Fort Hateno Again

Waking of Friday, March 10, 2017 ~ 2

Fort Hateno Again

As I was saying, there were a series of old pictographs of different locations around Hyrule stored on my Sheikah Slate. Purah recommended I go talk to Impa about them.

So I did. Brown and I went back to Kakariko, and Impa had a look. And she recommended I try and reach some of these locations, and perhaps that would unlock some of my memories. Because Princess Zelda had probably taken these pictures herself, and I had been her appointed Knight. So it was quite possible I had been to those locations with her.

Maybe I’d find something....

One picture showed a view of the Dueling Peaks as seen from the west, featuring a body of water with aspens in the foreground. I tried to line myself up and have a look at all the bodies of water I could find, but.... nothing seemed to fit. I needed to be further north. And that would take me off my map. I wanted to first see if I could find anyplace I’d already charted....

Next I tried a picture that featured a statue of a horse. It looked kind of like the centerpiece of an ornate fountain. I recalled that I had seen a fountain back among the ruins on the Plateau. But when I went there and compared the two.... it didn’t line up as well as I’d thought it might.

There was another picture that showed some kind of gatehouse or enclosed turret along the top of a battlemented wall. I thought of Fort Hateno.

I’d done all this through warping and left my horse in Kakariko, so I warped to Dueling Peaks Stable and it was another long jog through the Valley of Terror to get to the old fort.

But when I got there, those ancient structures didn’t line up either. There were more stone buildings in the pictographs.

I felt just a little bit deflated. I’d been excited at the prospect of learning what might have happened to me here, if everything Garill had said about the old Champion were true.

Ah well. I climbed about a bit, found another Korok (they’ve been hiding everywhere), and just.... thought.

I didn’t know where else to look.

It started to rain.

I turned about, and looked again on the field of frozen Guardians crawling toward the fort. I was standing on a raised turret, above the lower parapets. This.... seemed like the highest point on the wall.

Had I stood here before? This very place?

Shouted commands to others in my charge, perhaps?

The rain fell harder.

Flashes in my mind brought the imagined past into vibrant, terrifying focus, and the great lumps on the battlefield moved and lurched, slowed but still coming, and their lights pulsed dangerous blues and reds, and their terrible lasers cast crimson explosions into the stone, into the air, in cacophonous minglings with the storm’s thunder.

And the same flashes—lightning or my mind?—brought me back to myself, made me shake my head and rub my face as the rain slicked down my hood, skin and clothes.

Did I have such Courage once?