Second Hand of the Chosen Hero

Chapter Fifteen

Her attention was so very difficult to keep. Was that normal? Was she just a terrible friend? Did she not care enough about Zelda's well-being? But she couldn't help herself.

It was a constant back and forth of this- guilt, self-hatred, back to guilt, and then to admiration. Cycle back.

They'd abandoned the temple's rear exit to try to find a more accessible entry. With Fi's guidance, they had dipped to the side of the temple into the pure wilderness that had begun to consume it.

The pathway they'd taken to the place itself had been clean in the loosest sense of the word. There were indications of it being traveled, and Tya guessed the reason for that was by things like Gorko and Machi. An interesting thought, and while she had momentarily lingered on what use they would have to come to a structure made by human hands so long ago, she hadn't come up with anything particularly interesting before getting distracted again.

This part though... This was wilderness.

There was no path.

It was as if the cliffside had slowly made its way nearer and nearer the temple over time, the earth itself thus beginning to consume the building little by little. She wondered just how much existed beneath the land on which they walked. If they were to dig, or further traverse the interior, how much of this would they be able to explore? Had the weight of this crushed and reclaimed the stone?

It was such an incredible, fascinating thought, that so much history was right beneath her feet. That she had, in fact, just been in the presence of all of it... And while a part of her ached at the loss of finding all of those things, more of her ached at the thought that Zelda would disappear or die if she wasted as much time as she wanted to waste... If it was an accurate assumption that all the switches had a time lock, it had to be a relatively extended one given they were able to leave with no issue. But Zelda had been gone longer than they had, so what if she'd been trapped in those depths?

Why was she such a fucking horrid friend? Why couldn't she focus? How fucking selfish did she inherently need to be to worry about her own physical ineptitude and desire to sleep and overall pain and fear rather than her 'best' friend?

Was it better to dwell on all of this nearly debilitating anxiety, or was it better to forget, to disregard, and to focus elsewhere?

Link hopped up on a mossy log, brows furrowed in concentration toward his footing as he considered whether or not this was a stable place to stand. Which admittedly seemed a little counterproductive because he was currently already standing on it, but Tya wasn't a knight, what did she know.

He seemed to confirm it was safe enough because he turned his attention upward from his perch and looked around instead. Not that it was a high perch. Really, it probably made him a little above a normal adult's height. But he used it for a slightly higher vantage point regardless, taking note that they were still following the wall of the temple closely.

It was during Tya's silent wonder of what the fuck he was doing, when she drew her hands up in absence to rub her shoulders in a needless effort to friction some warmth back into them, that she took notice of the slight change in the scenery around them. She had, as stated, been going in and out of being conscious of her surroundings, but when last she looked, they were merely surrounded by a thick density of trees. Beautiful, yes, but these were woods and that was kind of commonplace in those. The colorful fungi and spottings of wildflowers had gradually lessened some time ago, back on the steep path before they'd even reached the temple to begin with. But now, there had been another shift, and whether or not that was gradual, she hadn't noticed.