Chapter Text
They find the Hero’s body just west of Kakariko Village. Steen carries it back to Impa’s house, and Paya looks up from her cleaning and gasps when she sees him. Link’s limp form looks tiny in his arms.
Impa doesn’t say much when Link’s body is carefully laid before her. She inspects him, uttering a quiet, “Oh, Link…” when she sees the dark bruise covering his chest. Paya can hear the slight quaver in her voice that only ever surfaces when she speaks of the Champions.
No one saw Link die. They guess that he tried to approach a wild horse and it kicked him. Several of his ribs are broken, and his body was downhill from a herd. Maybe the kick broke his ribs, they say, and the resulting roll down the hill drove the shards into his vital organs, finishing him off. Paya tugs his shirt back down, hiding the injury from the crowd that has gathered in her grandmother’s home. It’s not proper, she thinks, to look upon him in this state, broken and bare.
She’s only just met him, and now he’s dead. She tries to reconcile it in her head, the beautiful Hero receiving Impa’s instructions to save the world and the body in front of her, killed not in the line of duty but by a single, ordinary horse. She had liked him. If she’s being honest with herself, she’d been infatuated with him. Now he’s dead, again, a century after the Calamity, and the unfairness of it all fills her up so she can’t speak. The Hero is dead. Hyrule is surely doomed now.
“Can we put him back?” she asks her grandmother, after the crowd of villagers has gone back to their own homes for the night. “In the Shrine of Resurrection, can we revive him again?”
Impa shakes her head. “He was near death when we put him in the Shrine, but he hadn’t died yet. His heart has stopped now. There’s no bringing him back. And Princess Zelda will not be able to hold the Calamity for another century, regardless.”
Paya’s hands clench and release the hem of her robe. “Th…then the Calamity will break free.”
Impa bows her head. “Yes.”
“Can I go fight it?”
Impa looks at her quizzically.
“I m…mean, someone has to do it, and Link can’t. It might as well be me.”
“I admire your courage, Paya. And I don’t doubt your training or your conviction. But you must realize, this is very likely a fruitless endeavor. I do not know if the Calamity can be defeated by anyone other than Link, and without the Master Sword.” She looks Paya in the eyes. “Attempting to fight the Calamity could very well be a suicide mission. Do you truly want to do this?”
Paya cringes, thinking of all the people her grandmother has already lost. “If no one stops the Calamity, we’ll all die. Even... even if it is a suicide mission, isn’t it worth trying? If there’s even the slightest chance that I could stop it, don’t I have a duty?”
Impa sighs. “I do not wish to send you into danger, but you are right. We are all in danger regardless. Better to face the Calamity than die cowering from it.” Her gaze moves to Link’s body on the floor, now covered with a sheet. “You will have to take Link’s Sheikah Slate. I do not know if you will be able to use it, but your Aunt Purah will be able to help with that.” She looks back up at Paya. “I will tell you what I told Link, the message that Princess Zelda asked me to pass along to him. Free the Divine Beasts. If you can do that, then perhaps it will be possible to stop the Calamity without the Hero.”
Paya nods, determined. “I will try my hardest, Grandmother.”
“I know you will, Paya. I know you will.”