A/N: Hello humans! AuuuAAAGHHHhhHH! (And if you've ever been to Disney World I hope you get that reference! xD) Here is chapter 12, which somehow ended up being my second longest chapter to date?! I have no idea how that happened. And it was supposed to end one way and then took an EXTREMELY sharp turn this morning and ended like this instead? I also don't know how that happened. And now my plans for the beginning of the next chapter are slightly derailed. But I'm just gonna roll with it!

This was awful to write and there will be a full dissertation on the subject on my Tumblr! :D THANK YOU SO MUCH to everyone who has left a review! You DO NOT EVEN KNOW what kind of impetus that gives me—not to mention it just makes me feel generally happy and warm and fuzzy to get notes from you guys. So thank you for taking the time! It means so much. (And there would be a heart emoji here, except FFN. And then an eye roll emoji. Wow, I just realized how inept I am at communicating without those. Yeesh. Is this a tangent?)

OH AND ALSO! If you ever use a communal hot spring, like in Japan for example, NEVER DO WHAT ZELDA DOES IN THIS CHAPTER. Always get clean first! I literally almost wrote an extra 500 word scene just so she could get clean in a bathhouse before getting in, but I was like I do not have time for this. So. Disclaimer: this chapter contains totally inaccurate depictions of bathing in communal hot springs.

Thanks for reading! :D

Kakariko

Though we hadn't had rain in days, Ash Swamp was brimming, likely refreshed by some localized weather patterns. Sometimes the fog creeping in from the Necluda sea would get trapped behind the Dueling Peaks and the range encircling the lowlands, and left with nowhere else to go would condense and drip fat, bulbous drops from the Jia Highlands to Naydra Snowfield. The pools of stillwater dappled between the sedge and swampweed glowed orange, rich and sweet, as the sun tipped towards Mable Ridge. Under different circumstances I might have called it lovely. But as things were, the spectacle was a jeweled face on a ticking clock.

Daruk, Mipha, and Urbosa caught up with us on the shore of Lake Siela. By then I'd put my shoes back on, and when I tentatively loosened my grip on his hand, Link all but dropped me. Beyond Kakariko Bridge, a canyon cut a swathe through the northerly ridge of mountain range, snaking between the Pillars of Levia and Banooru's Stand. Its walls rose up out of the slope with unnerving purpose—impassable, claustrophobic, whispering about the secret things that lay concealed just beyond the next bend. It had never struck me as forbidding before, but suddenly the narrow entrance felt like a hand around my throat. Link slowed as we wound through the pass, each step more calculated, more rigid, as though he could feel it closing around his, too.

When the canyon finally spilled open and the village came into view, it was abandoned.

The chimes knocked together hollowly where they were strung up around the village, dangling from gables and swaying over uneven paths knotted with grass. Gardens were left untended, implements still caked with dirt propped against the walls. Shutters were closed in spite of the cool evening breezes rustling through the valley from Lanayru.

It was almost as though they had known something horrible was coming.

"I've never seen it so quiet," I whispered.

Urbosa frowned, turning for the Great Hall looming over the valley, and murmured, "Let's try the Elder's house."

It was nestled due east, nearly opposite where we had entered, it's towering thatched roof and sweeping beams shrouded in mist and shadow. Lantern Lake above spilled in so many waterfalls between the crags and the lumpen peaks to surround the lonely peninsula where the house rested on old, thick stilts. The last, yawning strokes of sunlight spread with long fingers above the cliffs as we stepped into the house's shadow, like the points of an intangible crown.

And then, as though summoned, the dark wooden doors atop the impressive stairwell to the veranda opened wide, and the Elder stood at the threshold.

I had met her before, of course, on several occasions. I was the daughter of Hylia. She was there the day I was born. But there had always been some ritual or other surrounding our meeting to keep me from feeling bare: delegations and oaths in the throne room, or long prayers murmured before spiritual leaders and throngs of enraptured faithful, or a traditional procession through her village to lay an offering at Cotera's glittering fountain. Something that made me feel worthy, or at least necessary. Facing her now, wearing the filthy costume of a champion and bereft of jewels or ceremony, I felt remarkably empty. She was calm, and wisened, but more than all else she was Sheikah, and the combination of all three was a fearsome thing to behold.

"I would like to speak with the princess and her companion alone," she called down, her tone sweet, and smiling, and utterly undefiable. "The rest of you will wait here, please. The last thing I need is a Goron crashing through my front porch."

Daruk scratched at the back of his head and chuckled, abashed, while I exchanged uneasy glances with Urbosa. But Link was already mounting the first steps, apparently neither intimidated by her demands nor concerned that we seem to have been expected. He turned back a third of the way up to stare curiously, and I swallowed down misgivings.

"You don't think it's odd that she knew we were coming?" I breathed beside him, as the Elder, satisfied, turned to retreat into the hall.

"The Sheikah are always odd," he scoffed. "And that's the way they like it."

Beyond the two-leafed doors the audience room was dark, the windows already cast in shadow. A blue carpet runner stretched from the door to the dais on the back wall, flanked on either side with rows of cushions to accommodate any number of villagers, should the need arise. The Elder sat on a zabuton at the head of the room, with two much younger Sheikah kneeling at her immediate left and right, and two more zabuton had been pulled from the arrangement and dragged closer, making for a more intimate circle. A few lanterns strung above her head cast a dim glow over the room. She was turning a bamboo whisk in a glazed bowl of matcha, staring into the steam as though it were much more interesting than the bedraggled princess and her half-demon companion standing at the threshold.

"Close the doors, please," she said quietly, and she spoke with such authority I nearly turned to do it myself. But Link was quick, and the look he gave me when he noticed my lapse was scolding. She gestured to the cushions placed on the other side of her tea tray. "We have much to discuss."

Link shadowed me to the dais, letting me lead for a change, only kneeling when I did. The young woman to the Elder's right touched her cuspidate, red-rimmed glasses, holding them up softly as though the angle afforded her a better view through the lenses, and then offered a slow, gentle nod. The Elder sighed out her nose, barely looking up from the steam rising out of her chawan to acknowledge it.

"Interesting," she hummed. "Troublesome. I'm not sure Hyrule has ever had the misfortune to have the Hero and Calamity be one and the same." And then, too easily, "Tea?"

I waved my hand in a soft declination, mouth twisting, and the Elder met my eyes.

"You're surprised."

"I suppose I shouldn't be," I murmured, "but yes."

"We see the truth," she said, an almost resigned air to her paltry explanation, and then turned her crimson eyes on Link. "We see what you are."

"Then you must be at a loss as to why I'm here," he mused, slanting his head in my direction so I knew exactly for whose benefit he spoke, and the tips of my ears burned.

"It did strike me as odd." She finished whisking her tea, and took a long, bitter sip, mulling. "You must tell me everything."

He paused, considering, eyes swirling darkly in my peripheral. But I didn't know if his hesitation was a consequence of her unusual lack of fear, or of the sudden presence of an audience, or because 'everything' was exceedingly difficult to quantify—was it a lost war, the origins of an ageless curse, thousands of years of torture that should have driven him mad long ago, the misadventures of an audacious princess who insisted on meddling with affairs in which she had no right to interfer? But then he started, and the quiet strength in his voice, the confidence, made me wonder if the hesitation had been a figment of my imagination.

"How much do you know?"

"We know that our technology was not powerful enough to turn the tide of battle in the princess's favor. We know that, somehow, the Calamity and the Hero who challenged him 10,000 years ago have emerged after all this time as one entity. And we know that you have the Sword that Seals the Darkness in your possession."

"A history lesson," he scoffed, unimpressed, "and two passing observations."

She chuckled into her tea bowl. "Perhaps you'd better start at the beginning."

His eyes met mine where I was watching him sidelong, just briefly—thoughtfully, like he was looking at a riddle, or its answer. But as quickly as it had come his gaze was gone, moving to stare through memory.

"The Beasts and the Guardians performed exactly as they were meant to. But I had felled armies before. This one was no different."

A chill crept down my spine. Even though he had never claimed to be anything different, it was jarring hearing him recall those events from the Calamity's perspective. He felt it. His eyes drifted to mine again, held them longer, churning with war.

"The princess didn't have the strength to cast me out as I was. So she used the boy wielding the soul of the hero as a vessel, sealing us with a bond she knew could not easily be broken."

The Elder stopped, her chawan hovering partway to her lips, and frowned, setting it back down again.

"We knew the fate of our princess, but the body of the hero was never recovered. It was impossible to say for certain what transpired during that fateful battle, but we all had our suspicions. If what you say is true, then everything we feared has come to pass."

And then, eyes closed, arms bent and hands braced on her knees, the Elder bowed low towards him, and the other Sheikah followed.

"Forgive us," the Elder said. "We have failed you."

Link was quiet for a long time, scanning the display with impassive eyes. I tried to swallow my heart back down where it belonged in my chest, confined behind my ribs, from where it had lodged in my throat. But it seemed intent on rising back up whenever I tried to breathe.

He finally said, "It was never your burden to bear. Or your destiny."

I tried to harness his elusive eyes with mine, tried to wrench his attention away and glimpse in them if he was implying with that simple dismissal everything I feared he was: that the destiny and the failure was somehow his. But he wouldn't look.

"Destiny is a fickle thing," the Elder said, and I reached out with furious, trembling hands for one of the chawan and the whisk.

"I'll have some of that tea now," I murmured, and she smiled graciously, spooning powder into the bowl and pouring hot water over the mound before reaching for her own drink again.

"I had 10,000 years to think about what I would do once I emerged from the seal," he continued as I cradled the tea to my chest, stirring slowly. "I realized there were… possibilities."

The Elder hummed thoughtfully, knowingly, ominously, fingers drumming the rim of her tea bowl. "A mortal Calamity. What conclusion did you come to?"

"That the Sword that Seals the Darkness driven through my heart could devour the Calamity entirely."

The two younger Sheikah exchanged startled glances, but the Elder didn't seem particularly shocked, though her eyebrows floated upwards. Perhaps that was as close to genuine surprise as she ever got.

"An intriguing idea," she mused, "though I admit such things are beyond my ken. And clearly there is more to the story, or you would not be here."

"Clearly," he said, flatly, turning to scowl at me.

I had just put the whisk down and sipped my tea, and was wearing an untimely grimace from the bitterness. I coughed.

"It's a long story," I said, deciding it best to forgo the unnecessary details of the last few days. "But we're here because of the Shrine on the Plateau."

The Elder was staring into the steam wafting out of her tea bowl again. She took so long to answer I almost wondered if she hadn't heard me. The Sheikah at her left and right had their heads bowed, as though staring at their hands; but they were staring at each other.

"That technology caused my people a lot of heartache," she finally sighed, and then cast a pointed look at Link. "And we went to great lengths to hide its existence."

He rolled his eyes. "I had nothing to do with uncovering your precious secrets."

"It's true," I said. "I had visions—dreams, memories. It all came to me in pieces. First in the Lost Woods, and then again at Thyphlo Ruins. They led us to the Plateau, but the Shrine isn't working. We came to see if you could repair it."

She raised a silvery eyebrow, casting her scoffing gaze at Link. "All of this just to save you?"

"I've tried talking her out of it. Several times."

"And he's only given me until nightfall to find answers," I interjected, frowning at him. "So whatever you can tell us, please do it quickly."

"We may be able to help you," she admitted, sighing. "But please understand that the situation is complicated."

Her eyes met mine, all dark and bloody in the lamplight, and she suddenly seemed too ancient, too powerful, and all I could do was nod. She took that as some sort of consent, breathing deeply again as she began to explain.

"After our technology led the princess to defeat, the king ordered it destroyed. And much of it was." She stopped to sip her tea again, lost in thought. "It was a dark time in our history. The country was rattled, and the king was consumed by grief, and people wanted someone to blame. There were countless arrests made on ambiguous charges, and most were never heard from again. Many of our greatest minds were lost."

My stomach dropped as I thought of Maz, of his ambition, watching the ghost of his face, that clever smile. There was so much he wanted to do once the war was over, so many wondrous, peaceful things he wanted to build. I got the feeling that he never got the chance.

"But we couldn't bear to erase that knowledge entirely—what may very well have been our people's greatest accomplishment. So we buried what we could intact. And we clandestinely passed down the science to our children—just a handful from each generation. Purah and Robbie are among those few," she added, gesturing to the Sheikah beside her. "And so is Impa."

I nodded, still feeling numb all over, and murmured, "I've sent for her."

"Good."

Then she made an open-handed gesture, satisfied, and the Sheikah beside her came to life.

"That shrine is incomplete and untested," Robbie murmured. "And it has enormous power requirements. Not exactly designed to run on cores, hm?"

"No," Purah agreed, adjusting her glasses again. "It's the furnace that's the problem. It's supposed to be self-sustaining, but without a conduit to the reservoirs beneath Mount Hylia—"

"No, no, we just need to introduce a flame to get the reaction started. It won't last without more fuel, of course, but it should get the job done."

"We'll need lanterns," she muttered, whipping a pencil out from behind her ear and folds of paper from her breast pocket to scribble notes.

"And they'll need an Interface," he said, too loudly, leaning around the Elder between them to make sure she had written it down.

The Elder endured the sudden chaos with practically no reaction, bringing her bowl to her mouth as though Robbie hadn't nearly draped himself over her lap to solemnly drink her tea.

"And time will be an issue," Purah went on, not glancing up from her notes. "After the Sword is driven through his heart, we'll have a relatively small window to place him in the Shrine. Once brain death occurs, there won't be much of him left to save."

I was about to correct her, explain that the Calamity could be purged like an infection, when Link asked instead, his voice gravel, "And you're certain the Shrine isn't going to resurrect the Calamity?"

"That depends on the accuracy of your hypothesis. The Shrine restores organic material at a cellular level. It can't heal what no longer exists in your physical form. So if the Sword really can devour all that the Calamity is, then it shouldn't be possible."

"And that is something we can't help you with," Robbie frowned. "It will be entirely up to the princess to determine if that procedure is a success."

My throat closed, my brain stuttering as it rushed to make sense of what they were saying. Misfiring. Because that couldn't be right, could it? That after all this, jumping through hoops and torturing ourselves looking for answers, it still came back to this? To driving a sword through his heart?

There had to be another explanation. A misunderstanding. But every argument I conjured was flawed. There was always one loose end. A scrap of doubt where certainty should have been. And I had been so certain...

You know less than you think.

I looked for his eyes. I stared and stared and stared. But he wouldn't look at me, his gaze unwaveringly fixed on the Sheikah scheming with him. Had he known? Had he always known? It made no sense. It was such a jarring, unwelcome contradiction to my expectations. And he couldn't have, because he never said...

There's something about all this I haven't told you.

I couldn't breathe. The room was spinning. They were still arguing about minutiae and hypothesizing all sorts of awful things—exactly how long could he live, even half-Calamity, with a sword driven through his chest? And who would outlive who? And how long would the resurrection process take? And if the flame ran out before it finished, would the Shrine be able to keep him from decaying until they could reignite the power source?—and the more they talked the more sick I felt. The truth was staring me in the face, and I couldn't stand it.

Everything I'd done up until now…. It was all for nothing.

It can wait.

"That's settled then," the Elder finally decided, just as I swallowed a scream. "Impa will spearhead the efforts on the Plateau, Robbie will lead the way in Akkala, and Purah will take the rest to Necluda. Tonight you will accept our hospitality, and leave as soon as you're able tomorrow."

Link opened his mouth to object, scowling, but the Elder held up her hand to forestall him.

"You gain nothing by leaving before Impa can accompany you, or before the princess has rested, and you have your answers, as promised," she said. "Now if you'll wait here with Robbie, I have some things for you."

I could practically hear him grinding his teeth, but he stayed put. My fingertips were numb. I realized I was still holding my chawan, my knuckles white against the glaze. It was nearly full. I set the bowl down, rubbing tension from my hands. Then Purah stood and led me out of the room.

I'm not even sure why I followed her. I just did as I was told.

Outside, she invited Mipha and Urbosa to walk with us and turned towards the hot springs, leaving Daruk to dither alone in the yard. They tried to get answers out of me as we walked, of course, but I let Purah do most of the talking. She was more than happy to reiterate all the pertinent details.

I didn't offer much when they asked why this plan sounded so different from the one I had pitched to them two days ago. I hardly had satisfying answers for them. Because I was naive? Because I was a fool? Part of me wanted to scream it aloud, but my jaw felt knit shut.

My emergence from the Great Hall must have been some kind of sign, because shortly thereafter the village slowly came back to life. Windows opened, lanterns lit, and children hung out over the sills, staring as we passed by with owlish garnet eyes.

We climbed up the hill to the women's bathhouse and then down the back steps to the rotenburo overlooking Lantern Lake, stripped at the water's edge, and lowered ourselves into the cloudy pools as the Sheikah took our clothes away to wash. By then the sun was gone, impressions of the cliffs and water breathing out of the darkness in pale slivers of trapped moonglow and starlight. After barely any time at all Mipha slipped out, preferring to soak in the lake below. Urbosa was uncharacteristically quiet, pretending not to watch me brood out of the corner of her eye.

"You don't like this plan," she finally said, scrubbing at an extended forearm with unnecessary attention.

The spring water sloshed red and the steam swirled amethyst, and I had to blink color and memory away before I could answer. I swallowed, whispered, "It's just… not what I was hoping for."

She didn't seem convinced. But she let it go, though I couldn't say why. Maybe it was the way I was staring daggers into the water, looking for answers, trying to riddle out how I let this all unravel around me. Maybe it was the way I had plopped myself in the water like a stone and hadn't moved since, my fingers gripping the rock steps beneath us and shoving up shoulders up too tightly. Maybe it was because the reflection I had thought was starlight was actually goddessglow coming from my eyes. I wasn't sure.

Eventually Mipha emerged from the lake, trudging up to the bathhouse to retrieve her things from where they were drying beside the irori, and shortly thereafter Urbosa announced she was clean and went up after her. I realized that I still hadn't moved, that there was still dirt under my fingernails and smudges up my arms. I tried to focus on the task at hand, working at little things, scrubbing at marks and imperfections and flaws wherever I could see them in the moonlight.

I scraped at grime and dirt from the road until my skin and scalp were raw, my chest full of steam. I imagined scraping until I could clean off the stain of his blood, of using him again, of wanting to give up the moment something was demanded of me. But I couldn't. No matter how hard I scrubbed, no matter how red my skin, no matter how it burned. It just wouldn't come off.

I pulled myself out of the scalding water when the moon rose higher, drawn out by a sudden thrill of emptiness when I felt Link's presence too far away and frustrated with my fruitless scrubbing besides. My clothes were laundered and dry beside the irori in the bathhouse.

Purah met me again after I had gotten dressed and took me back down to the village. I felt tugged northwest, up the hillside, but I forced my feet to follow where Purah guided me.

"Link didn't think it wise to spend the night in the village," she announced, unexpectedly, as we moved in front of the Elder's house, and then she gestured up the cliffs, up to where pulse was pulling me closer. "He said the safest place for him was in Cotera's woods, and grandmother agreed. You are always welcome to stay in the Great Hall, of course, but he said you wouldn't want to be separated."

"No," I agreed, grudgingly, imaging the swirl of malice and fury that had engulfed him at the mouth of the Lost Woods. "It's best if we don't."

"And of course your champions insisted on going where you go, even though there's a perfectly good inn in town," she smirked. "All a bit overzealous, don't you think?"

"Yes, they can be," I sighed, though I was secretly grateful to have them for company. Not that they could make the path we were all but bound to take any more palatable. But at least, when I drove the blade through him, I wouldn't be alone. Suddenly I felt the need to change the subject. "The Elder is your grandmother? Does that make Impa your sister?"

"I'm afraid so," she said, and then smirked at me again. "She's a stern little thing."

I waited a beat, two, weaving a little as the grade shifted beneath our feet, and then drifted closer to speak to her more quietly.

"Do you really think it will work? This plan?"

"Sure it'll work," she shrugged easily. "If Impa can rig the furnace, and if Robbie and I have any luck getting blue flame from Akkala or Hateno, and if that sword does what the hero says it does."

I swallowed a frown. "That's a lot of ifs."

"Yes, well. That's science for you. But I wouldn't worry. Besides, if all else fails you can just seal him again."

I found myself staring too intently through the path, not just because sending him back to the void was a harrowing thought, but because I genuinely didn't know if I even could. He had fought back on the field and overpowered me. If he cooperated, I could probably manage. But if the sword separated them—if it killed him, and the Calamity survived in some other form—I honestly didn't know what I would be up against.

Purah noticed. "You… can seal him again, can't you?"

I nodded too quickly, forcing a false smile that nearly made my jaw crack. "I think so."

She puffed out a humorless breath, folding her arms, and turned to lead me up the slope towards the fountain. At the crest of the hill, she pointed towards a soft orange glow between the trees and took her leave.

I followed the flickering firelight into the thicket and found my champions huddle around it, enjoying a meal—Revali included. Daruk was wearing a grin as wide as a caldera, cradling a massive slab of rock in his hands. Mipha was sampling some of the Sheikah offerings dantily, and Urbosa was pretending not to watch me again.

"Welcome back," I said, suddenly drained as I approached the ring. "Did everything go as planned?"

"Fine," Revali frowned, and then knocked back a whole trout in one gulp, scales and all. "Though I would appreciate it if in future you brought that heroic dog of yours to heel."

"He's no dog of mine," I muttered, frowning even deeper than he was, and Daruk wheeled in, ever quick to divert dismal conversation to someplace friendly and edible.

"Didja see all this food, Princess?" he boomed. "They even had rock sirloin for me, all the way from the Eldin! They brought up a fancy box for you, kai-somethin'."

"Kaiseki," Mipha corrected him gently. She offered me a tight, transparent smile. "It's quite delicious."

She made the observation sound like a quiet command, a verbal sleight of hand only another princess would probably ever notice. I yielded, joining them in the space they had left for me with a quiet sigh, and opened the elaborate bento. The contents were beautiful and delicate, giving off the pungent scent of brine and sweet egg and rice vinegar.

My stomach roiled. But I knew I needed to eat something. I forced plain white rice into my mouth and chewed. Strange, I thought, that I could barely bring myself to eat for nerves, while somewhere in that veiled forest Link was silently starving.

"We were saying Revali and I should accompany Robbie to Akkala," Mipha went on as I took another mouthful, "while Daruk and Urbosa go to Hateno."

"I suggested the girls versus the boys," Urbosa shrugged, and Revali's eyes glinted, betraying his infamous competitive streak.

"Daruk would have a hard time moving quickly through the wetlands," Mipha countered softly, "and I can take the waterways through Lanayru all the way into Akkala. It's more efficient."

"Time is of the essence," Revali sighed, leaning against the stone at his back and folding his wings behind his head. "The two of us are the obvious choice."

I let my attention wander as Urbosa made some quick remark or other about him carrying Robbie all the way to Akkala that likened him to a mule and the conversation quickly declined. I scanned the woods, feeling the Calamity lurking somewhere beyond the shadows. He was too far away to make out this long after sunset, and I wasn't sure if it was cowardice or mercy that moved him to be. But I hardly needed light to know where he was.

I could see him in my mind's eye, a dark silhouette moving amidst the trees. His shape stopped, turning, and through the darkness and the quarter mile separating us, I felt him look at me.

"I'm going for a walk," I breathed, setting down my half finished meal, and turned to move in the opposite direction.

"Princess," Urbosa called, and I was ready to whirl, ready to snap, ready to shout that whatever sermon she had to beat me over the head with could wait until the morning. But when I turned she was holding a flagon out to me. "Take this."

Part of me wanted to dive into her arms and cry—the part that didn't know how to have a mother beyond the age of six. But it was a piece of me that was shrinking in influence all the time. I offered her a bland impersonation of a smile instead and said, "Thank you."

And I did drink, knocking the flagon back and gulping water as I walked like a drunkard with his ale trying to drown fresh sorrows. It didn't burn, didn't heat my stomach or muddle my head, but it was cool, and bracing, and there was something satisfying about the way it made my throat ache.

I wandered until I found myself alight in the ethereal glow and spangles of Cotera's fountain, and my feet didn't stop until I was standing at her steps. I had no offering to lay at her altar and not even a rupee in my pocket to toss into the pool, but I hoped she wouldn't mind. I was divine, after all. That had to count for something.

You must not be so mortal as I thought.

I climbed her polished steps, sprouting from between the sprawling open petals of her fountain like so many toadstools, sat at the top with the simmering waters and golden plates of her shrine at my back, and dropped my head into my hands. I wasn't even sure what I was doing there. I just needed to be alone for a moment, come to terms with the disappointment and the dread that were churning up a windstorm in my ribcage. But I didn't know where to begin. All I knew was I that I didn't want to see Link's face for the rest of the night.

And then, as though summoned, there he was.

He flickered into view, half of him draped in shadow and the other soaked in fairy light, so blurred and sudden that he could have teleported out of the dark just as likely as he walked. My eyes scanned him as he stepped further into the glow of the fountain, absorbing the changes I hadn't seen in the dark. He was cleaner, for one thing, probably having been sent off to the hot springs himself. The Sword was mounted in a proper scabbard—royal blue with gold inlay burnished to an unreal shine—and if it wasn't the same one from my dreams, it was a perfect replica. A slate hung from his belt at his hip, raised all over with those serpentine, clay-colored shapes and constellations from the walls of the Shrine, and the Sheikah eye on the back gave off its own blue and orange light. And he wore a new tunic, the same sky blue of the other champion's clothes replacing the blood-stained, old-fashioned forest green he had been wearing when he first appeared.

It was the tunic I had made.

And it was like the man from the memories had stepped out of one plane and into this one: armed with a Sheikah slate, and the right scabbard, and wearing the fresh uniform of a champion. It made it harder to breathe.

I scowled at him. "Where did you get that?"

I suppose I could have meant any of his new equipment, but my eyes were glued to the sword pattern etched on his chest, and he seemed to garner my meaning.

"Your Sheikah advisor brought it," he said, unbothered.

I looked over the familiar garment again, searching for puckers or rumples. But there weren't any. It fit him perfectly. Had some part of me known what was going to happen, even back then? Known that it would be him coming out of the fissure? The thought made my palms itch with imagined light.

I didn't bother telling him. I didn't bother saying anything. He studied me for a moment, my silence, his eyes glittering in too many colors in the light of the fountain.

"You're angry."

I barked a derisive laugh. It was all I could do. "Oh, yes. I am angry."

He joined me on the rosy steps, lowering himself on the tier beneath mine, and glanced sidelong at the pool when the water bubbled in protest. "So is she. I doubt she likes my being so close."

"At the moment, neither do I," I frowned. "I suppose we'll both just have to deal with it."

"You're angry because you think I lied."

"You always lie. I'm used to you lying, if you can believe it. It's the fact that you let me believe that I wouldn't have to—" I stopped, gripping the step as I swallowed too much volume and a burning rush of salt. "But you knew. You knew from the beginning."

"Do you want to save what's left of my soul," he breathed, "or don't you?"

I met his eyes. He looked totally unmoved. Totally unapologetic. And perfectly, tantalizingly familiar.

"You should have told me," I said instead of answering.

He hummed thoughtfully, leaning back on his elbows. "I thought about it."

"Why didn't you?"

"Does it matter?"

"You keep asking that," I grumbled. "Pretending to make some point, like an answer lacking significance doesn't merit saying. But it's just another way to avoid telling me the truth."

He puffed a mirthless laugh. "In future, I'll just deny you outright."

My palms slammed fruitlessly on the step, producing neither satisfying sound nor vibration, and I glowered at him. But his eyes didn't mirror my irritation back at me. If anything, they were smiling.

I studied him a moment longer before I decided, scowling, "You like me better angry."

He smirked. "Sometimes."

I crossed my arms and stowed my fury, determined to be as unamusing as possible. But the more I tamed hate, the more I threatened to feel hurt, and it was a daunting balancing act walking the wire between the two.

I had been rehearsing all the things I was going to say to him when I was finally ready. Now he was here, and I couldn't think of a thing to blast him with. How dare you insist on giving your life for my country? On asking me, the only person who could possibly keep the Calamity at bay, to help you? I could hardly be angry with him for being selfless. And yet I was. And I was angry that he had let me hope there would be an easier way.

"What are you doing here?" I finally breathed, when the silence had stretched too long, and the scattered jingle of fairies and blupees skirting the fountain began to grate.

He took a breath, and then stopped, head tipping askance in thought. "Do you want me to warn you every time I'm going to lie to you?"

"Then what's the point of lying?"

"You said you were used to my lying. You're angry because I let you believe one of them."

"Prefacing every lie would take so much time that talking to you would become a chore," I droned, leveling a bland stare at him that said it already was.

"A tell, then?" he offered. He tilted his head slowly, a little too far, like he was listening for something.

I rolled my eyes. "Fine. But you're going to get a crick in your neck."

"I don't lie as often as you think," he scoffed. "I didn't even lie to you about the shrine." My eyes and my mouth sprung open to object, but he cut me off before I could properly interrupt. "I never said the shrine would do what you thought it would."

I pursed my lips. I wanted so badly to argue. I wanted so badly from him to be wrong. But I knew he wasn't. Not really. I fought back anyway. "A lie by omission is still a lie."

He laughed again, that breathless, mirthless sound, and it made my chest too tight. "Fine. Blame me if you want to."

Oh, I wanted to. But now that I had his permission it was somehow much less satisfying. I clamped my arms around myself tighter, grasping at indignation. Determined to stay bitter, to stay angry, no matter how unfulfilling it was.

"Are you going to tell me what you want, or aren't you?" I sighed hotly, narrowing my eyes at the back of his head. "Don't tell me you just missed me."

And then he tilted his head slowly, a little too far, like he was listening for something.

"Of course not."

I froze, and he turned, meeting my eyes. A hot, furious knot tangled in my throat. Why was it that he chose now, of all times, when all I wanted was to hate him, to make himself seem less callous? Less cruel? More human? Maybe it was because he knew I wanted to be angry, and he was trying to ruin it for me. Or maybe he was more human than he let others believe, and it was that thought that kept me paralyzed.

"I came to tell you to get some rest," he finally said. "You're going to need it."

I took the opportunity to clamber down the steps, to get myself the distance I suddenly, desperately needed. I snapped, not daring to look back, "Then you could have sent someone else."

"You wouldn't have listened to someone else."

I made the mistake of turning to glare, and found him sitting on that prismed step, surrounded by fairy glow, his hands threading from where they were balanced on his knees and his eyes watching me carefully—churning that constant crucible of molten ore and cold sapphire, piercing and glittering and hungry.

I let him have the last word, turning my back on him again to flee with as much of my pitiful fury as I could muster. Somehow he always seemed to have it anyway.

At the fire, the champions were dividing the watches. I snuck into the ring of firelight and curled up on the borrowed bedroll, turning my face into the pillow, determined to see no one and desperate for the day to be over. The others didn't bother me. I'm sure it didn't take Urbosa's legendary intuition to see that I was fuming, and they wisely kept from trying to talk me out of it.

Finally, Daruk sighing peacefully near me like an undulating boulder, and Revali out cold in the makeshift hammock he had put up between the trees, and Mipha tossing restlessly, and Urbosa humming an old Gerudo lullaby I didn't ask for, I slipped under, too exhausted to walk the tightrope anymore and dreading whatever sleep had in store for me.

And then Mipha was shaking me awake.

"Zelda," she hissed, out of focus, glistening something closer to blue rather than red in the moonlight. Her eyes were brighter than the rest of her, snatching at reflections like polished citrines. "You need to wake up."

"I am," I sighed groggily, swatting at her arms in an ineffective display that proved just the opposite.

I glanced blearily at the others. They were all still sleeping.

"Come on," she said, tugging at my arm. "It's Link."

At that I let myself be pulled, still not quite lucid, not quite over my anger, but aware enough of the warning in Mipha's voice to know it must be serious. We left the others behind at the smoldering fire and stumbled through the dark towards the beacon in her healer's eyes, snaking between trees and over roots and undergrowth and stones, and rounding the pond nestled at the heart of the bosk.

I could taste him before I could see him, the air tinged with an invisible film of malice as we drew close. He was on his knees, his dusky silhouette cradling his head with one hand, and when he sensed our proximity he dragged his eyes up to glower, muttering a string of words that I vaguely recognized as an ancient Zoran curse. Mipha had absolutely no reaction.

"What is it going to take for me to get you to mind your own business?" he growled thickly, writhing. "I told you I have this under control!"

She ignored him, glancing sidelong at me instead. Watching me study him, the way he shook, the way every breath rattled out like a roar.

"It's gotten worse," I decided, frowning, and she nodded.

"It came on suddenly, flaring up over the last hour or so."

Mipha folded her arms, and I left her side to step closer.

"Link," I said, and swallowed a thrill of fear when his eyes, bright and ravenous, snapped over to bore into mine. "Tell me what I can do."

"There's nothing you can do," he spat, and I sighed.

"You know that's not true."

His muscles seized, expression screwing between wrath and agony, and when his hands clawed at the earth, reaching for an imaginary hold, the ground tremored. I shoved terror and instinct aside and moved closer, kneeling.

"I can help," I said again, reaching slowly, determinedly, to touch him. But he grabbed my wrist, holding it aloft between us with a painful grip before I could get close enough.

"Touch my mind again," he seethed, breathless, "and I'll kill you."

I pursed my lips. He was stubborn even at the best of times, but as he was now—hurting, hungry, clinging to his resolve like it was all he had left—I knew I had my work cut out for me. And I knew he would never accept help if there was an audience.

"Thank you, Mipha," I said, using the same verbal sleight of hand she had earlier. "You can go."

She only hesitated a moment before I heard her slip away, though I very much doubted she went far. She didn't trust either of us enough to leave the situation completely unsupervised. And perhaps that made her wisest of us all.

"Link, please," I started again. "Let me help you."

"I already told you," he breathed, sagging a little once it was just the two of us, and shoved my wrist back at me. "I need to do this alone."

I settled in again, knowing that coercing him wouldn't be easy. Knowing that he needed me, whether he would admit it or not. He couldn't function like this, and I very much doubted his hunger would spontaneously go away on its own.

"You can't," I reasoned. "You've tried. Do you really believe you'll last another day like this? Or two? We don't know how long repairing the shrine will take."

He grimaced, riding hunger pangs to their breathless finish before he gritted out a response. "If I can't last, we'll use the Sword."

"You know I'd force this on you before I resorted to that."

"Not if I drive it through my own heart first."

We stared each other down, both immovable, both too self-righteous. Neither willing to budge, even as precious seconds drained out of reach.

"Don't do this," I frowned. "Don't condemn yourself to suffer just to spite me."

He scoffed, quivering. "Is that what you think?"

"I don't know what to think of you," I told him honestly. "I don't even know how sharing a dream could temper your hunger the way it does. But I know I could take it away, if you would just let me…"

And I was moving again, thoughtlessly drifting, reaching—but instead of blocking me again he reared back and to his feet, scrambling to get away, and I startled.

It was horrible and strange, watching him run from me for a change.

"No," he said, bracing himself rigidly against whatever bole he could find, and then slumping defeatedly into it. "I can't. I can't, and I won't."

And just like that it was gone again: the armor, the darkness in his eyes that blotted out every last ounce of light, and the pain scrawled over his face was only partly birthed from starvation. I held still, heart sputtering in my throat, knowing he was cracked open and vulnerable, and fearing that the moment would be gone too soon.

I whispered, desperate, "Why?"

He stopped to catch his breath, pinching his eyes closed.

"Do you have any idea what it's like," he panted, swallowing, trembling as the hunger shuddered unforgivingly through him, "to want to worship you and tear you apart at once?"

His teeth closed over nothing as it peaked and crashed over him, and his shoulders heaved as he loosed a haggard breath in the moment next. The topaz and the sapphire of his irises danced wildly as it ebbed, betraying the struggle thrashing beneath. When he finally met my eyes again they writhed with lightning, and it was like being back in the storm.

"If I'm weak enough to give in to one, I'm weak enough to give in to the other. Can't you understand that?"

My brow scrunched as I pieced together his scattered logic, as I remembered broken words spoken in the heat of anger, and other hungers not so easily quelled, and the rainwater taste of his mouth on mine, drawing breath and reason from me in equal measure. And what could I say to that? That it wasn't weakness? That I trusted him to indulge himself that way, and not the other? The truth was he wasn't wrong. And yet, I wanted to tell him that he it wasn't, and that I did. And that made me the biggest fool of all of us.

What an absolutely pitiable mess we had gotten ourselves into. I clenched my fists, scraping together my resolve, and met his eyes.

"You're a coward," I spat.

His eyes widened a fraction, molten strands flaring dangerously. But as he rose to meet my challenge, jaw taut, muscles coiled, stalking closer with half-unearthed rage, I only felt bolder.

"You're afraid of what you are and what you're capable of, just like I am. But I've never let my fear stop me from doing what needed to be done. Not like you. You're terrified of making a mistake. You're constantly trying to outmaneuver what you fear by avoiding it altogether. That's why you're alone."

I watched him tower over me without moving to meet him, the way his whole body was alight and seething, the way his hands and teeth and eyes flinched with fury, the way every word struck so much closer to the mark than I ever could have imagined.

I breathed, sighed, trembled with realization, "That's why you'll fail."

He stopped his advance to bow his head, suppressing another swell of malice, and the ground rocked again, rumbling through the earth and rustling the treetops. But then it passed, and his eyes were on mine again, hungry and furious.

"You don't know the first thing about fear," he growled, and ice clawed down my spine at the threat in his voice. But I hadn't let fear stop me yet. And I wasn't about to start.

"You don't carry that sword on your back for Hyrule," I sneered. "You carry it for yourself. So that you can abandon us when the fear becomes too much. So that you can run away rather than live with regret. Just like you're running away from what you need to do now. And the only reason you agreed to let me look for the shrine is because you knew it would end with the sword through your chest anyway. And I hate you for that," I hissed, hot, furious tears spilling from my eyes. "I will always hate you for that."

He stepped forward slowly, eyes coiling, burning, hard as flint as he knelt, as he reached with a hand that trembled imperceptibly to brush my hair aside, to come to rest against my temple, and the cold of his touch snatched my breath away. He lingered, weighing the wisdom of making the connection. Weighing the consequences.

Then he whispered, "Good."

And I saw a light like a star, and we were falling.