all night. The Gorons below the chamber heard the bangs and the roars, could feel the fire and the blows from the fight above. Many of them wanted to help their brother, but they had sacrificed so much of their nourishment to him they knew they would likely do no good. So they waited, clutching one another for comfort, as the mountain roared with anger around them.

When the sun rose over the crater, and the mountain fell again into silence, the Gorons poured into the chamber. There they found Darmin, battered and broken but triumphant, holding the shattered skull of Volvagia for all to see.

(And then he named it Death Mountain in celebration of the death of the dragon, and the Gorons lived happily ever after.

Don't get ahead of yourself, Sheik. Volvagia's defeat only marks the halfway point of Darmin's story.

So at what point is it named Death Mountain?

Well, Brother Darunia?

Ah, you see, Brothers. That's just a mistranslation. My great forefather named it the Mountain of Good Sleep, because there is a perfect crag on the southern side that suns a Goron just right for afternoon naps. Somewhere in the passing centuries some Hylian translator dropped a letter somewhere, and no one bothered to correct it. Don't look so disappointed, Brother Sheik. Not all stories are exciting.)

The Gorons, now free from the dragon and in possession of a plot of land fertile with jewels, threw the biggest party the world had ever known. They sang and danced and drank and ate so heartily it was a wonder any of them got back up in the morning. But they did, tough as they were, and began their work anew.

For years afterward, they lived happily. They gorged themselves on the fruits of the mountain, which, compared to the tiny plots of barely-edible rock they had scavenged for so many decades, seemed endless. For the first time since the sky cleared, for the first time since water appeared and cut the soft earth with its icy edge, the Gorons felt as if they had made a home. For the first time in centuries, the had hope for their future.

But Darmin was a Goron who liked to plan ahead—after all, his heroism was as much due to his schemes and cleverness as it was to his strength. He knew, though he had vanquished Volvagia, there were other dragons wandering the wastes, hearts limitless in their greed and hunger. He knew there would be battles yet to be fought, famines yet to be endured, hardships yet to be encountered.

So he gathered his friends and brothers, and with their help, he built a fortress deep within the mountain to protect their treasures. With the land's durable stone, the Gorons built labyrinths and halls. With metals and springs of their own making, they designed and planted cunning traps. With the forges and flames of their beloved new home (apparently not yet called Death Mountain), they strengthened Darmin's hammer, so that it might one day again meet a dragon's skull. And with the precious stones, heightened in spiritual power, they built statues of their greatest patriarchs, to look down upon them and bless them with strength and bravery. At the center of this temple was the chamber where, as Darmin promised them, they would upkeep a generous stockpile of jewels to be shared when difficult times returned.

Every day, they mined a little more than they needed. They carried their extra harvest to Darmin and his sons, who promised to keep them safe. It was difficult work, and some days were better than others, but the Gorons could all remember the suffering they had endured out in the wilderness, and were much more satisfied knowing there would be some uneaten treasure stored in their mountain, just in case.

The chamber filled quite nicely. When the piles of gold nuggets and rubies and sapphires nearly reached the ceiling, Darunia told his father that there was no room left.

"Then expand it!" Darmin answered, confident they would need it. "We do not know when our mines will run dry, or where we will go when they do. We don't know when this mountain will again erupt—or if it will. We don't know when a dragon might appear again, or if other threats will ascent the slopes to come after us."

So the Gorons sacrificed just another ruby or two every week, and did not suffer much for it. They expanded their stockpile, and again the mountain provided them with all the glittering meals they needed. But as they mined, they forwent their favorite gemstones, offering them instead, selflessly, to be saved for their progeny. This didn't sit well with a few Gorons, but Darmin always assured them it was for the best.

"Do you not remember how well this worked once before?" he said to his dissatisfied brothers. "It was only through your sacrifice that I was able to protect you from Volvagia. And it will only be through the same sacrifice that I will protect you from whatever threat comes next."

The Gorons could not deny the truth in his words, so they got back to work. Their laughter and songs faded as the sound of mining took over the mountain, but they slept deeply, they ate well enough. Darmin had protected them thus far, and they had faith he would protect them and their sons far into the future. That is, until a strange new beast appeared on the scene.

Darunia was the one who ran up to his father with the news of the odd creatures. They crawled through the poisonous green forests, seemingly immune to the pains of sap and water. They had arms and legs and stood upright, but they were pale and soft like the insides of a Goron reassembled without its rocky shell. "What a hideous creature it must be!" Darmin shouted, grabbing his hammer.

(And hideous you are still!

If you continue to insult me, Brother Darunia, I will not finish the story.

It's probably for the better. You tell it like an amateur.)

When Darmin followed his son to the cliffside and gazed down on the land below, he saw the creatures, naked and new to the world, creeping among the trees. When he shouted down to them, they scattered into the shadows. "They are not dragons, at least," he said. "But still, they are small and they may sneak into our halls to do who knows what damage." Darmin, of course, was familiar with how a smaller creature might trick and destroy a larger one.

Thinking that these animals would likely burn like the hideous trees from which they emerged, he had his engineers and welders build pipes and valves that spewed fire and gas—harmless to a Goron but lethal to all others. His people sacrificed a little more of their time on Darmin's fortress, giving up their spiciest and most delicious stones to power the machines that would burn the new threat.

Darmin assigned his son to keep an eye on these new creatures, but Darunia found them far more fascinating than threatening. He watched them bathe in poisonous clear water, watched them lift their eyes to the blue sky and smile, watched them hunt and farm (the first time he saw one pull a soft, disgusting root from the ground and eat it, he could not keep his stomach from turning). Clearly they were unaware of their Goron neighbors, and were likely uninterested in eating the rocks from the earth. He knew they were of little threat to the Gorons, and when he spied them using fire—warming themselves by it!—he knew they might even have a few things in common.

But when he told his father about it, Darmin just stroked the crystals of his beard and replied, "Then fire might not harm them as much as I'd hoped."

So he asked the Gorons to improve the mazes they had built—for months they dragged up the biggest boulders from the side of the mountain and pushed them into the labyrinth, thinking perhaps if the creatures would not burn, they could be crushed. Every day they spent more and more time on Darmin's maze, and less on themselves or their families. Some of them expressed dissatisfaction with the work, but Darmin was quick to remind them of the sufferings they had endured when they were racked with starvation and homelessness.

"You know as well as I that we must do everything in our power to protect our new home. If our mountain is attacked or our jewels stolen, we might have to leave again. You remember the pangs of starvation, the callouses on your feet, the danger, the hopelessness. Surely none of you want to go through that again, and even less so condemn your sons to it. So we must save enough food for our children and their children, and we must protect it with everything we have. Surely the pain of a day's hard work is preferable to the pain of starvation."

The Gorons thought this reasonable, and they were satisfied in their labor for a time. They spent longer and longer hours in the mines, ate less and less, devoted more resources to the stash that would keep their children alive for centuries to come. But they never knew if it would be enough—or if it could be stolen by these odd creatures that hid safely from them in their poison forests. So each day they worked a little harder.

And Darunia kept his eyes on their new neighbors. By the time Darmin's great mazes were finished, the creatures had darkened in the sun, they wove clothes and tents, they tended to large plots of land and built homes from stones of the mountain—much like Gorons had done when warm caves could not be found. Darunia, though he did not quite dare cross the streams to get a close look, even swore he could hear them use language—once, he even heard them singing.

But when he told his father these fascinating details, he just shook his head and muttered, "They are getting clever!" So Darmin asked his brothers to give up their daily ration of silver so that he might make keys and locks and chains—puzzles their new neighbors could not possibly outwit, should they choose to invade the Goronic hillside.

When the creatures began to forge their own weapons and tools, gathering metals from the base of the mountain and crafting simple devices (Darunia thought they were admirable tools, simple and elegant but nothing compared to the Gorons'), Darmin's paranoia reached its height. "We will have to go down to the mountain and destroy these things," he told his sons.

"Father," Darunia said. "You are overthinking this. You are a warrior of great cunning and strength, but now is a time of peace and plenty. You do not have to spend all your days thinking up something to fight."

"Do you not remember, Darunia, what our people went through? Do you not remember starving under Volvagia, the terrible journeys and the freezing nights? I am only making sure my people are protected. It is my duty, and it is what they expect of me."

"You are working them so hard, Father," Darunia said. "They are preparing for a disaster that will never come."

"But what if it does?" said Darmin's eldest son. "You will be sorry you did not take action when you could."

"I say we go down and eliminate the threat," said another son. "It will be easy since the creatures are so soft."

"But that makes them resilient," said another. "And who knows why they're so soft? Some say it's because they're made of water."

"Damn that blasted poison!" Darmin cried.

"Let the creatures be," Darunia said. "They have shown no interest in us. They keep to themselves. They are not after our food."

"Of course they are," his father cried. "Look at that barren wasteland out there! How do they survive? And the dragons, Volagnid's great breath, the dragons are still out there."

"I haven't seen one in a hundred years," Darunia offered.

"Then it is high time one appeared again! Damn them all. And I've heard that even the plants are moving now! They've grown legs, and they're spreading their nuts and leaves and their awful scent everywhere. And not to mention the water has begun to spin monsters from itself—just yesterday a scout reported seeing eyes, eyes in the river! Soon we'll have creatures coming at us from every angle. If we cannot outwit these parasites at the bottom of our mountain, we can at least outmatch them in strength. It is time we prepared for the worst."

His sons agreed, except for Darunia, of course, who was fairly sure the creatures of the rivers and forests had no interest in braving the fires of the mountain. But he was the smallest and the youngest, so his opinion was drowned in the voices of his brothers'.

Each day, more and more resources poured into protecting the mountain and the treasures inside. Each day Darmin demanded a little more from his brothers, so they might help him upkeep his strength for the inevitable attack, and they gladly offered. No one knew from where this attack would come—the dragons, the small creatures popping up around them, or if the skies would open and dump enough water to drown them—all they knew was that Darmin would keep them safe from the mysteries and dangers of a changing world.

Year by year, he demanded more of the Gorons. He drove them deeper into the mountain, he took more from their efforts—soon they were barely able to see a fraction of their day's work. But they remembered that he had been the only one who had saved them from Volvagia, and believed wholeheartedly he could save them again when a new threat rose, if only they could keep him strong enough.

As the Gorons shrank and weakened, Darmin himself grew and grew and grew. When he left the chamber to mingle with his compatriots, it was impossible not to notice how tall he seemed, how thick and muscular he had become. Some were quite sure Darmin was eating from their shared storage of food, but few of them cared. "Surely this is a good sign," they said. "For the larger he is, the easier he will keep us from danger. He will preserve our wealth and our bounty."

The Gorons could not imagine how terrible it would be if they had to go back to the old days of wandering, of starvation, or worse—of serving a fell creature like Volvagia.

Darunia knew his people were no strangers to hopelessness. It dismayed him how easily they fell back into the mindset of desperation and fear. Even his closest brothers, the older and supposedly stronger sons of Darmin, dragged their tired feet day after day, forcing themselves to give thanks for what they got.

Darmin, by that time, was so big he was unable to leave his chamber. He had gotten so strong, it was said, that no dragon could ever stand up to him. None but his family were allowed to go inside, and he had to send his eldest son to pass down edicts and collect the people's offerings to their leader. Always, the demands were the same—more stones for eating, more stones for building, more stones for powering the great temple's traps and fires.

Darunia did not want to believe in the transformation he saw. He watched his father's limbs change, his skin harden and split into scaly notches, watched the fire of paranoia rise in his eyes. And Darmin just ate and ate, gorging himself on their supply of jewels, gorging himself on the fruits of their labor, gorging himself on the hard work of his own kin, for nothing could satisfy his fears. And even as Darmin turned his eyes to the sky, beyond the open throat of the active mountain, looking for dragons to fight, celebrating his people's sacrifice by growing even larger, even harder, even meaner, he did not notice his own change.

(Brother Impa, your ward is fading. He's about to fall.

Are you all right, Sheik?

I'm… fine.

He's getting bored with your awful story. What he needs is another pot of dragon spit.

I'd rather not…

It is probably best if we do not kill Sheik tonight, Brother Darunia.

Aye, perhaps you're right. He will have plenty of opportunity in the future to die as he likes. If we let him suffer he'll learn to pace himself.

I suppose it's how we all learned.)

Twenty years earlier a Goron had entered the chamber with the best intentions, and now reemerged a dragon, fire-eyed and fierce. It was this moment when Darunia learned how a dragon is made, and why the ancient tales said that dragons and Gorons used to be of one heart and body.

The creature, nothing less than Volvagia reborn, tore through the Goronic halls, devouring Darunia's brothers by the mouthful. Even Darmin's own closest sons were not spared the gnashing black teeth of the dragon. But Volvagia's rage was not without its own method. Flashing a grin of obsidian, it extracted its unfulfilled end of the bargain: a Goron for every fortnight that had passed since its demise. Too weak to fight back, the Gorons fell to their knees and begged for mercy, pleading for Darmin to regain himself. Only Darunia knew that the old patriarch had long vanished into the scaly body of the dragon. In the panic he rushed to his father's old chamber and took up his hammer, sure that he would be the only one willing to strike the creature down.

It was a long and bloody battle. Volvagia had reemerged stronger than ever; all of the food and dedication the people had given Darmin had made the Goron strong, but they only made the dragon stronger. Volvagia's scales were hard as diamond, glittering with all the health and beauty of the stones the Gorons had sacrificed to their beloved leader, and when Darunia's hammer struck the dragon's body, hardly a crack could be seen.

But Darunia was bolstered by his sheer strength of will; the death of his beloved brothers still glowed fresh like hot coals in his mind, sending burning anger through every limb. For hours, before the terrified eyes of the surviving Gorons, the two fought mercilessly, pointlessly. Between the dragon's strength and size, and Darunia's fortifying anger, neither could muster the strength to overpower the other and land a final blow.

"Darunia, tell me why," Volvagia growled, slithering around the heights of the great chambers of the mountain. "Why must you fight? I am only taking what was rightfully promised me."

"You ate my brothers," Darunia replied, as if it needed to be said.

"Glance upon yourself and see how weak you are," hissed the dragon. "You cannot win, so lower your hammer and let me take what is mine. One brother a fortnight is all I ask. It is not a high price to pay for protection against the creatures of the trees, against the rainstorms and the advancing poison of the woods." When Darunia remained unmoved, the dragon lowered its eyes to him with a wicked smile. "What right has a youngest son to deny his father?"

The tones and lulls of Darmin's voice, echoing in the dragon's words, threw him into a fury. It was with tears streaming down his hardened cheeks that Darunia launched himself at the dragon, hammer-first. He collided with the creature with such phenomenal velocity, the two of them burst through the side of the mountain and into the cold air. They tumbled down the slopes, a chaotic cloud of gnashing teeth and glinting hammer, of whipping tail and fierce, Goronic bellow. The hapless Goron survivors rushed to the hole and watched the wretched spectacle with horror. None could make out a victor through the mayhem of their fight—their blows shook whole sections of the mountain, their falls and scrambles dislodged boulders and clouds of dust. With a shower of fire and fury, Goron and dragon rolled to a stop in the depths of the valley. The impact tore massive trees up by their roots, set the fields of grass ablaze, and covered the entire vale with smoke and dust. When the rumbling of their fight ceased, a deafening silence overtook the entire mountain range.

A few brave Goron souls made their way down the mountain after the two, praying to every patriarch they held dear that it would be Darunia who rose from the ashes and dust clouds. When they arrived at the foothills of the mountain, hands wringing in distress, they indeed found the dragon unmoving, skull crushed by Darmin's mighty hammer. And beside Volvagia, unmoving in the dust, lay the body of their hero.

The rocks of his strong back had crumbled to pebbles, and the steel of his bones jutted from his broken limbs. Though his iron heart still pumped, barely, the marbles of his black eyes had dulled to a torpid grey. When he moved his mouth, his voice stayed stuck in his throat but they could read the small, shaking motions of his lips.

"Do not weep for me, brothers," he mouthed.

Of course, they all fell to weeping, beating their chests and chanting songs of mourning for their lost brother. And while they cried and argued about what to do with the body—or if indeed their near-dead brother could still be revived, curious faces emerged from the gnarled, blackened trees. They were long, thin, and they moved with such quietness the Gorons could not hear them over the sorrowful cants and furious arguing.

It wasn't until the strange creatures were already upon the body of their brother that the Gorons even noticed they were not alone. And when they recognized the long, rock-less limbs of the fell creatures Darmin himself had so feared, they stood paralyzed. "These are those awful creatures of water," they whispered to themselves, "come to finish us off."

The people indeed had weapons of steel and wood, for what were we to expect from them but caution, after witnessing the bodies of a Goron and a dragon fall from the sky and burn a quarter of their valley to ash? But the people, seeing the Gorons in such distress, lowered their weapons. They looked at one another and forwent their attack, instead circling the Gorons and whispering to one another in a harsh and unintelligible language. Immediately Darunia's brothers knew they were planning on how to best slaughter them—they could only guess if they were to cut them, pierce them, poison them, or leave them to die in their own pitiful weakness.

Instead, they wrapped their thin arms around Darunia's broken limbs and carried him to their blacksmiths. The Gorons watched in helpless amazement as strong men and women set his arms and legs right with heat and hammer. Chirping with songs in a language none could understand, the children of the village brought wood to set a fire under him and warm his aching body. People in robes came to cast protective spells over him and heal his wounds with foul-smelling salve. The farmers brought him vegetables and the hunters brought him game, but the Gorons, with so many grunts and gestures, told them what their patriarch needed. So they brought to him their own jewelry, their own stores of treasure, and with the help of the Gorons, searched and dug across the mountainside for sustenance. When the smiths had set right his iron bones, and the healers and magicians had painted spells across his broken back, when the fires of the village had warmed him and his friends and brothers brought him enough food to eat, Darunia opened his eyes.

"Oh my brethren," he groaned. He looked upon the strange people of water and earth, and though he did not know if they could understand him, addressed them also. "Thank you to all of you as well, strangers who helped me when you did not need to. It is because of your generosity that you have staved off my death, and I will never forget that."

"It is not as much as you deserve," his brothers replied. "For you have destroyed Volvagia."

"Volvagia is far from destroyed. The corpse on the foothill is not Volvagia—I am. And so are all of you. It is a monster of our own making, and we will make it again, so long as we let desperation drive us. So long as we let the wrongs we have suffered flame the fires of our rage and fear, we will never be free of the fell dragon. So I ask you, brothers, to be brave, to be generous and unafraid, to value brotherhood above comfort and comradeship above safety. I want you to keep vigilant of the real threats, the ghosts of all the Volvagias that still linger in our great halls of the mountains, and above all, I want you to be happy. And I want you to do this for yourselves, and not for me. I am unworthy to call myself a leader of such a tribe of hardworking and selfless Gorons."

A few turned their heads to one another and nodded. "Surely you are worthy of us," they said. "And we will try to be worthy of you."

"So, the first thing to do is introduce ourselves properly to these new people who share our world," Darunia said.

And introduce themselves they did. It was from Goronic smithing techniques that the Sheikah learned to make the thinnest, strongest blades in Hyrule. It was from the Gorons that they learned to cultivate and harvest the crops of bombcraft, it was from them that the Sheikah learned to throw a proper celebration.

(Your own words, not mine, Brother Impa!

It is true, though, and you cannot deny it.)

Days of peace and prosperity followed. Darunia, though he had proven himself a warrior, hid his father's hammer away. In times of peace, he attested, there is no need for such a weapon. But he did not destroy it outright, for he knew that if he were ever to follow the footsteps of his father and let the hidden heart of the tyrant take over his own, it would be needed. He hoped that if he, or any Goron, for that matter, let the hurt of hardship turn him into Volvagia, that if ever the heart of a dragon emerged to once again devour his people's minds and bodies, a hero might rise and strike him down. It was the greatest act of loyalty he could ever ask for.

"A terrible retelling," Darunia claims. "But I will let it go, just this once."

"I did not tell it for you," Impa says. "Sheik, you enjoyed it, did you not?"

She looks my way, and I try not to teeter. My stomach churns, my sight spins, and I find my face acquainting itself with the stone floor.

"Look at him, Brother Impa!" Darunia laughs. "He's been the one to drink for every one of your mistakes!" When he sees me lower my head and gurgle, he pulls himself to his feet. "You Sheikah and your sensitive constitutions. If you're going to vomit, go outside. I cannot stand the smell of half-digested plants."

"It's better than the smell of half-digested rock," Impa insists, but helps me up anyway. She drags me through the halls of Goron city, steadying my waist, until we reach the exit.

The snow sparkles in the moon, disorienting me. I lean by an outcropping, brain aching, sight spinning. "Impa…" I mutter, bending over my knees. "Why did you do this to me?"

"It's a lesson we all must learn," she says, but I can hear the smile in her voice. "Some learn it earlier than others." I cannot imagine her learning the same lesson. Even drunk Impa is graceful and flawless. She does not stutter or slur when she tells her stories, she is no slower in a fight, no less clever or put-together.

When I am done throwing up, she removes her cloak and puts it around me. I linger in her arms for a moment. I smell dragon spit, but I am fairly sure it comes from my own breath. "Do you think Darunia is right?" I ask her, as she leads me back toward the warmth of Goron City.

"About what?"

"Do you think my clay is too soft? To make into a hero?"

"If clay is not soft, it cannot be sculpted," Impa says. "And we have much more sculpting to do yet. Until it is time to plunge you into the fire, I will keep you soft." A few Gorons linger in the doorway to the town, warming themselves on the generous flames that light the halls, and they smile at me—kindly, but no less amused at my state. "And you must always keep a bit of softness at your center, Sheik."

"Lest I become a dragon, I know," I sigh. Impa finds a warm place for me and lays me down. Her hand lingers on my forehead for a moment, and I reach up to hold it there. "Your stories never fail to have more morals than I can keep track of."

"It is not so much that my stories have morals," she says. She lets me tug her closer to my side. "It is that my morals have stories."

I suppose everyone has a story for when they learn something important. Otherwise, it would not be important, would it? Even I have tales upon tales, from my mundane life, of small mistakes and large transgressions, of moments and narratives that taught me one thing or another about how the world works. "Impa, if I retake the throne—"

"When. When you retake the throne, my liege—" she stops, letting her voice fall to a whisper. "I will ensure you do not make the mistakes of your father. I will ensure you do not make the mistakes of any that came before, spineless or tyrannical. If I see so much as a puff of dragon smoke coming from you, I will take up the hero's hammer myself."

It is as much of an expression of love as I can ever get from her. I smile so widely I cannot keep my eyes open.

I expect it is a familiar scenario for Impa. Somewhere in the spinning rooms of my memories, I hear praises sung to a Gerudo King of great strength and valor, of a man whose very essence was that of noble violence. Perhaps it is the pointless boredom of rulership that drives him to torment a country that poses no threat to him. Perhaps that is why he sends out his armies to take what is already his—to torture the Eldine mountains with the frigid magic of unnatural winter, to raise the dead from potter's fields and send them screaming across the plains. Perhaps that is why he has built such an impenetrable castle, floating over lakes of fire, perhaps that is why he has gone out of his way to weaken this country.

"He is afraid," I say aloud. "He is so afraid." I find my idiotic smile spreading, sending waves of stupidity and joy down my neck and into my very heart.

"Who?" Impa asks, and I simply laugh in reply. She sighs and settles beside me, letting me rest my head on her shoulder. "Of what, Sheik?"

I take a breath, still stinking of dragon spit, and sink happily into her arms. "Of me."