Chapter Text
She comes to slowly, body sprawled across what feels like stone. Blinking her eyes open and sitting up, she takes in her surroundings.
The room she's in is carved of smooth white stone. Intricately made fountains flow and what appears to be large gears quietly move towards what she assumes to be the back of the room.
Though, one thing is abundantly clear to her great alarm. Link is nowhere to be found.
What is there to be found, is a floating disembodied arm. She scrambles back in fear, and the arm waves at her in a manner she can't place, due to the rest of the body being missing.
The arm pulses a green blue, and in a whoosh of green blue flames, a spirit stands before her.
The spirit’s appearance immediately brings to her mind the carvings of the zonai below Hyrule Castle, and before her brain can catch up she's already speaking.
“Are you... A zonai?” She asks, voice a bit rough.
The spirit chuckles and she places his deep voice as male. “I am indeed. And you must be Zelda, I am glad to finally meet you. Link was right about your inquisitive nature.”
“You know Link?” She asks, puzzled. She thought she had met all of Link's friends and acquaintances by now.
“I do. Never have I met someone like him. My name is Rauru, and it is a pleasure to finally meet you, though it is under less than ideal circumstances. Allow me to show you around this area, and I'll tell you what I know of Link.”
Rauru’s right arm, which is the only part of him that's corporeal, helps her to her feet and he explains to her that they are in a building called the Temple of Time, created as both a place of worship and meditation by Rauru's people.
He also explains briefly how he knows Link, as well as the origins of the dessicated corpse under the castle. Through some power, her knight had traveled to the distant past, and had gotten to know the people there (then? She is not quite sure of the proper terminology here.).
“Wait, so does that mean that he's...?”
“I'm sorry to say that I don't know. I don't know what he did after I created the seal on Ganondorf. I do know that he spent nearly every moment of free time that he had trying to find a way to return to you. I certainly hope that he succeeded.”
Zelda is quiet for a moment. “I do too,” she says softly.
Rauru places his hand on her shoulder and leaves it there, allowing her a moment to process.
Finally, she takes a deep breath, and steadies herself, “thank you. But, what are we to do now?”
“At the moment, we are inside a structure built by my people, known as the Temple of Time. I brought you here instinctively, as it is one of the safest places I know of. I believe our best course of action now is to exit and see if we can find any information on the current state of things, and then proceed from there. Since Ganondorf is freed, we need information on how to best oppose him.”
More information sounds excellent to Zelda, so she nods, and allows Rauru to lead her to the large double doors at what must be the entrance to the temple. He places his right hand to an intricate green sigil floating in front of the doors, and after some fascinating glowing green lights, the doors swing open.
Standing-or more correctly, floating- in front of the entrance, presumably turning around when the doors opened is.. Something. Its neck appears held together by pulsing green energy, a pair of arms connected to a somehow separated conical main body. It’s head was of a shape she had trouble describing, with a single eye at the center and two pinecone(?) shaped horns sat upon either side, above what looked to be earrings. Her alarm is somewhat mollified by Rauru speaking, “Ah, that is a Steward Construct, made to assist my people in whatever task we could think of. We should go speak with it.” She nods, and cautiously makes her way over to it.
“Ah, hello-? We were wondering if you could help us?” She begins, and the Construct moves its head in a motion that might be looking her up and down. “Identification match,” its voice is somewhat similar to the automated voices of the technology of the Sheikah, perfect grammar and somewhat stilted, oddly echoing. It continued, “You are Princess Zelda, correct?”
“Y-yes, I am! How did you know?”
“Sir Link gave all Constructs in the Garden of Time a description of Princess Zelda, and orders to bring her to the Temple of Light on the South side of the Garden of Time when she appears. Please, come with me.”
Rauru’s ghostly ears pricked upwards in surprise, “well, this certainly appears to be an excellent stroke of luck, though I can’t say I recall there being a Temple of Light here... we should go, and learn what we can.”
They follow the construct to a strange contraption. Its base is a metallic lattice platform, to which four fans not dissimilar to the ones in Vah Medoh are attached. Each fan has a large glasslike cylinder structure on it that appears to be filled with a green liquid. Slightly off center is a stick with handlebars comparable to those on the Master Cycle Zero, only the stick is much longer and attached to a disc with a drawing of feet on it. Also slightly off center, opposing what Zelda has dubbed in her mind as a steering stick is a chair. The chair seems thicker than it needs to be, with straps laying flat against its back, there also appears to be some sort of lever carved into one of the armrests. The construct gestures at the chair, “Please take a seat and strap in. This chair was designed for your safety by Sir Link himself. In case of emergency during our flight, this chair will disengage from the flying machine and deploy a parachute because, quote ‘I keep forgetting to get her a paraglider.’”
She chuckles a bit at that. It is such a Link thing to say. As she steps up and straps herself to the chair (with Rauru’s hand holding onto her shoulder, just in case. Strange, that the construct hasn’t mentioned him) she asks, “Link designed this chair?” She hadn’t thought him as being very interested in technology, since he mostly just sat and watched while she, Purah, Robbie and Josha talked specs. “Oh, yes,” the construct replied, “Sir Link is quite the engineer. His suggestions and modifications to several different devices and mechanisms are revolutionary. He never thought of himself as such though, simply stating that he was just ‘doing what Zelda would do,’ and that he had listened to enough of her and her friends ‘talking tech’ that he had ‘picked up a little’.”
“It’s true,” Rauru agreed, “He always said he wasn’t very good at it, but that he wanted to learn and help as much as he could, partially so he could tell you all about our technology, and to help better the lives of as many people as he could.” That sure sounded like Link. Her, sweet, kind knight. “Was he?” She can’t help but ask. “Was he good at it?”
Rauru tilts his head, as the platform they are on jerks as the construct appears to activate and begin piloting it. “Well, he was better in some areas than others. Finding different and creative ways to use what was already there was his strongest suit. Give him a pile of wheels, fans and other miscellaneous devices, and an hour or so later he’d have built something that none of our own engineers would have thought of. Why, I do believe that this flying machine we are on right now is his design, there were also the hydraulic presses, and a fully functional mechanical dragon construct. However, sometimes he had trouble understanding the details of exactly how our devices worked, why something was wired this way instead of that, how to program a construct, things like that. He never gave up though. Even when frustrated, he would take a deep breath, and say that since he was here instead of you, he had to understand and learn everything, so that once he came back to you, he could tell you all that he had learned.”
Zelda is glad for the rushing of the wind as the machine flies, as she can blame any emerging tears on it. Her knight, always thinking of her. Though that brought a question to her mind, “if he was always so capable of thinking outside the box in terms of technology, why did he never join in when myself and the other engineers of this time discussed technology?”
Rauru hummed, the sound nearly swallowed by the wind, “If I had to guess at that, it was because he never thought himself comparable to yourself and your friends. When asked about his knowledge he would just say that he listened to you talk through system repairs and the like. He would always refer to himself as ‘the muscle’ of any of your endeavors, and that he was always content to leave it up to those ‘smarter than him’.”
That-. Well. “When I next see him again, I am going to have to give him a talking to about him thinking things like that.”
Rauru laughed, “My sister, Mineru said much the same. She was the Royal Engineer, and as such he would often study under her. She would come into my rooms after a session and rant about his untapped genius once he understood something properly. Even though she would have to explain the inner workings of devices in somewhat unusual terms, like with horse metaphors, once he understood, it was like flipping a switch. And that’s to say nothing of his understanding of physics, though he called it ‘knowing where something is gonna go when I blow it up at this angle’. Mineru would always complain about him thinking himself ignorant.”
And Zelda can only laugh as well, especially at what she remembers of his ‘studies of physics’ which involved liberal use of force and the stasis rune. Though she does wonder if his thought of himself as ignorant came from the words of her father a century ago, when he would only give Link respect as far as he could swing his sword, and would never give his thoughts the time of day. She can somewhat relate. Her father had never given her the time of day either.
Her musings are cut short when the flying machine touches down and the fans stop, with the construct announcing, “we are here.” And what a place ‘here’ is! Beautifully carved fountains and walkways lined with flowers, shady trees in somewhat overgrown grass, all leading up to what must be the Temple of Light.
While the Temple of Time’s geometry had gotten wider as the structure got taller, this Temple was the other way round, with a sturdy hexagonal base, with a spiraling tower in the center. Most notable about the tower was the enormous tree emerging from it. The tree was not of any species Zelda had seen before, lightly colored, with a strange diamond texture that had pulsing light running down it incrementally. The tree’s leaves were huge and orange, spread in a way that made her infer it was to catch as much sunlight as possible. She would guess that if she measured one of the leaves in terms of herself, that it would be twelve Zeldas long. It was unlike the Great Deku Tree in all ways except size.
“This must have been built after the seal,” Rauru said absently, clearly also admiring the workmanship as they followed the construct to the double doors of the temple. On arriving, the construct turned to her. “For security, this temple doors are locked by a passphrase, which is given by Sir Link. He said that it was an answer to a question that only the Princess would know, and the question is as follows: ‘What did I name my first horse after I woke up and left the plateau?’”
Zelda can only pinch the bridge of her nose. “Egg. He named his first horse Egg. No one else would know because the horse bucked him off a bridge before he could register it at a stable.” Rauru roars with laughter as the doors make a happy dinging noise, scraping as they open.
The interior of the temple is the same carved white stone as in the Temple of Time, seeming to take up most of the space allotted by the hexagonal base. The Temple of Light is bright as its name would imply, but it is very empty, the only thing inside a circular wall, with five niches, two on either side of a line down the middle, the middle niche on the line proper. In front of the niches, surrounded by a small pool is a green crystal. The only other thing of note in the room is a strange stone box, which she ignores for now. There is a stone tablet leaning against the crystal. Stepping over the pool onto the island the crystal is on to read it (noting that the interior of the pool is opal, they spared no expense on this place) she reads the tablet.
“Hey Zelda, please touch the crystal. And please don’t freak out. Signed, Link.” She reads aloud. “Why did he have to say not to freak out, now I know there is something to freak out about-”
“Zelda,” Rauru says soothingly, “We both know Link wouldn’t do anything to hurt you. I think that you should give it a try. Perhaps he just means that what will happen will be surprising.”
Zelda nods, tentatively reaching a hand forward and touching the crystal before she can talk herself out. The crystal reacts immediately, somehow inducing a slight activation of her sealing power that the crystal drinks in. She recoils from it, as it lifts off of the ground, and expels light down and through the water to the opal below, which glows in turn, in carefully carved geometric lines, and the water of the pool rises up, surrounding the crystal, which again expels light, but this time in a beam, at the water.
The light bounces through the floating water like lightning, filling it completely until... The surface of the water ripples and suddenly it's like looking into the screen of a Sheikah Slate. She can see Link, making some kind of adjustment to whatever camera he must have used to record this, and she can hear him mumbling to himself, “has to be turned one hundred and twenty degrees... and... Ah!” He appears to have successfully done what he’s trying to, and steps back, and Zelda takes him in. His hair is messy, as it seems he’s lost his hair tie. There are dark circles under his eyes, and she can see the intense but scatterbrained look in his eyes that tells her he’s been focused on too many things at once.
He isn't wearing a shirt, and instead his chest and back are wrapped in bandages, and his arm is in a sling, also coated in bandages, though these ones have been soaked in what must be some sort of salve. His trousers are similar to the ones Rauru is wearing, and he is wearing a pair of sandals. The broken Master Sword is strapped to his back. Even shattered it appears he cannot part from it willingly. He gives a weak smile and begins to speak. “Hey Zelda, I’m glad you made it here, things... sure have been happening, huh? I wish I could be there to talk to you in person, but I can’t right now because of... circumstances. If you’re seeing this, then it means that the seal King Rauru put on Ganondorf has broken. He was that dead guy that we found under the castle, by the way.” Zelda chokes a bit at the flippant way Link says that.
“He’s bad news, Zelda. Like, the Great Calamity level of bad news. In fact, I think him being under the castle caused the Great Calamity, it was him trying to break the seal, and some of his power leaking out. Which I mean, why didn’t anyone tell us about him being sealed under there so that the seal could be maintained? I mean, prevention is always much better than cleaning up the inevitable mess but maybe I am just saying that because it’s usually you and me that end up cleaning it up and-” he pauses, “where was I going with this? Sorry Zelda, I haven’t slept in six days, too busy making preparations.” He pulls a notebook out of his trouser pocket and begins pacing as he squints at it. Zelda follows him on the circular water screen as he walks, making a mental note to scold him on proper sleeping habits, the irony not lost on her that it was usually the other way round when she got too into her studies.
“Ah-” he says, tripping over an unused bedroll, and turning to face the camera again. “Right, so we’re on cleanup duty again, so I’ll give you what information I can. Ganondorf was sealed through the efforts of seven people called Sages for their prowess in magic. Two were King Rauru and his wife Queen Sonia, Sages of Light and Time in that order. Then there was Mineru, Sage of Spirit, the Goron Darcen, Sage of Fire, Kallah of the Rito, Sage of Wind, Rutania of the Zora, Sage of Water, and Anjura of the Gerudo, Sage of Lightning. They all had extreme skill over their magic, and were probably the best of the best. Together, they managed to whack Ganondorf until Rauru was able to seal him, or at least that’s the summary they gave me.
“I wish I could’ve been there but Rauru forbade it and laced my tea with sleeping elixir on account of my being stabbed in the back with a poisoned blade twoish weeks beforehand. Which is what these are for!” he gestures to his bandages cheerfully. “Apparently I survived because as the Hero, I’m somewhat more sturdy than most other people, but it's been taking an annoyingly long time to heal, just like my arm.”
He wiggles the bandaged fingers in the sling. “Speaking of which, another thing you should know is that Ganondorf can control a more refined form of Malice. It’s much harder to shake off than the Malice was. Maybe it’s because Ganondorf has more of his faculties about him than Calamity Ganon ever did. Either way, you and literally everyone else are gonna want to avoid it. It saps your life energy, decays your body and makes him stronger. That’s how he got so strong so fast. With every kill, he got stronger. He’d slaughter whole villages, drunk on power. I should have been able to stop him but...” Link looks down in shame, and angles the Master Sword so it’s more visible. “With my sword like this, and my body like this... There wasn’t much I could do.”
“But-” He looks up while he says this, “I have a plan! Queen Sonia absolutely hated it, but she agreed eventually, since it was pretty much our only chance, but I digress. All of the Sages vowed to me that when Ganondorf broke free, they would guide successors to take their place in opposing him! What you need to do is find them, and I’m pretty sure you and I already have a good idea of who they’ll be. When you find them, bring them back here. It’ll take all of you to open the inner sanctum of this place.”
Link takes a deep breath, as his words had been speeding up as he spoke. “Mineru will be waiting behind the wall, and she will be able to answer questions that I can’t, since this is a prerecorded message.” He grinned, “you and her are going to get along so well. She knows so much, Zelda.”
He takes another look at his notebook. “I think that... that’s everything. If you want to hear this message again, make sure this crystal is where you found it, and touch it again. If not... have a construct put it in the hole that should be appearing after this message plays. Doing so will open a storage container that contains a specially made construct to help you. It will protect and assist you in my stead. Good luck, Princess, and safe travels.” Link bows as best he can, and the light filling the water fades, dropping it back into the pool.
Silence rings out through the interior of the Temple of Light, though it’s broken by the thud of Zelda abruptly sitting down in order to process the amount of information given to her.
She looks past Link’s message crystal to the niches on the wall which have now been filled with similar green sigils to the one Rauru used to open the doors to the Temple of Time, though instead of having Zonai shaped handprints, the handprints match to the other peoples of Hyrule, one for a Rito, Zora, Goron, the ones for the Hylian and Gerudo mostly the same with the exception the size of the hand. Zelda does believe that, just like Link had said, she already knows who will be standing there, for who better to be the new Sages than Sidon, Yunobo, Riju and Teba? Yes, they would make perfect Sages, already skilled with magic and combat, and wholly devoted to Hyrule.
Once Zelda is able to shake herself out of her reverie, she approaches the construct.
“Um, please place the crystal there,” she says, pointing.
“Affirmative.”
With a thunking noise, the construct places the crystal in its receptacle. Green light flows along etchings in the floor that had been invisible until now, traveling to the box that she had chosen to examine later. The box pulls itself apart at the seams as the green light travels through it, revealing the construct that Link and Mineru had prepared for them.
The construct looks, to Zelda’s inexperienced eye, like what a piece of Sheikah tech would look like if it was made out of the materials of the Zonai, rather than what most of what the other Zonai tech had looked like, which led credence to the idea that Link had designed it. As for the construct’s form... Well there was nothing comparable to it except a miniature Divine Beast in the shape of a dragon, though not a Spirit dragon like the Spring Guardians. It has four legs ending in five toed feet, the front ones looking like they could function as hands if the construct stood on its back feet, which, if she was correct in what the piece acting as its hips was for, it could. Its long tail had glowing indicator lights on it, and if she was analyzing it correctly it would be prehensile. The dragon construct had attached to its shoulders, what must function as wings, with energy acting as a membrane while extended. Between the wings were carvings that resembled a saddle, and judging by the veins of light, it could expand into a proper saddle. A crown of sturdy looking horns perched upon its head, and in the center of the horns was an intricately carved luminous stone, with a matching one on the dragon construct’s chest.
A note on weathered paper was tied to one of the construct’s horns, and as the construct was much taller than her, Zelda turned to request Rauru hand it to her, and he obliged without fuss.
She read the note aloud, “construct for Zelda. Name and activation phrase: Wildberry Pie.”
The moment the words left her lips, the dragon construct rumbled to life, indicator lights flashing on, and joints flexing in what was probably a start up sequence.
An automated voice, not dissimilar to that of the steward construct, rang out from the newly dubbed Wildberry Pie.
“Start up sequence: complete. Status: standing by. Awaiting orders.”
“Er, please continue standing by, I have some planning to do right now,” Zelda managed. Oh, how she'd love to know exactly how this construct functioned!
Wildberry Pie settled back on its haunches and stated, “order from administrator designation: Zelda accepted. Standing by until new orders given.”
Closing her eyes and exhaling through her nose, she addressed Rauru. “Well then, I suppose that you and I shall have to begin following the path that Link has laid for us.”
-------
Rauru and Zelda decided that it would be best to descend to the surface and both get Purah’s advice on where to go next, as well as to quell the likely fears surrounding her disappearance.
It had not escaped her, however, that Link’s whereabouts were still unknown. His being transported to the distant past very much concerned her, for a number of reasons, though, selfishly the main one was that she missed him. She supposed to herself, though, that following his plan, and thus his footsteps would be the most likely way to see him again.
She had to believe that.
It was simple enough to request Wildberry Pie to lean down and allow her to climb onto its back (the component she had thought to be able to expand into a saddle confirmed as such), a green light tethering around her waist and legs.
“Safety harness: deployed. Where does administrator designation: Zelda wish to go?”
“To the surface for now, please.”
“Affirmative.”
The dragon construct unfolded the structures above its forelegs and energy ignited them into wings. With Rauru’s corporeal right arm gripping her shoulder, Wildberry Pie took off.
Though it was a simple descent, Zelda couldn't help whooping with glee. The wind rushing through her hair, the clouds she could reach out and touch... It was exhilarating.
“Administrator designation: Zelda appears to find this flight enjoyable. Query: would administrator designation: Zelda like to add acrobatics to this flight?”
Of course Link would add that to his project.
“No,” she had to shout over the wind, “we are in a hurry- or well. I don't think just one would hurt?”
In response, the dragon construct performed a single loop de loop, to her delight, before continuing their descent.
When they passed through the clouds, Zelda could see Lookout Landing in the distance. “That fort there,” she shouted, “please land close to it!”
“Affirmative.”
It was around five hundred meters away from their destination when one of the new monsters, an Aerocuda caught sight of them. It curled its wings to charge, but before it could, her mount rumbled.
“Enemy detected. Deploying weapons systems.”
And Wildberry Pie opened its mouth, and fired a beam that wouldn't be out of place on a Guardian, that tore through the monster, causing it to disintegrate as all monsters do.
“Oh,” Zelda said faintly, words torn away by the rushing air. She hadn't even thought about the weapons that Wildberry Pie would have to be carrying in order to defend her.
It did make sense, but it wasn't Link, and nothing could change that.