Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Darkness.

It's so cold.

How long has she been asleep?

It's wet.

Her limbs are so heavy.

Everything is sore.

Zelda.

What?

Who's that?

Why do they seem... familiar?

...open your eyes...

Oh. Her eyes are closed? Okay.

...it's time...

She cracks an eyelid open and feels liquid drain around her.

...wake up, Zelda...

She opens her other eye. The room she's in is bathed in a blue light.She's so tired.

What's going on?

She pushes herself up, putting her hands behind her. She was sitting in some kind of bed? No, not really. There is a strange massive glowing rock above her taking up most of her vision. She scrambles out of the pseudo-bed she was lying in. As soon as she puts weight on her legs, they collapse under her.

She lays on the ground for a minute and breathes.

...Zelda?...

That voice, it's back. "H-", her voice cracks from disuse. She doesn't remember ever talking now that she thinks about it, but she understands what the voice is saying.

...are you okay?...

The voice is concerned? It seems to know her, or at least, it's pretty sure she's this Zelda person.

Right.

Responding.

She props herself up on her elbows and looks around.

"Hello?"

...oh good. I was worried. I won't be able to contact you much, but he is calm right now...

"Oh. Okay." A million questions are running through her head. Who is he? Who is the voice? Why can the voice talk to her at all? Where is she? What's going on?

Stop. Think. Compartmentalize.

Step one. Get out of this room.

She takes in her surroundings with a keener eye than before. There are three things of note in the room. The bed that she came from, a glowing blue pedestal, and an indent in the wall that implies a door.

The whole room is made of what feels like stone. There are designs etched into every surface. They feel somewhat familiar, but she can't quite place them.

The cold of the rock below her has started to seep under her skin chilling her to the bone. She has to move now. The rocks are rough underneath her hands as she pushes herself to a standing position. As she walks to the pedastal, her legs wobble, but get surer with every step.

There is a blank slate embedded in the pedestal, but as she nears it, it begins to rise and twist around until what looks like a handle is pointing upwards.

...that is your sheikah slate, it will guide you through your journey...

The voice. It's back.

"Hello! Where are you?"

...I- You can't reach me right now, but you will find a way to. I believe in you...

"How am I supposed to find you if I don't know where you are?" She shouts into the air. The voice doesn't respond. Maybe- Maybe he isn't calm anymore...

She grabs ahold of the handle, and the slate lights up. An eye with a tear falling out of it shows up in the middle of the slate. Then the slate goes black again before being filled with a blue and black screen with lighter lines separating areas. She swipes across the slate and sees 2 other sections, but that can't be right. She's pretty sure that there should be 3 other sections. Storage, check. Album, check, but... strange. Compendium... gone.

Why does she know these things?

The voice did say that it was her slate. Maybe it was hers from before the blue bed.

Suddenly, she is proven right when the indent in the wall opens up, revealing another stone room bathed in blue light from the walls. This room is bigger though. There's another indent in the wall across from her indicating another door over there. Between her and the door is a ramp that goes downwards and leads to a circular design taking up a good chunk of the floor. On the right side of the door is another pedestal that is glowing orange. Right in front of here are some worn and slightly rotted wooden chests, barrels, and crates. She glances into the barrels, but they're empty. Her feet are cold against the rock, what she wouldn't do for some shoes.

She goes over to the wooden chest on the right and pops it open with ease. At the bottom of it, there are some pants that are, frankly, threadbare. She supposes that they're better than what she has now. She's glad her briefs and sports bra are with her, but more coverage and warmpth would be ideal.

Pulling the pants on, she notices that they are slightly too tight in the crotch, but loose in the waist. Oh well. Thankfully there are some belts as well as leather shoes under where the pants had been. She slides her feet into the shoes and finds they are slightly too tight. It's okay, at least she has some kind of footware now.

The second chest yeilds more positive results. A shirt, just as worn and threadbare as the pants and shoes reveals itself as soon as she opens the lid. She slides it on and arranges the belts to have one holding her pants and the other across her body for other storage.

She feels better after getting dressed. More real.

Okay. Getting out of here.

The pedestal was glowing by the door, she moved over to it.

...the slate will open the door...

The voice sounded weaker. That probably wasn't good. She quickly moved the slate up to the pedestal and it switched from the orange glow to blue.

"Autenticating..."

A mechanical voice sounded from the pedestal.

"Sheikah Slate confirmed."

With that, the door began to shake and dust fell from the celing. A bright light started to shine into the room and she sheilded her eyes from it as she moved towards the door.

...Zelda...you are my hope...please...

Go.

Zelda took off down the tunnel eager to get to the door and see the world. She ran up the staircase, splashed through a puddle of water, and grabbed the top of a rock ledge. Outside was so close, she could almost taste it. Her arms ached as she pulled herself up, still unused to moving now. She saw the opening and sprinted the rest of the way to the outdoors. Zelda hadn't realised how stale the air she was breathing was until she got a breath of the wild air from beyond the door. Her lungs expanded rapidly as she heaved her breaths in and out and paused in the doorway.

It was beautiful.

She watched birds fly across the sky. It was so blue, with a few clouds drifting lazily through it. The outside of the doorway was overgrown with vines and bushes. Zelda ran her hand through the grass at her feet, it was so soft. She slipped her shoes off and ran her feet across the ground. Giggling to herself she got down on her hands and knees and ran her hands and feet over the grass. She felt so alive.

This is her new beginning.

Chapter Text

Zelda laid there and took everything in for a few minutes.

It was so peaceful to just be able to exist with everything else in the world and not be rushing to do the next big thing, but then she remembered the voice and how they sounded when she left the stone room. They seemed weak, and almost scared of something to her. Pleading in a way.

All at once the questions she had came rushing back to her as she sat up and put her hands behind her on the ground. What does she do next? Where is the person behind the voice? She really wants to find them. Why was she in the stone room? Why can't she remember anything? Where is she now?

Stop.

Breathe.

This is going to be a long day. In fact, it already has been a long day. Longest day she can remember. Zelda starts giggling slightly hysterically to herself. She's sitting on the ground, in worn clothing, no memories, and a voice in her head that needs her help. How did she get herself into this mess? What in the world had she been doing before hand that made this scenario plausible in the slightest!?
Zelda takes another breath and realizes that she's going to be doing that very often.

Okay. Step one, complete. Step two, gather information. Easy.

She pushes herself to her feet and notices that she never put her shoes back on. She wiggles her toes in the grass. It's nice. Zelda doesn't think that she wants to give up feeling it quite yet. Casually, and without thinking twice about it, she grabs her shoes and taps them against the slate that she had attached to her pants belt. Immediately the shoes begin to glow a blue color and start to dissolve into streaks of light that flow away and then arc into the slate's center.

Zelda startles as she watches this display. How did she know it could do that? What exactly was that? She feels a deep seated curiosity arise from deep in her chest. She began to tilt the slate in various directions and ran her fingers over all of the grooves and designs scattered across the surface. They distinctly reminded her of the walls in the stone room, but they didn't give her that same sense of foreboding that the stone room did. She felt a sense of rightness holding the slate, but also as if something was missing. Not with the slate, but with what or who was around her.

She turned to the front of the slate where the image was displayed when she first grabbed it. The screen lit up with that black and blue image from earlier except, there was a light blue symbol on it now. Zelda reached her finger towards the screen to touch it, but before she did, she glanced up and looked around feeling like someone would be stopping her from messing with ancient technology that she doesn't understand.

With no one around to stop her, she taps the light blue symbol and sees the streaks of light that took her shoes start to emerge from the slate and wrap around her fingers and then her hands. Quickly they spread up her arms and start covering her chest. Oh no. This is why she isn't supposed to mess with ancient technology. Link would be so disappointed. It's too late now. Zelda closes her eyes as the light starts to spread to her entire body and hopes she doesn't die. Her last thought before the light finishes covering her is, Link? I don't know a Link?

She can't feel her body.

It almost feels like she's back in the bed.

She doesn't want to go back there.

She just got out.

Oh no.

How is she supposed to help the voice when she accidentally kills herself!?

Oh Hylia please don't let this be the end.

She wiggles her toes.

She can feel her body again.

She is standing on cold stone.

Zelda cracks her eyes open and takes in her surroundings. She's back in the second stone room. In front of her, she can see outside. She looks down and notices that she's standing in the middle of the design that was on the floor. It's glowing a rich blue color and she can see remnants of the light streaks absorbing into the ground.

Quickly she checks on her body. Two legs, two arms, torso, head, check, check, check, and check. Zelda doesn't feel any different than before she touched the symbol. Okay. She feels that curiosity start to creep back into the forefront of her mind.

Did the slate just become a form of transportation? Is there a way to register more locations? Could she bring others with her if the need arose? Imagine the applications this would have for trade routes! Is there a way to make more of these devices? They seem to be extremely useful in so many ways. She pulls the slate up to her face and swipes to the storage page. Low and behold, her shoes are front and center as they are the only thing she has stored there. Fascinating. How much could she store in a single slate? Is there a maximum capacity? If she were to put food in the slate, would it go bad? If this slate could preserve food then that would revolutionize the way villages prepared for winter. They wouldn't have to worry about eating perishables first since everything would be nonperishable.

They could grow more food throughout the summer and store all the excess instead of having to process it all!

Stop.

She's getting ahead of herself.

Zelda attached the slate onto her belt again. She has to focus. Right now she needs to find out what is going on so she can figure out what step three is going to be.

With that she begins to walk up the stairs, step through the puddle, and heave herself up the rock ledge again. She should really consider not teleporting back to where she just was next time.

As she steps out into the open, a breeze blows against her face and she notices that her hair isn't tied back. It's long enough to touch her shins. She looks around and finds 2 sticks that are relatively straight. She puts one stick in her mouth and grabs her hair. She twists it up into a bun around the stick and slides the stick against her scalp to hold the bun in place before grabbing the other stick out of her mouth and inserting that though the bun and by her scalp on the other side for more support.

That's good enough for now. She'll have to find something to tie her hair back with until she has time to cut it. This is way too long for her liking. Not practical at all. That doesn't mean that she'll go grab a sword and just hack it off though. For one, that would be far too difficult since she would require a very sharp sword, which she is unlikely to find out here in the wilderness, and two, she does want her hair to look nice afterwards.

She looks around for something to keep on her as an impromptu weapon just in case until she can find something more appropriate. Fortunately for her, there were two sturdy seeming branches that seem pretty decent. Zelda picks up the first one and bounces it in her hand feeling the weight. Not as good as a sword, but definitely better than what she's worked with in the past.

...

Worked with in the past?

She attaches the stick to the belt against her back.

What did she do in the past?

She must have been some kind of fighter. Holding a weapon feels natural, but she also felt natural when trying to puzzle out the slate. Maybe she was a scholar? That doesn't seem right though, what kind of scholar would know how to use impromptu weapons?

Stop. Relax. Compartmentalize.

This isn't important right now.

She needs to find another weapon to keep as a backup in the slate, and then explore to figure out where she is.

With this thought in mind Zelda goes to grab the other branch that she had seen. She lifts it with one hand. It's heavier than the other branch, but that's okay. It's a good back up for now. Having two weapons gives her a sense of ease and comfort that she didn't expect. For some reason she feels like there's supposed to be someone there that she has her weapon for .

Oh well.

That's a later Zelda problem.

Chapter Text

Feeling more confident with her newfound arsenal, Zelda stopped to really take in the area she emerged into. The stone rooms have opened to a small grassy area. Behind her are rocks that would be somewhat difficult to scale, but certainly not impossible for her. She’s climbed things harder than that before.

…

Nope. Not going there.

Zelda takes another deep breath.

She turns to look in front of her and walks to the edge of the grass. She slowly leans her head over the edge and finds that she’s on a massive cliff overlooking a small woods below. Zelda lays down on the grass and leaves her head hanging over the edge. Below her, there are birds hopping along the tops of the trees and she gets the occasional view of a boar on the ground through the tree foliage. Off to the left, she can see a pond with towers and little red bokoblins.

She shudders.

To her right, there are more ponds and some rock piles. The wind blows and a few strands of her hair come loose and fall in front of her face as they blow with the wind. Zelda closes her eyes and listens to all of the sounds. It’s beautiful.

After a moment, she hoists herself up by putting her arms beneath here and bouncing back onto her toes. There’s even more to look at outside of the closest things. Far off and to the right, there’s a volcano spewing a dark cloud and lava. Dead ahead of her in the distance is a silhouette of a castle with pillars jutting out of the ground.

Zelda feels like something horrible has happened, but she doesn’t know why. She can’t seem to look away from the silent, dead castle. It feels like something is going to be coming. She needs to go there. She’s needed there. Link needs her. What is she doing just standing around like an idiot…

Link? There’s that name again. Who’s Link? Why does he keep coming up in her head. She grabs her head with her right hand. First the slate, now the castle. What happened to him? What happened to her?

Zelda can feel her breath coming faster and she closes her eyes and tries to breathe deeply once again. Dear Hylia, she has no control over herself. What is wrong with her?

Stop.

Breathe.

Compartmentalize.

Now is not the time.

Her left hand grips the slate tight. It feels like a lifeline. This is her connection to her past, to the voice, and to Link. Zelda lifts the slate up slightly and drops her right hand down to run her fingers along the grooves on the back. Slowly, she feels her heart slow and her breathing become more steady.

Okay.

She’s okay.

What’s the next step?

Zelda turns away from the cliff, determined to look away from the desolate castle and keep moving. Looking at the entrance to the stone rooms, there's a path on the left leading down some stairs and an old man sitting by a fire under an overhang further down the path. She squints to try and get a better look at him. She’s not sure why, but she has the feeling of distrust and dislike as she looks at this old man’s form hunched and stoking his fire. The actions feel out of place and wrong, like he shouldn’t be doing that.

Her head twinges with pain.

Right. Can’t think too hard.

She moves to the edges of the path where a mushroom is growing next to a tree and plucks it from the ground with her hands. Mushrooms are edible and she’s going to need food eventually. Hylia, she wishes Link were here to cook it though. Her food is only somewhat edible, but his cooking is brilliant…

There she goes again. How much time did she spend with the Link guy?

Zelda sighs and holds the mushroom to her slate. The blue streaks flow out and envelop the mushroom just like her shoes and stick before it. She glances ahead to the rocky terrain ahead and taps her finger on the image of her shoes.

The image gets larger and she sees a slot for a name and an option to add a description. She taps on the name section and enters, “Well-Worn Shoes”. That seems straightforward enough. Zelda taps the description box and enters in,

     “Found in the stone room I woke up in. They were left by someone. Not sure who. Slightly tight but are okay as footwear.”

She taps off of the shoes and onto the mushroom. Its image expands and there is already and name and description filled out.

     “Hylian Shroom”
     “A common mushroom found near treas around Hyrule. Edible.”

It seems that the slate’s dictionary has already been somewhat filled out. Did she do this before the blue bed? Did Link do this with her? At least she has more information about things she puts in the slate. Hopefully, it’s reliable.

Zelda taps off of the mushroom and back to her shoes. She taps the larger image of them and streaks of blue light emerge from the slate and form the shape of her ill-fitting shoes. She grabs them as they solidify and begin to fall.

Handy.

Zelda slips the shoes back on her feet and scrunches her nose at the tight fit. Oh well. Any footwear is better than no footwear.

She turns to the right and sees two more mushrooms at eye level on a ledge. Zelda walks over, hoists herself up, and crouches down to pick these and insert them into the slate as well. She notices that there’s an ‘x3’ in the bottom left corner of the mushroom image now. That must be the amount of them she has.

She hooks the slate to her belt and hops down off the ledge. A little ways away, she spots a beetle of some kind sitting on a tree trunk. Quickly, she crouches down and starts creeping towards it. Quietly. One foot after the other. Zelda gets closer and closer to the beetle. Finally, she’s within grabbing distance. She sits, waits, and…

SNATCH!

Zelda grins triumphantly as she holds the beetle in her hand before immediately wincing as she feels the horns of the beetle cut her hand. She pulls out the slate and without thinking holds the beetle to the slate and watches the blue light consume it…

Did she just put a living creature into the slate? Is it still alive? Oh Hylia. She is not qualified for these kinds of experiments.

A drop of blood falls onto the slate’s screen. Zelda pulls her hand away to look at the damage done by the beetle. There are three vertical cuts on her palm with the middle one being the deepest. Little rivets of blood trail down her palm and onto her wrist from the cuts. Not awful. She tears part of the deteriorating shirt and wraps her hand. She’ll have to find a way to clean it soon. It would be really hard to deal with an infection along with trying to help the voice and figure out who Link is.

Zelda takes her wrapped hand, wipes the blood from the slate screen and taps on the beetle’s image.

     “Bladed Rhino Beetle”
     “This beetle’s razor-sharp horns demand that you handle it with care. Boil the horns alongside monster parts to concoct an elixir that will strengthen your attacks!”

Ah. That’s good to know. She quickly tapped the larger image and the streaks of blue light formed the shape of the beetle. Carefully, she grabbed the back end of the beetle, avoiding the sharp horns. It started to wiggle in her hand immediately. Thank Hylia it isn’t dead, she’s glad it didn’t have a horrendous death. Zelda moved it back towards the slate and it was once again enveloped into the slate to go into stasis.

She looks at the 3 different items in the slate and can feel herself getting more excited at the prospects of more discoveries.

Chapter Text

Zelda clips her slate back on her belt and turns to follow the path further. As the path starts sloping downward, there is a set of worn and overgrown stone stairs. She walks down and on the third step, she feels the stone shift under her foot. It settles again quickly, but a small rock bounces down the rest of the stairs. It rolls by a lizard and startles it causing it to scurry away into the taller grass. Why is this path not maintained? The manmade portion is hardly usable anymore. How many years has it been since these stairs have been cleaned and repaired? The only sentient life she’s seen is the man sitting by the fire a bit away. Hopefully, he’ll be willing to help her out with some information gathering.

Zelda looks towards him again and sees that he hasn’t changed position at all since she last checked. Still sitting at his fire, under the overhang. There’s an apple tree on one side of the overhang and a more open area with stone paving showing in places through the grass.

Food has to be a priority, she needs to eat, and with the amount of activity she’s going to be doing, she’s going to need a lot of food. Zelda makes a beeline for the apple tree. Standing below, she sees two apples within jumping height, and another that’s further out of reach, but may be within reach if she climbs the tree or climbs the rock face next to the tree. 

She stands below the two lower apples, and with her uninjured left hand, she leaps and grabs the first apple. It yanks the branch as she pulls and the apple comes free. Zelda grabs the slate and holds the apple to it. It absorbs into the slate with the light. Above her, the branch sways, and leaves fall down around her. She glances towards the old man and sees him watching her. She quickly turns back to look at her prize above her. If he hasn’t talked to her, she doesn’t have to talk to him yet. 

She looks back up at her prize and backs up slightly away from the tree. Zelda eyes the height, starts running, and jumps. She snatches the second apple and uses her arm to stop herself from slamming into the tree trunk. Like the last, she holds this one to the slate and watches it be absorbed. Zelda looks at her hand as the apple is dissolved away from it. It’s fascinating that the slate has some level of knowledge on when to stop absorbing. How large of something could she put into the slate? Would it fit an entire tree? Is there a limit to how many things she can hold in it? She starts to feel giddy just thinking about it. There are so many possibilities! There has to be someone out there who knows more about this technology.

Zelda runs her fingers along the grooves of the slate and smiles to herself. She turns the slate around and points its screen towards the tree trunk. It was able to transport her entire body, and the tree isn’t all that much larger than her in the grand scheme of things. As the screen makes contact with the trunk of the tree she holds her breath and waits…

And waits…

…

Sigh.

Guess there is some kind of limit.

Zelda pulls the slate back towards herself and hooks it onto her belt again. At least she knows there’s an upward bound of item size. Now there’s just finding it. She’ll have to test the lower bound as well. Can she put a single speck of dust into the slate? How would it display? How different do items have to be to register as different in the slate?

As she’s thinking, she realizes that she’s been standing there silent with an arm wrapped around her waist and her other hand covering her mouth as she thinks. Hopefully, she hasn’t been talking out loud, she’s been trying to break that habit.

Has she?

Nope. Not now. She has to get the last apple on this tree.

Zelda looks back to the highest apple and moves towards the rock face that will allow her to get closer. She looks at the rock for good footholds and climbs the short distance to the top. Standing on top of the rock, she can see that further forward is a pond with clear water and has fish moving around as well as vegetation growing. In the middle of the pond is a rock with a rusty sword sticking out of it. That might be nice to grab.

For now, Zelda turns back towards the apple that is in reach and snatches if off of the branch. She lets the slate light absorb it and makes her way down the rock face.

Zelda looks towards the old man and sees him watching her. Okay. Now’s the time. She should talk to the slightly off-putting old man. She can be casual about this.

“Hello!” She internally cringes at the loud volume compared to the quiet sounds of nature. “I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions. I don’t think I’m from around here and am just curious about this place.” Yeah. That sounds normal enough. 

The old man blinks and then gives her a smile. “Of course, ask away. I’m always happy to help a kind stranger. It’s quite unusual to meet another soul in these parts.”

Zelda walks closer to stand by his fire. “Where are we? Like I said, not from around here, so I’m a little lost is all.” There’s no way this is a normal question to ask a stranger.

“This is the Great Plateau. According to legend, this is the birthplace of the entire kingdom of Hyrule.” The old man stands from his spot by the fire. Zelda’s eyes widen a bit as she sees him towering over her. He’s wearing a hood that covers the top half of his face, only showing his nose and bushy white beard. He carries a talk walking stick with a handle at the top holding a lantern. With his stick, he gestures to a large worn-down building a little ways away. “That temple there… Long ago, it was the site of many sacred ceremonies.” He sighs deeply. “Ever since the decline of the kingdom 100 years ago, it has sat abandoned, in a state of decay.” The old man turns back towards his fire and stares at it. “Yet another forgotten entity. A mere ghost of its former self…”

Zelda stares at the old man as he looks lost in thought. How does someone respond to that? How long has it been since he’s talked to someone? It sounds like he has a lot going on. “Um… Who are you? I realized I haven’t asked…” She trails off, feeling awkward and out of place. The entire interaction feels odd and like she’s going to get criticized and told off soon.

The old man startles. “Ah, me? … I’ll spare you my life story.” He settles back down by the fire. “I’m just an old fool who has lived here, alone, for quite some time now.” For a moment, it almost seems like he’s lost in thought again until he speaks suddenly. “I shall be here for some time. Please let me know if I may be of service.” With that, it feels like the conversation came to a halt. 

Zelda stands there for a moment, unsure of what to do with that information. A kingdom? That feels familiar, but 100 years ago? Why would she be familiar with a kingdom that fell 100 years ago? Maybe she was really into history? How long had she been asleep in that bed? Question after question ran through her mind as she tried to process the new information.

She runs her fingers along the grooves in the slate and takes a deep breath.

Calm down.

It’s okay.

What’s the next step?

What’s a useful thing to do?

Zelda looks around the old man’s area under the overhanging rock. There’s a torch leaning against the back wall. That would be extremely useful in the future, especially if she can keep it dry in the slate indefinitely. She walks over to it and looks at the old man. Should she ask if she can take it? He seems pretty out of it. Maybe it’s best to not bother him and just take it for now. If he wants it back later, she can just return it.

She pulls out the slate and starts to move it towards the torch. Wait. Her hand halts its movement.

Does the old man know about her slate? Is it unique? The voice said it was hers, but didn’t say if it was a common item. The technology seems to be years ahead of anything she’s seen on the Plateau so far, but maybe it’s common in the settlements off of the Great Plateau. Well, he probably saw her use it on the apples and he didn’t say anything so far. She turns her head to glance at the old man. He’s still staring into the fire. It couldn’t hurt. Zelda reaches out and, with a blue light, absorbs the torch into the slate.

“Well then, just help yourself to that torch there.” Zelda jumps and turns towards the old man again, hand still clutching the slate. The old man looks at her and then her slate. His mouth twitches in what looks like disgust before returning to an impartial smile. She almost thinks it was her imagination. “And how, may I ask, are you planning to use it?”

His gaze feels heavy and she feels like she is prey being watched by a much larger predator. She can feel her hand twitching towards her weapon. “Um… I… To light fires?” Her heart is in her throat and she wants to avert her gaze but keeps looking at the old man.

“Ah, naturally. Make sure to be cautious around any dry grass that might catch fire.” With that, the old man turns back to his fire and continues talking. “You know, there are plenty of monsters in this area. That torch would make a good weapon, if need be.” Zelda can feel the tension slowly leaving her body with his eyes off of her. “However, do not just swing it around without purpose. You must face your opponents head on.” The old man goes silent and continues staring at his fire. 

Zelda quickly attaches the slate back to her belt and walks back for a second before turning around and moving down the small slope to a tree stump with an axe stuck in it. She can feel the weight of his presence and wants to get away quickly. Zelda looks back at the old man and then holds her slate to the axe. The blue streaks absorb it and she holds her slate like she’s reading something on it. Her back is turned to the old man. Why does he freak her out so much? Does he know her? Does he have information he isn’t telling her? Does he know that she hasn’t been fully honest with how she got here? What is going on? Why does he feel so familiar to her? Why is she so intimidated by him?

She can see her knuckles turning white due to the tight grip on her slate. Zelda takes a deep breath and consciously relaxes her hold until the slate isn’t pressing into her palms. She runs her fingers against the grooves on the back in a self-soothing way. That’s quickly becoming a habit. Damn it. She’s supposed to be better than this. She isn’t supposed to be easily intimidated or shaken. How is anyone else supposed to rely on her if she can’t even rely on herself? 

…

She needs to stop thinking.

She needs to start moving again.

What’s next? What’s next?

Zelda scans the area around her again and spots another apple tree. There’s three more apples hanging from its branches. That’s more food, she might as well go get them. With that, Zelda walks across the overgrown stones and sees that, once again, two of the apples are within reach while the last is higher up. With no rock face to climb, she’s going to have to climb the tree itself. Oh well, won’t be the first time…

Sigh.

No. More. Thinking.

Right. Apples.

Quickly, Zelda hops to grab each of the two low-hanging apples and absorbs them into the slate. After the rapid change in emotions when talking to the old man, the fascination and interest in the slate’s capabilities is a welcome change. Hopefull,y she’ll get settled enough to do some experimenting on it and find how much it can store at once. Is it a storage amount per item? Or maybe it can store only a specific total amount of all the things combined? Allowing herself to be distracted does wonders for her heart rate and state of mind. This whole situation is wild. There are no explinations being given and no one to truly help her. She certainly doesn’t want to go to that old man again if possible. As she thinks, Zelda starts her ascent up the tree and gets up to the higher branches. She clutches onto one with her left hand, braces her feet against another branch, and leans as she reaches out with her injured right hand to pull the apple off the further branch. Zelda pulls herself back onto the main branches and lets the slate absorb the last apple as well. She stares at her injured hand. She has to clean this soon. Soap would be great for the future, but she can’t put it in the wound. She’ll have to find as clean of water as possible and boil it. She’d prefer to get a filter working as well, but as long as she boils it, she should be fine for wound cleaning.

Great. Next step figured out. Get water to boil.

Zelda remembers that clear pond with the rock in the middle. She quickly climbed down the tree and made her way back towards the stump that she had pulled the axe out of. From here she can see into the pond, and she notices lily pads forming a circle right below a rocky overhang, almost like it’s a target. Fascinating. She could probably jump into that circle from above. Zelda looked at her slate and hand. The slate has no spots where water could get in. And if it breaks, she hasn’t stored too much stuff in it. There must be someone who could fix it if water damages it. As far as her hand goes, she’ll get water and boil it right after anyway.

With her mind made up, she takes her shoes off, lets the slate absorb them, and makes her way to the top of the rock hanging over the water. As she nears the end of the rock, she bounces on her toes with each step. Zelda gets to the end and leans over the edge slightly to gauge her jump. It isn’t too far from the edge at all. With that, she stands up and takes a breath before pushing off of the rook and diving into the water below. The water splashes up around her and she feels the water all around her. 

It’s cold. Her eyes are closed. 

Suddenly it feels like she’s back in that bed. Back in the cave. With no sense of self.

Zelda surfaces quickly and gasps for air. As soon as she surfaces she hears what sounds like a tap on a drum and, “Ya-ha-ha! You found me!” Above her is a tiny tree-like creature with a long leaf mask covering its entire body. It’s floating in the air using a little leaf umbrella that’s spinning rapidly. How does it do that? Could that be replicated? Is magic involved?

The little creature interrupts Zelda’s thoughts as it continues talking. “Huh? You’re not Hestu!” It looks confused. “But you can… see me? I didn’t know your kind could see the children of the forest!” The forest? Well, he is some kind of tree child creature… “Well, if you run into Hestu, please return this to him.” With that, the creature tosses down a little yellow seed into the water by Zelda. She’s quick to snatch it before it sinks since she’s not too keen on going back underwater. She holds it in her hand… It kind of looks like a small turd… “Oh, and my friends are hiding in lots of different places too! Don’t be shy about poking your nose into suspicious places!” The little creature starts looking around and appears to be all done talking to Zelda. She feels somewhat ignored.

If the plant creature is done with the conversation, she guesses she’s also done. Remembering the rock with the sword in it in the middle of the pond, she turns to start swimming towards it. Zelda is careful not to let her head go underwater. That’s a fear to conquer on a different day. Not the day that she woke up with no memory, was in a random place, talked to an off-putting old man, and talked to a strange tree creature who she, apparently, wasn’t supposed to be able to see.

She reaches the rock in the middle of the pond and hoists herself up onto its lower surface. The rock extends above her, but she needs to sit and catch her breath. Her body is so out of shape and her limbs are shaking a little. It makes her feel small and powerless. She isn’t supposed to shake like this. She’s strong. She has to be. How is she supposed to protect Link like this?

There that name is again. Who is Link? Why does he keep popping up? Why does the memory of him slip through her fingers as soon as she starts trying to focus on him? 

Zelda pushes herself to her feet and turns to pull herself up to the top of the rock. She tries to pull the sword from the stone with her hands and gets a strange feeling of dread when she cannot do it with ease. But that doens’t make any sense. Zelda shakes her head and holds the slate to the sword. She watches the blue lights wrap around the sword and dissolve it. This would’ve been so helpful in the past… 

She needs to stop thinking so hard.

Chapter Text

Zelda sat on the rock for a while, watching the fish swim below. They don’t even know she’s here. There are 4 bass swimming amongst each other. Lazily making ripples in the water that echo out from them and hit the edges of the rock she’s sitting on. Her stomach rumbles, and her mouth feels parched. She doesn’t have much on her. A few apples. That beetle. The mushrooms. It’d be nice if she could cook the mushrooms and clean the apples, but cooking would mean making a fire, and she certainly didn’t want to use the old man’s. Washing the apples would be feasible, but she’d prefer to boil the water beforehand. Filtering would be nice, but that will take some time and effort to set up. The bass would be a nice meal, and she could test her slate on more creatures!

…

That sounds worse when she thinks it through fully…

Regardless. One of the fish starts to swim closer to her rock, and she prepares herself to leap down and catch it. She quietly lowers herself to the surface closer to the water and perches on the balls of her feet. She can feel herself getting excited at the prospect of fresh fish to eat. It swims right up next to her rock, and she waits until it’s right below her.

Wait…

Wait…

…

NOW!

Zelda lunges downward in a dive, hands entering the water first and wrapping around the wriggling fish. She feels a moment of alarm when her head goes under, but the excitement of hunting is just strong enough to overpower it at the moment. As her body splashes down into the depths of the water, she quickly moves the squirmy fish to the slate’s screen. Around her, the water lights up with blue light and is reflected in such a way that it surrounds her entire body. She can still see the streaks of light encircling the bass. It’s just so bright. Her eyes sparkle as they reflect the pure light. As soon as it starts, the light is absorbed back into the slate, and the fish is gone. Zelda is left floating in the darker depths of the pond, and panic takes over as she realizes she can’t breathe. 

Quickly, she pushes off the bottom of the pond with her feet and moves her arms, swimming upwards. She breaches the top of the water and takes a gasp of air. She had been so fascinated with the technology that she didn’t realize how long she had been down there. Zelda swims over to the side of the pond next to some cracked boulders. She climbs up the bank and sits next to the boulders, letting herself relax against them. 

She feels exhausted.

Her breathing is slowing down now, but she’s so tired. Who knows how long she had been sleeping. Her body feels okay, but at times, it feels so much weaker than it should be…
It’s so frustrating! How should her body be feeling???? She has no idea! What did she do that means she has to be here with no one to help her, no one to guide her, all she has is that off-putting old man!

…

Sigh. 

There’s no point in getting upset. What good will it do her anyway…

As she leans against the boulders, a glint catches her eye. There’s a small hole that lets her see behind them. There’s a chest underneath all of the rock! Zelda scrambled up to try and get a better look. It’s blocked in on every side. This must have been some kind of store-room that got overgrown, caved in, and flooded. Or the chest could have been moved here. Interesting. The old man did say this was a very important place for sacred ceremonies 100 years ago. They probably kept all kinds of treasure here… Treasure she could probably use.

Zelda started feeling along the edges of the stone and climbed to the top. She tries to pry the top rocks off, but they aren't budging. She's going to need a lot more force. There were a few pebbles that broke off and crumbled to the ground. Zelda climbed off of the cracked rocks and reassessed. She looks at her hand and sees the cloth covering her wound has been soaked through. It stings somewhat, but overall, it's still okay. Her first priority should be to strain and then boil some water for her hand. The only fire she’s seen is the old man’s, but there was a woods not too far away. She could probably make her own fire using things from there. 

With that, she walked around the cracked rock and saw that there was no walkway to the edge of the pond. She would either have to climb out or swim out. Looking at her hand and feeling the sting of the water in the wound, she’s pretty confident that she shouldn’t be climbing the steep rocky banks to get out of the lower area she’s in. There is a way out that is level with the ground Zelda is currently standing on. She’ll have to get back in the water, but as long as she keeps her head above the water, she’ll be fine. With that thought, Zelda slipped back into the water and swam the short distance to the exit. As she swims, she can see fish below her, startled and moving deeper. Zelda gets to the edge of the pond again and walks onto the land as the water gets shallower. The wind bites as it blows slightly. It’s probably not the best that she’s completely soaked. She reaches to the bottom of her old shirt and starts wringing it out. Water drips down between her hands and onto the ground. She’s glad she had the forethought to take her shoes off and store them in the slate. Pulling the slate from her belt, she quickly navigates its menu. It’s getting more natural and familiar to her. Zelda taps on the image of the shoes and lets them materialize in her hands. A fish that hadn’t gone too far gets startled by the bright light of the slate, and she hears the slapping of its tail as it flails around, trying to get deeper into the water. She laughs a bit to herself and slides her shoes onto her feet before tying the brittle laces. 

Zelda begins walking up the slope, which ends up bringing her back to the overhang she had jumped off of to get into the center of those lily pads. She can see the old man still sitting by his fire, not moving. Zelda could feel slight nervousness wash over her again. No need to talk to him again, though. Probably best if she avoids him. She certainly didn’t get this far by ignoring her instincts. 

This far?

Nope. Later. One day. Not today.

Shaking the thoughts from her head, she turns away from the old man and starts walking down a run-down cobbled street. She doesn’t have much direction, and she isn’t sure what exactly to do next. She still has no idea who the Link person is that she keeps thinking about. She needs to find a way to help the voice, and she still needs to clean her wound as well as get her hands on some better clothing.

As she’s walking past the tree that she had gotten more apples from, Zelda sees some mushrooms sitting closer to the tree line. She starts heading for them, but as she gets closer, there is a screech from the foliage. Zelda snapped her head toward the noise and got into a fighting stance immediately. Emerging from the bushes is a red pig-like creature. It’s hunched over with its hands almost touching the ground. Its arms are almost as long as its entire body, and there are two ears protruding from the sides of its head that as the same width as its head. It has a single horn breaking through the skin on the top of its skull. It wears a skull on a necklace, wrapped cloth on its forearms, and a loincloth. In its hand is a branch, and it looks ready to fight.

Zelda felt a rush of calm wash over her. Her heart beats steady, her focus is locked in on the enemy, and it feels like a familiar feeling. She reaches behind her back and pulls out her tree branch, ready to fight back. The creature runs and swings its tree branch. Zelda narrowly dodges while stepping back; her footing feels a little uneven, and before she can adjust, it swings at her again, and she holds up her left arm to take the hit. She can feel the bark scratch into her arm and scrape her skin. As the bokoblin goes in for another hit, she reacts instinctively and pushes off the ground, and flips back through the air. Time seemed to slow down, and as she landed on her feet, she propelled herself forward into the creature’s space, hitting blow after blow in quick succession. She finishes it with a strong blow that breaks her stick in half, leaving it useless, and the creature goes flying.

As it soars through the air for a few feet, its branch slips out of its hand. Zelda drops her broken branch and grabs the new branch, moving closer to the creature. It recovers faster than she thought it would and swings one of its long arms, catching her in the stomach and flinging her back a distance and making her fall on her side. She rolls and uses her arms to push herself back onto her feet and gets back into a fighting stance. The creature comes rushing towards her, pissed that she took its weapon. In its anger, it makes an obvious strike with its arm that she easily sidesteps. Like before, time slows down, and she swings her branch. It connected with the creature’s torso, and she could feel its flesh give way under the force of her strike. 

From the point of contact, she sees blackness start spreading over the creature, and it howls before going silent as it becomes completely engulfed. Its body then poofs with a small cloud of purple smoke, leaving behind only the creature’s horn that had been on its head.

Chapter Text

Zelda’s sword shakes in her hand as she thinks about the way the creature had screamed before she steels herself and secures the branch to her back. She crouches down and grabs the horn that had been left behind. It’s so small and inconspicuous. No one would even know a fight had taken place here. Her body certainly hasn’t forgotten. Her stomach and back ache from being thrown, and her arm is dotted with scratches from taking the brunt of that first hit. There’s nothing to do for it now. She has to just keep going and hope for some sort of reprieve later. 

She looks further down the path. It seems unguarded, but it would be stupid of her to just walk casually. Zelda places the horn onto the slate, letting the blue streaks absorb it, before walking down the dilapidated road cautiously. The Temple of Time the old man had talked about looms on a hill to the right. Further down the path, Zelda spots a staircase leading into ruins that sit below the temple. It couldn’t hurt to take a peek at them, right? She’ll still go to the orange dot on her slate; she’s just going to look at those first two ruins before going to that.

While she was thinking to herself, a blue creature drops from the tree in front of her. It has a gelatinous body with two yellow and red eyes floating on top of it. It flattens and ripples when it hits the ground, not seeming to care about the drop. It slowly slides its tiny body across the ground towards her. Zelda pulls her branch out and readies herself for a fight. 

As it gets closer to her, it stops and starts wiggling back and forth before launching quickly towards her in a jump. She dodges to the right, and it sails past her head. Zelda whips around to face it again and takes a hard swing with her branch. She really hopes this thing will die with blunt force. Her branch makes contact and sinks into the gooey body. The branch comes out of the other side of the creature as she follows through with her swing. It seems injured, but certainly not dead yet. With that knowledge, Zelda swings her branch back through the creature, and it is flung into the air as her branch breaks. The creature looks to be in immense pain before exploding and splattering her with blue liquid.

…

Gross.

A small blue orb falls to the ground and seems to jiggle with the same consistency as that creature. Is this like that other creature dropping its horn? Cautiously, Zelda holds her slate up to the orb and watches the blue streaks absorb it. Huh. It must be okay to be in the slate if it’s accepting the orb.

Curious, Zelda wipes her hand on her pants and opens the slate. She navigates to the storage location and taps on the image of the horn. There’s already an entry.

“Bokoblin Horn”

“The severed horn of a Bokoblin, a creature often encountered in the plains of Hyrule. The horn isn’t edible, but you can cook it with an insect to make something useful.”

Huh. A bokoblin. That feels familiar…

Zelda blinks quickly and takes a deep breath. What does the slate say about the orb?

“Chuchu Jelly”

“A gelatinous substance that came from a Chuchu. It has no effect in its initial form, but applying fire converts it into Red Chuchu Jelly, applying ice converts it into White Chuchu Jelly and applying electricity converts it into Yellow Chuchu Jelly.”

Fascinating. What is she supposed to use this for? Are both of these creatures common across all of Hyrule? Are her skills with a weapon commonplace for people then, if they’re dealing with daily threats like these? She has so many questions and no real way to answer them. Talking to the old man is an option, but not one that appeals to her with how uneasy she feels around him. There must be other people out there; she just has to explore some more. 

Before closing the slate and hooking it to her belt, Zelda pulls out a tree branch that had been stored inside it and secures it to her back as a replacement for the previous branch.

To her right is another apple tree. There are only two apples on it, and they’re both within jumping height. There’s no reason to pass up an opportunity. Zelda grabs both apples and lets the slate absorb them before continuing down the road. As she walks, she absorbs another branch into her slate. She stops at the base of the staircase leading into the ruined buildings in the shadow of the Temple of Time. It’s eerie to see a place that was once a central location for people be reclaimed by nature. There’s something sad about looking at the broken and decaying structures. It would have been wonderful to see it in its glory days.

While staring at the temple, Zelda hears snorting and shuffling, just like that first creature, the bokoblin. She looks around and sees a red bokoblin standing at the top of the staircase. Quickly, Zelda crouches down and moves to use the railing as a slight cover. It hasn’t seen her yet. If she’s careful enough, she could probably take it by surprise and not risk any dangerous confrontation. 

Slowly, Zelda starts creeping along the railing, getting closer and closer to the bokoblin. Her feet crunch softly on the grass-covered stairs. Her breath is even. Her eyes never leaving the creature in front of her. Every so often, she pauses while the bokoblin scratches in the dirt or sniffs the air. Its hand is wrapped around the hilt of a club. She’s not eager to be on the other side of that. Slowly but surely, she closes in on the bokoblin. She creeps to the top of the stairs and is right behind it. The creature is sniffing the air as she reaches behind her and pulls out her branch. Suddenly, she brings the branch down with a heavy blow to the bokoblin’s head. It crumples to the ground, her branch still intact for once, before the same purple coloring consumes its body and leaves behind a single horn.

Zelda reattaches the branch to her back and absorbs both the horn and the abandoned club into her slate. Great, one enemy out of the way. Now she can explore these two rooms to her heart’s content. She looks up to start heading to the right room when a metal mound catches her eye. It’s sitting slightly off the walkway, so she vaults over the wall and walks around the mound. As she comes to the other side of it, her breath catches in her throat. 

A single dead eye stares her down.

Oh, Hylia no.

She flinches away from the metal contraption, feeling a deep fear that’s almost primal coursing through her veins. In her haste to get away, her feet slip out from under her, landing her on her ass. The slight pain of her landing knocks some reason back into her, letting her think more logically and less emotionally. She looks back up at the metal beast and sees that it hasn’t reacted to her presence at all.

Deep breath.

It sits, eerily still. Birds chirp from the forest, and the wind is blowing through her hair. Nothing is happening.

Deep breath.

Leaving her eyes locked on the mound, she gets to her feet and cautiously approaches it. Looking at it closer, it looks broken and overgrown. It’s slightly upended, and she can see underneath it. Crouching down, she can see that the inner workings have been destroyed by years of deterioration. A spring hangs loose underneath. Zelda holds the slate the the spring and it gets absorbed. She glances back at the eye, but it’s just as unresponsive as it had been before.

She sighs.

She really needs to sleep. It’s already been such a long day. If only she wasn’t alone. It feels so wrong to be alone. She feels like there should be someone else here, someone checking in with her, someone reminding her to take care of herself. Her wounds sting more for some reason. She misses this imaginary person…

She really is pathetic.

“I miss you so much.” Saying it aloud to herself in the silence of the world doesn’t seem to help. Not that she thought it would.

Zelda turns to explore the right building and feels a warmth surround her shoulders like someone hugging her from behind. She can almost feel the tickle of breath on her neck. It feels so real and nice that she relaxes for a moment before remembering that she’s alone and quickly turns around.

“Who’s there!?” She shouts when no one appears behind her. She can almost swear she hears and slight laugh as she looks around, trying to find what touched her. Her head swivels and is drawn to a castle off in the distance, as if it holds the answers that she needs right now.

It looks so familiar, just like everything else in this world. Something aches in her chest. She needs to go there. She just knows it.

After a minute, she tears her eyes away from the castle and back to the right room that she was going to explore. Zelda wanders her way into the room, but the only things there are two barrels. She tries to pry them open, and when that fails, she lifts them up and chucks them at the rock walls, but they just roll back down to the ground. Oh well, not worth the effort anyway. She walks around the perimeter of the room, running her hand on the walls. There are designs etched into the stone and a semi-intact window facing the way she came. It’s so fascinating seeing the remnants of an advanced society. What could have happened that would make them abandon this place? The old man said that many ceremonies were held here, and it was a sacred location, so why would people leave it in such a state of disrepair? What happened to them? Was everyone wiped out? Are there any survivors?

The questions running through her head make a shiver run down her spine. With a final glance around the room, she turns to make her way towards the other room on the opposite side of the stairway. There are a few more stairs to climb to reach it, and as she nears the top, she hears more tell-tale snorting that has her immediately crouching and going on high alert. She peeks over the top step and sees another red bokoblin wandering around in the room ahead. Maybe she should just turn around and leave it. There’s no need to get into a conflict just to satiate her own curiosity. As her eyes track the creature, she notices a chest sitting on a pedestal in the back of the room. Well, now her interest is really piqued. That could be something super valuable, or something helpful, or maybe a hit about the culture that used to reside here! She just has to know what’s in there.

Sneaking should be the least dangerous option again. The creature is facing the entrance to the room, so Zelda slowly creeps around the side of the room, hoping that part of the wall is crumbled enough to act as a second entrance. After following along the right side of the room, she strikes gold. An entire portion of the wall is missing. Wonderful. She pads her way into the room and hides behind two barrels. Right as she’s about to creep behind the bokoblin, it turns around and leaves no room for her to leave her hiding spot without being discovered. She sees a club in its hand, just like its companion from earlier. She’ll have to avoid that at all costs; her body isn’t in a state to take another hit. 

Every snort the bokoblin makes causes her heart to race faster. She keeps her breathing slow and steady, as quiet as possible. She’s within two meters of it. It opens its mouth to the sky and makes a grunting noise. She stays frozen.

Finally, it creeps forward, and she decides to take her chance to slip out from her hiding spot. Unfortunately for her, the bokoblin turns and looks at her just as she decides to do that. It screeches in alarm, and she darts away from it to get some space, but it lunges towards her. Zelda quickly pushes off the ground to pivot her movement to the side with a jump. Time slows. She pulls her branch off her back quickly and strikes twice before the branch breaks on the bokoblin’s hide. It gets knocked to the ground and drops its club. She turns and sprints towards the club, snatching it from the ground before the bokoblin can recover. As Zelda turns back towards it, it clambers to its feet and screeches in outrage as it notices she has its weapon. Zelda darts in towards the bokoblin and gets two hits in before it’s crumpling to the ground for the final time. Purple covers its body, and it dissipates in the air. All that’s left behind is another horn.

Zelda absorbs the horn and turns her attention to the more interesting thing, the treasure chest. With excitement dancing through her veins, she pops open the lid easier than expected and finds a pair of very well-preserved pants and boots. Amazing! She holds them to the slate to see if it absorbs them, and it does. Blue streaks surround the pants and boots, and she sees an icon containing both show up on the screen. She taps on them, and blue streaks fly out of the slate and surround her lower body. It’s a very strange sensation. The blue streaks retreat back into the slate, and she is wearing the pants and boots she had just tapped on. Fascinating. Looking at the slate, she can see her old pants and shoes sitting together in a slot. That will be very handy for traveling.

As she’s playing with the slate, she feels something tugging on her arm towards the entrance of the room, but nothing is there. Warmth spreads from the location of the tugging and travels up her entire arm. It feels safe… kind… familiar… Link? It feels like whenever she has thoughts of Link. She lets herself be led out of the room by the invisible presence. As she exits the room, the tugging stops, but she can tell she’s supposed to keep moving. It’s time to follow that dot on her map. 

Zelda heads back down the stairs and onto the road. There’s a fountain that’s been reduced to rubble, acting as a centerpiece to this plaza. She locates the path that heads in the direction of the dot. As she walks down it, two chuchus burst from the ground, their eyes rolling about on top of their gelatinous bodies. She quickly pulls her club from her back and lunges towards the first one, taking it out in a single blow. The second one wooshes past the back of her neck as it throws itself in her direction. Zelda whips around and uses her momentum to nail the chuchu in the eye. 

Having come out victorious, Zelda puts the club back and absorbs the four chuchu jellies dropped. She tries to wipe more of the blue slime on her pants, but it isn’t proving to be very helpful. There’s no way that it’s sanitary to be getting slime in her scrapes, but that’s a problem for future Zelda.

As she follows the path, it opens up into another ruined plaza. There is a rock formation in the distance, and it looks like that is where the dot is telling her to go. She approaches the formation, but stops when she sees that it’s guarded by a bokoblin. Unlike the others, this bokoblin is equipped with a sword and shield. There seems to be ample room to sneak around the backside of the bokoblin though, and she doesn’t really want to have a face-off with something using an actual weapon. 

Armed with her insight, she crouches and creeps around into the taller grass, hoping it will muffle her steps somewhat. She slowly approaches from the side, slightly back from where the bokoblin is standing. There’s an opening in the rock face behind the bokoblin, so she’ll have to get rather close, but that’s okay. Worst comes to worst, she tries her hand at fighting it.

With light feet and quiet breathing, Zelda creeps closer and closer. She rounds the corner of the rock face and is met with the sight of some kind of structure that’s half buried in the rock. The part that truly catches her eye, though, is the pedestal that looks very reminiscent of those from back in the stone rooms. She approaches with caution and keeps an ear out for the bokoblin behind her. As she gets closer, she hears it prompt her.

“Place the Sheikah Slate in the pedestal.” A monotone and artificial-sounding voice sounds from the pedestal in front of her. She looks around the pedestal for where the voice could have come from, but finds nothing. Zelda thinks for a moment before deciding to listen to the voice. It’s the same design as the other pedestals, so this has a good chance of being a positive experience. She removes the slate from her belt and holds it up to the pedestal. It latches on to the slate and spins it around to lay flush in an indent in the pedestal. The entire raised center then rotates and sinks down further into the stone before glowing a bright orange. The voice rings out again.

“Sheikah Tower activated.”

“Please watch for falling rocks.”

As soon as the voice goes silent, the ground starts violently shaking. Zelda loses her balance and grips the pedestal with both her hands, tight enough to turn them white. She still falls to her knees and is starting to regret all of her decisions. Why did she listen to the creepy voice!? She’ll never find Link or that voice now. She’s gonna die here having only ever talked to the voice and that unnerving old man. 

The shaking increases in intensity more and more until suddenly she, and the floor she’s standing on, are getting shot into the air at high speeds. Chunks of rock go flying, and she drops her grip and covers her head with her arms in a vain attempt at protection. She hears thumps as the massive rocks hit the ground. Wind starts blowing against her as the rocks clear out. The rumbling suddenly stops, and she isn’t moving anymore.

Zelda risks glancing up and is amazed at the view. She can see for miles. There’s towers dotting the landscape, all glowing orange. She can see a mountain that looks like it was cleaved in half, an active volcano, a lake with a stone bridge spanning its surface, and so much more. It’s so much to take in. As she sits there on the ground, blue light radiates out from the floor and above her, drawing her attention to the large glowing stone suspended above the pedestal. The voice rings out again.

“Distilling regional information.”

The glowing stone gets brighter, and symbols begin to move down it towards the slate still embedded in the pedestal. What looks like a liquid is gathering at the bottom of this stone, and after a little bit, it drops onto the slate. The screen of the slate lights up, and she can see that a map has been revealed for her.

“Regional map extracted.” The voices chimes.

As soon as it goes silent, the center of the pedestal spins, lifts, and then presents the slate out to her for her to take. She grabs it quickly, already missing her lifeline in this strangely familiar new world. As she turns away from the pedestal to try and find a way to get down off this tower, she hears that voice again.

…remember…

She turns her head and could swear that it seemed to be coming from the castle on the horizon.

Try… Try to remember…

A glowing light appears in the tallest tower of the castle, right at the center. She runs to get to the edge of the tower she’s on without falling off, wanting to be closer to the voice.

You have been asleep for the past 100 years.

…What.

The ground starts shaking again, not giving her any time to process as she steadies herself.

The beast…

When the beast regains its true power, this world will face its end.

A black and red cloud starts to wind its way around the castle, and from it emerges the head of a creature. The head is as big as the upper part of the castle. It has these awful glowing eyes and tusks that protrude from its upper jaw. As it wraps around the castle, it roars. Its jaw unhinging like a snake, the oily cloud that makes up its body stretching like torn skin. As it tries to rise above the castle, the light grows brighter, and it gets pulled back downwards towards the tower center. 

…now then…

The voice sounds exhausted.

You must hurry, Zelda.

Before it’s too late…

The voice trails off, and Zelda can feel fear grip her heart. She needs to know if the voice is okay. She just has to. She doesn’t know what she’ll do if they aren’t.