Chapter Text
With the evening came the Legend of the Hero and the fall of Calamity Ganon. Impa spun the tale like she was making a gorgeous tapestry, except it wasn’t just a story . It was the history of Hyrule. It was their past that was forgotten to the point that it was nearly indistinguishable from a legend.
The Sheikah explained the birth of the Divine Beasts, who were designed to weaken the Calamity with a devastating attack, and the Guardians, made by her clan to protect the Princess and the Champion to aid them in battle. “Minus Link, you were all chosen,” Impa said, “To pilot the Divine Beasts to help weaken Ganon, so that when Link struck it with the Sword that Seals Darkness with Zelda strengthening his attack, we would destroy Calamity Ganon, forever. ”
“We thought we were prepared,” she whispered, unravelling a massive scroll on the floor with faded and cracked ink. Her hand softly brushed over the images before her, her touch feather light. “But Ganon proved us so very wrong.”
She sighed, rubbing her face with a gnarled hand. “And so, I will tell you all now, what Zelda wanted me to pass on to you,” she began “ Free the Divine Beasts , she said. Revali, you piloted Vah Medoh in Tabantha. Mipha, your Divine Beast was Vah Ruta in the Zora’s Domain further east from here. Urbosa, yours was Vah Naboris in the Gerudo Desert to the south and lastly Vah Rudania piloted by you, Daruk, in Death Mountain. It would be ill advised to face the Calamity without the strength of the Beasts at your back.”
“When my spies snuck you out, there was a Blight in each of the Beasts,” she explained. “Like a disease seeping into the main controls, they said that nothing you did could regain control and you couldn’t defeat the Blights. Unfortunately, it has been a hundred years so our information is most likely out of date outside of this so you will have to do reconnaissance in the areas around them.”
She took the slate and marked the areas down for the group. In the quiet of the room, Revali asked the question that had plagued them since they entered the village. “Lady Impa,” he started to say “When we first entered the village, a woman said that only the Hero could use the slate… Yet all of us can wield the runes, activate the shrines and towers using it… What does this all mean?”
Impa rubbed her chin in thought after she rolled the scroll back up gently. “What you must know about the Shrine of Resurrection that you were all placed in, was that it was designed to heal a single person but the princess… she refused to let only her Knight be placed in. We were not sure the shrine would work correctly with all of you in there, but in her words that we would either get five saviours when the time came or none at all.”
“We agreed to place you all in the shrine, unsure of what would happen. We were not sure how long it would take for all of you to heal, to what extent you would heal, or if you would heal at all ,” Impa stated before giving them all a gum filled smiled at them “The fact that the only side effect was a shared ability to use the Slate’s full functionality, is a miracle from the Goddess.”
“And our memories?” Urbosa requested.
“I suggest you go to Hateno village, I believe the Princess might have left some things for you hidden in the Slate. It’s one of the few places that was able to survive Ganon’s terror. A sheikah named Purah lives there who has dedicated her life to studying the runes and the Slate’s functionality. She is the best person to look into it.”
With that, she sent them off with a reminder that they could not get out of this now that they had agreed to go and free the Divine Beasts. Once they stepped outside, the sun had long since fallen and the moon had risen to its peak in its wake. The village was mostly empty except for a lone Sheikah standing at a canvas, painting as if he was battling against the canvas itself.
When he noticed them staring, he grinned sheepishly and asked, “Sorry to bother you, but are you fellow travellers?” At their nods, he smiled and hummed. “I’m an artist, I just love art. In fact, I’m traveling the world in search of beautiful landscapes. Just between you and me… I hear there is a Great Fair Fountain somewhere near this village. I hear it's a breathtaking sight. Aesthetic aside though, they also say the place can bestow some kind of mysterious power on people… But as an outsider, no one is willing to tell me much more than that.”
With that he waved and walked off towards the inn. As they began to walk towards the inn, the Slate began to beep loudly. “What is that?” Urbosa asked, her face scrunching together as the sound all but dug into her head.
“It’s the Slate’s sensor!” Mipha replied with a smile, taking it from Urbosa. “There’s a shrine nearby.”
Waving the slate around she began to walk in random directions until she got the general direction of the shrine, realising that it was at the peak of a massive hill overlooking the entire village. “Who wants to go after it?” Daruk asked.
“Mipha, you wanna go fight a monk?” Urbosa asked with a smirk.
“What have we got to lose?” the Zora answered, beginning to run up the hill. Watching as the two women went to challenge, Link offered to make them all food using a cooking pot next to the village entrance where Epona and the other horse waited for them. “I’m still surprised by the fact that you can cook,” Revali said, crossing his wings over his torso.
“I can throw things in a pot,” Link replied, shrugging. “It’s just a matter of guessing what I need to throw in said pot.”
“Can I stick to fish?”
“No.”
In the meantime, Mipha and Urbosa stepped off the elevator as the monk greeted them in the customary way that all monks greeted them. Unlike all the other shrines, this particular shrine was merely a singular chamber with a single gate on the other side of the hall, blocking them from the monk on the other side.
Bathed in the blinding blue skylight, they took out their weapons. The empty silence around them caused them to tense in anticipation as they stepped closer and closer to the gate. Suddenly the ground shifted under their feet as a panel slid away in the centre of the floor and something rose from under it.
In seconds, they got a clear view of the same crab like machine from the magnesis shrine that had thrown Mipha on her back, except with this machine. Its head detached from its body and rose on a single tower and a glowing blade of hard light formed from a weird arm like contraption. Tightening the grip she had on her throwing spear, she started to take slow steps backward.
“Urbosa,” she started, her voice wavering a little. “Please, leave this to me?”
“Got it,” the Gerudo said, back pedalling out of the central arena square towards the entrance. Sparks flew off the machines second, broken arm as it tried to crawl closer and closer. From behind the gate, they heard the monk call out advice to jump to the side. Doing as told, Mipha noticed a weak point on the monsters side and immediately stabbed at it numerous times.
Stepping back and raising her spear, she blocked numerous strikes from the blade. “Do a backflip to dodge,” the monk suggested. Remembering how she had backflipped over Link when they were trying to get back Hestu’s maracas, Mipha waited for the Machine to rear back its blade. She grinned when she dodged. Landing on a single hand, she sprung back onto her feet. She darted forward in the blink of an eye. She stabbed it in the central tower. She quickly yanked her spear back and parried the blade to the side.
Spinning the weapon like a lightweight baton, she let out a roar (one she would sooner associate with Urbosa than herself). With a burst of light she didn’t expect, a single dart of light stabbed clean through the machine. The machine was completely cleaved in half and the pieces slid apart as the machine exploded.
Her chest heaved with pants as she tried to catch her breath, Urbosa’s heeled shoes tapping against the metal, tiled floor of the shrine as she came closer. “How’d you do that ?” the older woman asked, sounding almost proud of her.
Mipha shrugged, not completely sure herself. “I assume it's like how you wield your lightning chains.”
“Willpower and focus,” Urbosa told her, patting her on the head. The small Zora girl smiled, as the gate rose and allowed them to pass toward the monk at the back of the shrine. Urbosa tried to not underestimate her teammates. Her fellow champions and lost souls. But their age , it was hard to get past for her. Legendary warriors or otherwise, at what cost did that come from? Their childhood? Their future? Their autonomy in turn for the greater good?
She was well aware that Daruk had practically named the three of them his charges. She could see why. She was barely able to restrain the urge to do the same herself. Fact of the matter was, despite their age, they were still warriors and their age wasn’t going to change that. Quietly, in the sanctity of her own mind, Urbosa decided to fight for them.
Daruk had obviously decided to protect them. Acting as their last line of defense. Their last shield against anything that would want to hurt them. As they absorbed the Spirit Orb given to them by the monk, Ta’loh Naeg, Urbosa decided she would be their first blade. The first sword that would strike against their enemies. Destroying them before they ever got the chance to meet Daruk.
Sheathing her weapons, Urbosa threw an arm over Mipha. “You did good,” the swordswoman praised
“You think?”
“I know,” Urbosa smiled, stepping out of the shrine.
She didn’t expect the plate of meat and fried fruits and herbs that Link presented them with when they eventually found the trio at the cooking pot in the early morning. Ignoring the fact that such a drastic amount of time had passed since they had entered the shrine, Urbosa quickly took the plate as her stomach rumbled. Despite the odd appearance and choice of ingredients, it was surprisingly tasty (which at this point really shouldn’t have been so surprising considering the fact that Link was somehow able to make seared meat taste good).
Dropping to sit on the floor, she joined them as they all sat around the fire in a circle to eat. Quietly, they munched on the food as they started to plan. Mipha was obviously trying to avoid the Zora’s domain, and since the temperatures of Northern Akkala and the Gerudo desert could possibly kill her even with protective armour, she was more than happy to go to Tabantha to deal with Vah Medoh. Revali was happy to go along with this, and Link refused to acknowledge the idea that Mipha couldn’t travel to Death Mountain or the Desert with them.
It was at this point that Urbosa and Daruk looked at each other. Their thoughts in sync, nearly psychic as they agreed that all three kids were in denial but maybe that would be ok for the time being. So they agreed that the first Divine Beast they would tame was Vah Medoh, the next would likely be Vah Ruta since Mipha’s avoidance couldn’t outdo Link and Revali’s combined obstinance.
The matter of Vah Naboris and Vah Rudania were left shelved for another day when Mipha wasn’t still celebrating from her win against the machine that had defeated her last time and the boys weren’t still reeling from Impa’s answers.
“So the question is now,” Daruk said placing his empty plate to the side. He’d practically licked it clean, leaving no morsels or scraps from the looks of it. “Do we go to Hateno and talk to Purah, or straight to Tabantha?”
“Hateno,” Link replied with ease, taking empty wooden plates and stuffing them into Epona’s saddle bags “It’s a village relatively far from the Calamity and as a village it has some fortification against monsters and creatures. And if they reform under a Blood Moon like that man said, we can’t exactly use the Temple of Time as our home base anymore. Hateno sounds as good as any other place.”
“Hateno it is,” Daruk concluded, while the others made agreeable sounds. Link jumped up onto Epona’s back and pulled Mipha along and began trotting along the path. Zooming into their position on the map, she saw a path leading east from the Kakariko Bridge and told them to head that way in hopes that it would lead them to Hateno.
With nothing to lose, they followed the trodden and beaten path. Eventually hours past by as the sun moved across the sky and they joined a caravan that had left the Dueling Peaks Stable that was heading toward Fort Hateno. The landscape filled with broken and molded Guardians, half buried in the dirt as grass and lichens grew over them. “Time takes back all things,” Urbosa told them from atop her horse as it stepped over a Guardians odd legs. They warily watched them, slightly terrified that one would awaken and begin to attack them like the ones they had dismissed as harmless in the Eastern Abbey.
Thankfully they made it through the magnificent yet ancient walls that had stood the test of Ganon’s wrath to protect the Hylians that had sought refuge in the village past it with not even a graze. Things got a little dicey, however, when they saw a woman off the path being attacked by a lone red Bokoblin.
Link kicked in his heels and sent Epona careening for the monster, pulling a sword off his back as he cleaved its head off. By the time the woman was able to gather herself and get back on her feet, the caravan had disappeared out of sight and they were left alone in the dense forest with each other and the strange woman.
“You wouldn’t happen to be heading to Hateno Village, would you?” she asked them with a large smile on her face that was almost eerie, as they made their way back onto the path. She wore well fitted but light armour with a heavy pack on her back, which went along with the story she told them about being an adventurer. But there was just something about her that raised Revali’s hackles.
Looking at Link, not appreciatively but something in a similar vein, she commented, “I can tell you’ve trained your body well… I’d say your familiar with swords and bows, correct?”
At Link’s affirmation, she let out a giggle “That’s a good skill set!” she cheered “Why don’t you join the Yiga clan?” When asked for more information, she seemed shocked that they did not know of it. Sighing, she explained, “It’s a powerful, brave group of warriors founded by Master Kohga and dedicated to defeating a Hero thought to long dead!” Her smile had turned malicious, her hands pulled out a red tag made of parchment and a sickle from behind her back as she declared, “I will now take your life!”
‘There it is,’ Revali couldn’t help but think when, in a plume of smoke, her form went from the ubiquitous Hylian she had pretended to be, and became a masked assassin. An upturned Sheikah Eye was branded on her mask in red, the opposite of the Sheikah Blue that denoted the Triforce of Wisdom and the Sheikah loyalty to the Royal Family that held it.
Link pulled Epona away from her as the Yiga jumped back and darted for them. Taking the advice she had learnt from Ta’loh Naeg, Mipha backflipped right off of Epona and went for the Yiga’s open back. Only for her spear to pass through smoke as they disappeared in a burst of red. It was obvious that the Yiga was dead set on taking Link’s head as it kept dodging them to go for the Hylian.
“Back up!” Urbosa roared, tendrils of lightning emitting and orbiting her body once she got off her horse. Nodding at Revali, the Rito circled around the assassin. Guiding them to single open area away from the forest, toward Urbosa and away from Link. With a clear line of sight, Urbosa let her power fly as she electrocuted them, and just as quickly as they had unmasked themselves, they disappeared and leaving behind numerous rupees and a pile of Mighty Bananas.
When Link reached to pick up the food after the coins, Daruk grabbed his hand and shook his head. “They could be great for a new recipe,” Link whined
“They could also be poisoned ,” the Goron retorted as he ushered the Hylian back onto Epona so he couldn’t get another stab at the bananas.
“Next time we see a random pedestrian,” Revali grumbled, shaking off feathers that had gotten loose from the stress “Let’s not talk to them, let alone help them.”
“That would be cruel Revali,” Mipha countered, joining Link on Epona’s back as the Hylian fed the horse an apple and gave her a strong pat on the neck. Soothing her from the fright the assassin caused.
“Once bitten, twice shy,” Urbosa retaliated, getting back on her own horse.
Continuing on their path, they passed more peddlers. Per Revali’s wishes and the darkening hour, they avoided casual chit chat for the most part. They hadn’t followed a decent sleep schedule since arriving at the Dueling Peaks, and their odd hours were starting to catch up to them at that point. Their horses stayed at a brisk trot to avoid Bokoblins that popped out from behind rocks and trees to attack them.
The only thing keeping them from destroying all the annoyances, like they had done on the Plateau, was the fact that they would all come back on the next Blood Moon.
It was only when the orange and purple hues of twilight crossed against each other like a painting made by the Goddess Hylia herself, that they reached Hateno’s gates with prayers escaping their mouths.