Chapter 14: The Desperate Battle     Chapter 16: The Magic Eye

Chapter 15: The Deathful Water and Avoiding Marriage

The first thing he noticed when he woke up was that his back hurt. He had been sleeping on his scabbard.
The second thing he noticed was that all his cuts and other injuries were very painful.
The third thing he noticed was that he felt adequately rested to continue adventuring for some time now, even energetically. He was about to get up and find his scattered gear when he noticed a fourth thing: Navi was asleep on his chest.
She looked sweet, as he peered down at her; a little ball of light with folded butterfly wings. Gently he stirred, and she woke and flew up.
“Good morning,” he said to her.
“Hello!” she chirped back. “Is it time to go?”
“Yes. I feel much better.”
He sheathed his sword and slung his shield on his back and turned to the door closest to him. It was the wrong one, but he soon corrected that, and discovered a little room with only a treasure chest and a trap door. In the chest was a familiar looking weapon – another Hookshot.
“It’s different,” Navi said immediately.
“It is?”
“This one’s longer. Look at the chain!”
“Oh.”
He kept the other one with him anyway, perhaps to give to Ruto. He opened the trap door and saw darkness below, and heard and smelt loudly rushing water.
Carefully, he let himself down over the edge, but his feet touched nothing. There was nothing in the room that he could attach the hookshot to, so trusting in his ears, he let himself go.
His boots smacked hard into rock and he fell on his face, scraping his cheek. “Ow!”
“Sorry,” Navi said, trying to light up the tunnel. Water rushed past him and away down natural winding tubes.
“It’s not your fault.”
He was on a ledge beside the wide river, plunging from a height in an impressive waterfall. The air was freezing. He saw whirlpools in rapids a little further down, and made a note to avoid those. There was no way off the ledge; no where to go except downstream. He jumped in the water. Continue reading →

Chapter 13: The Realm of Silence     Chapter 15: The Deathful Water and Avoiding Marriage

Chapter 14: The Desperate Battle

The interior of the Water Temple was rich and gorgeous. Carved intricately from blue marble and inlaid with bronze and gold, the walls reflected the water’s reflection of torchlight. A massive pillar took up a great deal of the space of the main chamber, which was almost completely filled with water; yet the room had the impression of vast space, though the top of the hill was only a few meters above their heads.
Link stared around in wonder, a smile passing over his face. Navi flew forward into the open space and turned back.
“It’s very pretty. Rana would love it. Ruto, too…”
“I think so,” Link answered, and dove in headfirst. Swimming down to the bottom of the chamber, where he immediately planned to start, was out of the question, so with a bubbly sigh he asked Navi for his heavy boots.
As he sank, he caught glimpses of corridors and walkways, submerged but probably very convenient for a Zora. Down on the bottom, he clunked around slowly, seeing the many doors and yet more corridors branching off from the main room.
He picked the closest entrance, but the door was locked. So was the next one, and Link stopped to rest his legs for a few moments before going to the next one.
That hallway was not blocked by anything at first, but eventually he came to an empty room behind a door at the end of it. He was going to turn around when Navi tapped his ear.
“Look up!” she chirped. Link did so, and saw he could still keep going. It must have been obvious for a Zora, but a Zora he was not, though he was still going to do his best.
As he pulled himself out of a well-like vertical passage, he heard a squeal and his eyes widened. He straightened up just in time for a tall, slim, lovely Princess Ruto to fling herself bodily into him and knock them both back into the water. Continue reading →