The Mirror in the Music

Monday, January 7, 2019

The Mirror in the Music

I logged onto DeviantArt for the first time in a while, and found in my notifications a relatively new journal entry from the group Hyrule-Legends. It was entitled: “Sound Director Hajime Wakai on Zelda BoTW Music”. Posted Saturday, January 5.

Well that was.... just gourmet serendipity. For I was still full of the sweeping, rushing, desperate music from Vah Medoh. Those strings....

User MajorasMasks posted in the entry:

I recently read an interview about an underrated aspect of Breath of the Wild: its music and sound direction. I know some people complained about them, but I think they are top notch just like the rest of the game.

Among other things, in the interview Hajime Wakai explains why BotW doesn't have the canonical overworld music:
"When a composer makes a piece of music he has a plan and idea of how he wants to player to feel, but if this insistence is too strong it can have an effect on the actual game. We would end up forcing a feeling of intensity onto players. The music would be all stirring and dramatic, but then the player would think: ‘hold on a minute, all I did was throw away a mushroom…’"

You can find the complete interview on Nintendo Everything.  

The link led to url: https://www.deviantart.com/users/outgoing?https://nintendoeverything.com/breath-of-the-wild-composers-on-changing-up-zeldas-music-formula-and-more/

And that was the entire entry.

An underrated aspect of Breath of the Wild? The music?

I have to admit, I just wouldn’t have known. I’ve refrained from searching out what the internet has had to say about it all this time.

But now.... with four Divine Beasts finally under my belt.... I felt no dread for many spoilers. Hence my sudden interest in trolling the art site for . . . . whatever I might find.

And lo! THIS JOURNAL.

. . . . . . .

I could contain myself no longer. I commented on MajorasMasks’ Hyrule-Legends journal entry:

I saw this journal in my inbox a few days ago. But now I'm coming back to comment on it because.... Well, I played a bit of Breath of the Wild last night. It is still my first playthrough. BECAUSE OF REASONS please no spoilers.

But last night I defeated my fourth and final Divine Beast, and.... Man, MAN, there has been something incredibly special about the music I hear in those Divine Beasts. And it has grown and shaped and arced over the course of all my adventures. The music I've heard in those places has been the telling of the entire tale; it's Good versus Evil; it's triumphing over the Darkness; it's the rising of the Light, and the striving after Hope.

Am I the only one who has heard this?

What was the music like inside your first Divine Beast? Did it start open, and neutral? But turn dark and affronted and malicious when you started activating pedestals?

Was your second Divine Beast the same?

And when you came to your third, was the Darkness waiting for you this time? Was the music already poisoned when you set foot in that place? And once you started going through the pedestals, did a spear of hope pierce through the sound, to turn the chords into something better? Something brighter? Did the influence of your Hero pull the soundtrack back from the abyss and make it shine?

And when you came to your fourth, and the heated, hot, angry poison met your incursion again, and you started activating the pedestals....

Did the Song turn to the most desperate struggle of goodness and hope that you had yet encountered?

Has this been the experience of ANY one else?
I must know.

Whoever was in charge of the sound, whoever engineered the music for those critical struggles....

That man is a Poet.

And then, some time later, my second comment:

Also I just read the article and ugh.... it's like FINDING YOUR PEOPLE.

MajorasMasks and I had a good following conversation, though he did—he?—*—she, it’s a she—

WE HAD A GOOD following conversation, though she did tell me, in response to my music-mapping, “I think that depends on which order you play the Divine Beasts...”

For with my own playthrough—Elephant, Lizard, Camel, Bird—I had been utterly convinced that there was more at play in generating those Divine Beast soundtracks. The arc was just too perfect, the progression too meaningful. The music had to have been designed to play in that order, regardless of which animal you chose first and which you chose last. It was the Legend’s Echo.

But then.... as of this writing (Evening of Tuesday, January 15, 2019).... I still have not delved too deeply into the Breath of the Wild circles of the internet. Maybe the music is set in that storytelling order I heard, and people have already talked about this. Or maybe each Divine Beast does indeed have its own set soundtrack, and other players have been taken through other musical journey arcs, stemming from all the permutations of play-order for which the game can allow.

I’ll go find out some day, but....

Not today.

I think for now.... I’d just as soon leave it a mystery. And keep riding those striving, striving strings in my heart.

“Hey Dad.”

“Yeah?”

“You saw me doing the Bird?” For he’d stopped to watch a bit here and there. “Do you remember the music?”

He had also.... doubtless.... observed me fangirling all about the music myself as I paraglided around solving the puzzles.

But his eyes lit up to remember. Had he been struck himself, or had it been a contagion from my own reaction? “Yeah,” he smiled.

“What did you think of it?” I probed as excitedly as if it had been a blockbuster film.

“It sounded like....” he slowly maneuvered a hand palm-downward into the air, “kind of a flight-music kind of thing.”

Well that tickled my whimsy all right!

Heh, and was that likewise possibly influenced by the nature of the Beast?

Or was it the Pilot in him talking?

Girl Stuff

Waking of Friday, August 25, 2017

Girl Stuff

Nieces are delightful creatures.

Mary just really wanted me to “Play Zelda!”

So eh.... what the hey.

I started up the game, and found that the last time I’d played I seemed to have ended up at Cotera’s spring above Kakariko Village.

Mary wanted me to play whatever the main quest was but ehhhh I didn’t think so. Not under so much threat of buzzkill with all these people in the house.

Instead, I warped back to the volcano to see if I couldn’t find any of those Smotherwing Butterflies I needed to up my Flamebreaker clothes one more level. They were tricky little beasties! Especially when I tried to get a picture of one; it was difficult to keep it centered in the frame while it kept fluttering around. I think I barely snapped a pictograph of the tips of its wings when it finally alighted over the tiny horizon of a rounded rock.

But it did help to have the picture—and thus the ability to search for it—in my Sheikah Slate. I needed something like nine of them, and the girls and I did a lot of walking around Goron City and the surrounding areas. We even found a few Koroks along the way. And a couple of new shrines. And some hidden treasure I think too! A fruitfully circuitous hike.

Once we’d caught as many butterflies as we could stand, we warped back to Cotera, and had her do up my Flamebreaker armor. The giant fairy kiss made the girls laugh. XD They asked questions, and that led to my giving them answers, which led to more questions.... which led to somehow.... they wanted to see the Elephant.

So Zora’s Domain it was.

But how did we get into the menu? One of my weapons must have broken—maybe a bow; you can’t switch via the shortcut to a different bow if you don’t have one equipped.

So in I went to the menu. And Dorothy became quite enamored of just how customizable Link was. She wanted to choose his clothes.

I took off all of Link’s equipment and stripped him down to the skivvies. “Okay, what should he wear?” I said as I hopped the avatar around Vah Ruta’s bare black rock.

“He’s naked!” Dorothy laughed.

Mary and Dorothy were soon taking turns issuing orders for different combinations of clothing. They both quite liked the beautiful set of Zora Armor. Dorothy thought the Champion’s Tunic was a very pretty blue. Both seemed to prefer his open hair to most of his hats, though they thought the Firebreaker Helm was funny. The too-small Old Shirt and Well-Worn Trousers made them laugh too. But Mary and I got the biggest kick out of the regular Hylian Trousers, no shirt, and the Barbarian Helm. I threw in a Dragonbone Boko Club for good measure, and man our hero looked right fit to eat somebody’s face! XD

We rollicked around Zora’s Domain a bit more. They had me scale the giant fish tail above the throne room, and as I had more stamina under my belt this time, it worked! I was even gratified to find a hidden Korok up there. ^_^

But soon the girls had to go, and so.... at the end I warped back to Cotera’s spring where I had been before.... and quit.

The next day, David asked me what all I had done while playing Zelda with the girls.

When I told him we’d spent our time catching butterflies and playing dress up—

“UGHHH,” his eyes bugged, “How does Ben stand it with all girls and no boys?”

I’d never seen him look so disgusted.

Mind the Daisies

Waking of Saturday, March 25, 2017 ~ 4

Mind the Daisies

The last hump of grassy hill to the north bank of the river was not as bare as my map had made it out to be—a rusted Guardian slumbered there. I gave it a wide berth.

After trying and failing to sneak up on some deer through the rain, at last, at last, there was the Shrine.

I paraglided down to it, and no sooner had I run a few paces across the islet—Floret Sandbar—than an irate woman’s voice scolded me something awful.

I was ruining her flowers.

The game blacked out and put me where she was, on the south side of the island. She told me to watch my step for the love of all things holy.

Ah, I saw, it was like a corn maze. I just had to follow the bare grass winding round like a crop-circle.... which turned out to be easier said than done. Er, if you wanted to reach the handy items in all the dead-ends, that is.

And a fat blue chu popped out of the ground, and I found out quickly that I couldn’t swing my sword at it; the strokes were too broad. I needed a spear for straight thrusting.

This was more involved than I’d anticipated!

The woman brought me back to the start every time I messed up, and it was about four or five times! But eventually I made it to the shrine, and received a fourth Spirit Orb from the monk inside.

I’ve been calling them shamans, but.... when David started a game I noticed and remembered the term monk.

However, when I exited the shrine I wasn’t quite sure how I was supposed to wind myself back out through the flowerbeds. But I didn’t bother. Instead, I warped to the mountaintop where Vah Ruta now resided.

I’d made a lot of friends in Zora’s Domain.... and I’d assured most of them I’d lend them a hand.

It was time to deliver.

Mipha's Grace

Waking of Saturday, March 18, 2017 ~ 13

Mipha’s Grace

When the demon was dead, the air inside Vah Ruta finally cleared—the terrible Blood Moon haze disappeared and there was no more evil feeling.

You know there is a man at the Dueling Peaks Stable named Hino who studies the Blood Moon. I think I really should talk to him about what I saw here. Did it mean the monsters in this area would stop resurrecting....?

The water dropped back down to ankle-deep, and the way to the pedestal was clean, and clear.

When I activated the final pedestal, Mipha’s voice came to me again.

And I saw her.

She was surrounded with an unearthly teal light, as King Rhoam had been. She told me Yesterday she was awash in a pool of tears, fearful that her regretful spirit would be doomed to be trapped here in pain for all eternity. But now with my coming she was finally free. As was Vah Ruta.

But as she was now a spirit, she would have no need of her miraculous healing power, and by the grace of the goddesses, she gifted it to me instead.

Mipha’s Grace

It came from her and entered into my chest much in the manner of the spirit orbs of the shrine-monks.

But the power bestowed and the serenity felt in this particular exchange was such that I could only close my eyes, lean back my head and let spread my arms as Mipha’s Grace flowed through me.  I could have sworn for a moment there.... I was lifted off my feet. Floating.

Mipha and Vah Ruta would aid me in my quest to defeat Calamity Ganon. Their power would be my power.

“Save her, Link. Save the princess.”

And then, before I could take it in, Mipha was saying her goodbyes and—

The light swallowed me up and I was gone.

Goodbye, Mipha.

Even as a spirit, Mipha, the Zora’s Champion still, directed the mighty Divine Beast Vah Ruta to a wellspring on a higher mountain somewhat west of Zora’s Domain, from which Vah Ruta extended its mighty tusks and blasted a red beam directly into Hyrule Castle and the darkness of the Calamity still hovering there.

The beam was continuous. They would sap Ganon of his power for me, for when I fought him.

“Father, are you well, I wonder....” Mipha pondered as she stood miniscule atop Vah Ruta’s right ear.

She wished she could see him again.... even if just once more.

AND THEN SOME

Waking of Saturday, March 18, 2017 ~ 12

AND THEN SOME

I’m sorry to say that David and I kind of giggled irreverently at the placement of the final map marker. Well, we supposed it was near the end of the dungeon after all.

It was one more long, slow walk down the middle of the floor as I approached the terminal at the far end. I watched the time as I went; it was nearing midnight. I stepped in front of the pedestal just on the stroke of twelve, and held out my Sheikah Slate. But just before I made contact, a dark force repelled me, and then coalesced in the center of the room into a hideous, grotesque creature, seemingly composed of the same black-and-purple substance I’d seen all over the Divine Beast. Long, gangling—did it have legs? I only remember its cruel, spidery arms, one of them wielding an enormous blade of blue light. A dark red mane ran down its neck and spine.

This was Waterblight Ganon.

This was the thing that had murdered Lady Mipha.

For a time I shot him with arrows from behind the great pedestal while he cast his magical spear at me repeatedly—it rematerialized in his grasp every time.

Moblin’s Magic Spear, I thought ridiculously.

But my arrows weren’t doing enough damage. “I can’t keep this up,” I said. I’d have to face him directly. The biggest stick I had was a double-edged blade that dealt 38 damage a blow. I equipped it, and ran at him—

But he took offense at the strokes I dealt, and began to flood the chamber. It had been full of ankle-deep water before, but now.... there was nowhere to stand but on four isolated raised platforms.

He started casting huge blocks of ice at me, just as Vah Ruta had done. They were easy enough to dodge.... sort of. At times they knocked me into the water—they hurt me. And it was so slow to swim back and get back on my feet—

“Use Cryonis!” said David.

But would it work?

I aimed my Slate at the next volley of ice blocks—and I could break them.

And I felt like a FOOL for wasting so many arrows outside with the Prince!

Mipha’s voice came dimly into my mind: If only the ice could be used as a weapon.

“Try Stasis!” said David at the same time I thought it—

I shattered all but one of the demon’s next volley, and then stopped the last one in its tracks just before it collided with me. I hammered it four times with my Special 38 before the Stasis broke, and the stored kinetic energy hurtled it back into the beast and wounded him considerably! He sagged into the water, hanging onto one of the pillars for support.

And as he floated dead in the water there I took out my arrows once more and shot the blazes out of him—and this time they had a much greater effect. Flame Arrows I shot at him, all I had, which was about ten, as well as the one Bomb Arrow I had ever seen in my life—the explosion rocked the room.... “Die, die, DIE, DIE, YOU PUTRID—” I shouted at him, reveling in the volume I could attain with no sleepers in the house—

The monster was very weak by the time he regained himself in a last wind—he cast ice at me again, and again I shattered them all but one, and hurled that one back in his face, and that one did it. That one finished him.

Oh the ungodly screams and cries that issued from this.... abomination.... as it writhed and curled and melted and evaporated into oblivion—it was grotesque....

I wished it would die faster.

Even the thing that had killed Lady Mipha.

ALL MY SKILL

Waking of Saturday, March 18, 2017 ~ 11

ALL MY SKILL

I had been in places that kept me on my physical toes. But this place was more a mental exercise than anything else. The powers of my Sheikah Slate were heavily employed; Cryonis, Magnesis, Stasis.... It took all my skill and a dash of mad courage to figure how to access the four terminals I needed to activate.

I suppose the dash of courage came when I realized I would need to trek out onto Vah Ruta’s trunk as it stretched out over the Reservoir. Good gads it had to be a furlong in length at least....

I could manipulate the trunk via the map I had distilled into my Sheikah Slate. But LET ME TELL YOU it was one thing to watch it bend and move according to my commands in its little glowing blue schematic in my HUD. But it was another thing entirely to be standing upon it as it executed my commands.

It was articulated in segments, like an earthworm, but still always sort of curved, you see. I couldn’t venture out from the base to the middle without bending it mostly upward, and I couldn’t move from the middle out to the tip without bending it back down—and there were more darkpools to do away with out there.

But after much puzzling and legwork, and a few Zora-dives up an internal waterfall.... I had activated all the terminals except for one. Mipha’s voice came to encourage me after every one; but the ambient music.... some soft, asymmetrical, delicately chimed thing.... subtly changed after every one as well, and not exactly in a good way.

It did nothing to prevent me from feeling a sense of dread impending doom.

It was like the place was on to me.

The last terminal took me an hour and a half, including interspersed escapes from the game to numb my brain on stupid YouTube videos while my WiiU controller recharged in its cradle. Days passed in the game. Suns and moons rose and set, though I never saw any Blood Moons.... Logic now.... I couldn’t reach the terminal underwater; I had to either drain the water, or remove the entire apparatus. The apparatus didn’t look movable, so to drain the water, I either had to stop the leak in, or spring a new leak out.... but my bombs wouldn’t sink.... the ice arrows wouldn’t stop the inflow.... a Shock Arrow didn’t jumpstart the terminal....

David gave me a much needed helping hand when he came home, and suggested I aim Cryonis on the inpouring waterfall. The one thing I hadn’t tried.

I didn’t think the water was thick enough there to use Cryonis.

And it didn’t look like it would fit, either.

But, as luck would have it, when I took aim with Cryonis, it fat.

And one button later the waterfall stopped.

But the terminal was upside down.

A couple buttons more and I had it.

Mipha directed me then to go to the last terminal.

I already knew where it was.

It was time to return to the Big Room.

Divine Beast Vah Ruta

Waking of Saturday, March 18, 2017 ~ 10

Divine Beast Vah Ruta

“You’re here....”

It was the voice of Lady Mipha. In my mind as I stood on the platform on Vah Ruta’s side.

She instructed me on where to go, what runestone could give me a map of this place, and told me of the terminals I would need to activate to restore proper control.

I was cautious.

As I ever am, I suppose.

There was a little ramp that led upward into the interior, and one of the first things I saw.... was an eyeball. Yellow and cruel, roving around under a black lid.

Well. I’d played enough Zelda games to know that that was just begging for an arrow in the peeper!

I shot it, and it shriveled and died and poof-sploded and evaporated, taking with it a large.... measure of.... some kind of substance: dark, some of it pooled and bubbled on the ground in thick puddles, and some of it jutted up in curved and hardened horns like barriers. Black shot with evil magenta. Slimy. Glutinous.

Getting rid of it gave me a better view of the large internal space within the Divine Beast. I scanned the room carefully, and saw only one other obstacle: a three-legged Guardian Scout on the other side of the room. I’d faced a few of those in my sojourns into the shrines.

I needed in this room and there was no more point to sneaking around. It was time to be brave. I charged it directly and hacked it to bits.

And the room was mine.

Now for a look about this place.... But what unsettlement was this. The air was thick with bits of floating darkness like embers and ash, and the floor smoked and dripped upward with unholy shadows.

It felt as if.... it were infected with a Blood Moon sickness.... All inside it. Vah Ruta.

But nothing ever resurrected. There were no monsters in here. Just that dark, static substance with its creepy little eyeballs.

Some pools of it had no eyeballs but simply stood here and there alone, some with horns, some without. I prodded one such pool with my boot....

It stung and hurt me—I pulled back out of it—

What was this stuff? What had Ganon done to the Divine Beast?

The eyeball mutations were scattered all over, inside and out, and I went to it with my bow. Sickening abominations....

But then I came to the Big Room.

I was.... hesitant to enter that place.

I know what Big Rooms hold within them.

It was a long, slow walk down the middle of that floor to the Sheikah pedestal on the other side.

Nothing happened.

And when I reached the pedestal.... nothing happened then either. I still needed to activate the terminals before this panel would work for me.

Huh.

Well, it was a long, slow walk back along the middle of the floor and up the ramp into the first chamber. I suppose this Big Room would give me a proper welcome in due course. In the meantime I had some searching to do....

TWO HEROIC MEN TOO AWESOME FOR WORDS

Waking of Saturday, March 18, 2017 ~ 9

TWO HEROIC MEN TOO AWESOME FOR WORDS

I stood a while with Sidon on the dock before we spoke. When we did he turned and flashed his winning grin at me—a bit more subdued this time.

I don’t suppose waiting would have made it any easier. But then.... somehow, with Sidon there, in all his mad grinning confidence, his unwavering surety.... maybe it didn’t seem like such a hard thing after all.

He leapt into the water, flipping like he does, and called me in. I would ride on his back. He would get me close, and with my Zora Armor I would be able to ascend the four waterfalls spilling from Vah Ruta’s back, to land my Shock Arrows on the orbs above.

And away we went, slicing through the water at incredible speed! Prince Sidon’s dulcet tenor spurring us onward, steady as a rock—that guy could move. And when Vah Ruta reacted to our presence—I don’t know what I was expecting but it wasn’t that!

How it trumpeted, crying out so loudly—pulling huge blocks of ice from the water, hovering them up as if by magic, and hurling them at us one after the other.

“Get rid of that ice!” the Prince shouted to me. Two of the bergs struck us, and it hurt—Sidon punched through—before I got my fumbling bow into my hands, whereupon I started dropping them out of the air one by one as Sidon flew through the water in a wide curve, arcing round the beast. Spray flew, rain slashed at our faces, and when Vah Ruta’s opening volley had run dry, Sidon darted in toward its side—“Do you have those Shock Arrows?” he called.

Man. His voice so fair and princely even here.

I readied them in my quiver. Sidon came right up against the raging beast’s side, maintaining a swift movement—no static targets here—as he bounded back and forth between two of the waterfalls. “Now, Link!”

I took the fall on the right side, I leapt from his back, spearing upward, upward, leaping in and out of the current like a fish, testament to the handiwork of Lady Mipha—until I broke through the upper surface and shot into the air—high above my target. I drew my bow, looked down, and time seemed to slow.... There was the orb, huge and pink, I drew, pulled back, let fly.... everything crackled and yellow and then I was falling....

I plashed back into the water with jarring violence, back in the tempest, back in the storm, back up to speed—“Nice going!”—there he was—and I grabbed onto the Prince’s back again and he hauled us outta there—Vah Ruta had collected more ice to try and crush us with—grateful I was carrying so many arrows.... though my bows couldn’t take all the firing.... grateful I was packing more than one bow....

Again and again, THAT VOICE.

WHO VOICED THIS GUY?

“Can you stop that ice?”

“Get those Shock Arrows!”

“You did it, Link!”

“Shock Arrows ready?”

And as I plummeted from the final orb—“Marvelous!”

AND YOU KNOW? It’s possible it’s not even a stupendous actor and he’s just lucky to be riding on the writing and animation of a character who already bleeds charisma! But I just like him!

Just channeling through the water like a mad torpedo on the back of the Prince of the Zoras, diving up waterfalls and sailing into the sky for freefalling archery with that friggin’ dulcet tenor still playing the cheer squad and EAUGH!

Do you know how hard I pumped my fists, how high I pranced and skipped as I went to close the curtains because it was getting dark, how convicted my affirmations to the house at large that “THAT WAS SO COOL”?

GAUGH.

Yes, I think the voice acting did add something, thickened the atmosphere of the charged, charged moment.

And as the Divine Beast Vah Ruta quieted, as the waterflow cut off and the sky became brighter.... Sidon took us in close—there was a platform....

“You wanted to get inside that thing, right?”

I did want to get inside it.

I still had to infiltrate its depths, and retake it for Princess Zelda.

“Finish the job, Link,” Sidon urged, low and even from the water below as the Beast began to float higher and I was lifted away, higher and higher....

Shatterback Point

Waking of Saturday, March 18, 2017 ~ 8

Shatterback Point

I could see the Lynel down through the pines, still prowling over his meadow.

That was a beast so fierce....

I’d gotten my twenty shock arrows. Plus four more I found stuck in the highest tree on the mountain—near which I saw a sign jutting out of the rock. It read:

JUMP AT YOUR OWN RISK

For there was the precipice.

I still wore my Zora Armor, and was not catching a chill.

Shatterback point, it seemed, was still in an accessible altitude.

The sun was brighter up here, and far, far below in the Reservoir, the Divine Beast Vah Ruta still spewed and churned its endless surge of water up into the air.

My gosh the views from up here.... I could see a few unvisited shrines! But such a strain to look back over the long miles I had traveled since my awakening. The Dueling Peaks lost in the surging waterspout. These were landscapes unfamiliar to me. I was far from.... well anywhere really.

I took several moments to catch my breath.

The force to be reckoned with here....

But.... eventually I had nowhere else to go.... but down.

I knew if I jumped over water, I would arc into a dive.

And this was a good diving spot, Gruve had said. His favorite.

And I could see the Reservoir below me. Misted over by mere atmosphere, my gosh....

And screwing up my courage.... I leapt.

Plummeting, plummeting, spearing down through the air and—a diagonal line of contrast cut across my view almost directly below me. Dark on one side, light on the other.

It was the shore, no, I was going to land in the shallows—Gruve was this part of your diving thrill?

It rushed toward me as I joysticked upward and could not deviate from my course and—no, it was not the shore—it was the mountain’s shadow on the water—

Splash!

I had arrived at the—in the Eastern Reservoir.

Thank goodness there was a shore, though, just a short swim behind me now. I made for it....

Once on solid ground again I hiked back westward over the paths and craggy rocks toward the Reservoir wall above Zora’s Domain. There was a long pier there—one of four, I think, about the Reservoir—hewn of the same light blue stone as all the other Zoran architecture I had seen. A hop, skip and a jump more to a big bald shelf of stone, and I came even with it.

Prince Sidon was standing there at its end, gazing out over the grey water.

I called out to him, but I don’t think he could hear me. Probably the roar of Vah Ruta’s constant waterspouting.

But it was only a few more moments of climbing, and jumping over some guardrails, before I made it to the pier myself.

It was quite nice, broad and spacious, with a kind of ramada on the wallward side, away from the water, with a bed underneath it. A soft bed, sheltered from the rain....

Sidon was keen to my presence by this point, but I’d decided I needed to rest up for a bit before we did this, and he respected that.

It was some time after seven in the evening. I figured a full night’s sleep would do me good—I’d just about had it with that Lynel.

I rested until the morning....

Lord of the Zoras

Waking of Saturday, March 18, 2017

Lord of the Zoras

Well, it was time to follow Sidon, and go and speak with the Zora King.

I found him in the high throne room.

He was massive. Royal blue body and back, pale moon-white front and face, and a bulging lobe like a beluga’s with a lighter-colored slash across the front—the mark of his battle with the Guardian. Jeweled silver armor and regalia spilled over his great, pleated barrel chest, and his trailing head-fin—longer than many trees I had ever seen—had been pushed to hang down his left side. Towering, towering above me, he sat proud and tall between his son Prince Sidon on his left, and a bent old green-skinned, ray-headed Zora on his right.

He recognized me too. And he said so.

But Prince Sidon had not. “That Link?” he said, “THE Link?” He had thought my name sounded familiar, I remembered he had said before.

That the Hylian Prince Sidon had found to aid them would turn out to be no less than the Champion Link.... King Dorephan concluded that our meeting, then, must have been nothing short of destiny.

But I told him that I had lost my memory. He seemed aghast that I could not even remember his daughter, Lady Mipha. Shocked.... but not unsteadied.

All the Zora elders seemed to hate me because I had taken away their Lady Mipha—and here was Lady Mipha’s father. Perhaps the one with the most reason of all to despise me. And yet he showed no trace, gave no sign.... I had.... a great admiration for the civilized tone he still used with me.

He seemed a goodly king; had his head on straight—he was trying to think of all the people of Hyrule. Vah Ruta had the ability to create an endless supply of water, and if it wasn’t stopped soon, not only would the resulting floods wreak havoc among the Zoran kingdom, water-breathers though they were, but it would also affect countless Hylian lives in the lands downstream. Already the effects were showing—I had even seen Ledo, and an apprentice of his named Fronk, trying to work repairs on a number of support pillars that had become damaged in the downpour.

Vah Ruta needed to be dealt with, very soon, and the truth, King Dorephan conceded, doing me the courtesy of being bluntly honest, was that the Zoras could not handle the Divine Beast alone.

The four orbs upon its back, which controlled the waterflow, were offline and out of control, and they needed an electrical current running through them to stem the flow of water.

This was what I was here for.

Because my body was more insulated against the Shock Arrows they would need to stabilize the orbs.

They asked for my aid.

Well, I had good news for them: Princess Zelda had tasked me with nearly the same goal.

King Dorephan—the unbelievable bulk of him—shot forward in his throne. “Princess Zelda is alive?” he asked.

“Yes, in Hyrule Castle,” I said.

He concluded once more that our meeting must have been fated. If there was a chance to retake Vah Ruta, there was also a chance to seal away Calamity Ganon for good....

He would give me all the help I needed—and he gifted me a set of beautiful Zora Armor, which has been crafted by Zoran Princesses for generations.

At this point the ray-headed Zora, Muzu, had had enough. Hylians, he argued, were the reason the world was in the state it was in in the first place, ever since they had sought out and abused the ancient technology of the Sheikah one hundred years ago.

To give one of them a Zoran Princess’ armor—armor that was traditionally supposed to be crafted for the one the Zora Princess would marry....

And Lady Mipha had crafted that armor herself! How could King Dorephan just hand it over to the very one who led Lady Mipha to her death?

Prince Sidon rebuked him, telling him to watch the way he spoke to the King and his guest, and reminding him that working together with the Hylians was their best chance of stopping Vah Ruta.

But Muzu wouldn’t have it, and he left the throne room.

Prince Sidon followed him.

The King asked me to follow as well, to try and talk to him.... because Muzu was the resident expert on just where and how Shock Arrows could be found.

The Man with the Winning Smile

Waking of Saturday, March 11, 2017 ~ 4

The Man with the Winning Smile

I entered the shrine and received the Spirit Orb, came back out, beat up a stray Lizalfos and stole his sword.... and made my way toward the bridge.

Another voice called out to me.

“Yo, hey there! Young one!”

I looked around.

“Up here, above you!” the dulcet tenor sang out again.

The beefy red Zora leapt down and landed impressively before me, standing slowly and grandly from the impact.... and it dawned on me.

“You’re Prince Sidon?” I yammered, my eyes bugging.

I mean.... the only other Zora Prince I’d ever known was Prince Ralis, and he was.... well kind of a shrimp. No pun intended and no offense implied.

This guy was.... well all the Zoras so far (the ones I could compare myself to on land anyway) had been taller than me. But Sidon was just huge!

What in the world did he need me for?

He wondered if I had a moment to talk, and he asked my name. When I told him Link, he raved with much fist-pumping of what a powerful name it was!

I must say, he did have quite a winning grin. And his musical theme was as light and determined as Sheena’s, from Tales of Symphonia. Definitely the same flavor, if not the same chord progression, with strong half-cadences prefaced by proper second-inversion tonic chords—most tenacious!

He told me Zora’s Domain was in great danger due to the ceaseless rainfall caused by the Divine Beast Vah Ruta. He had been looking for a great warrior of the Hylians to help him—he asked if I were of such kind among my people.

“Not particularly,” I said. I didn’t feel like a Hero.

“Oh don’t be so modest!” He told me he had been watching how I work, and he had great faith in me. I don’t see how he could have done, but.... he had seemed to be keeping a weather eye on all his surroundings. And he did seem to have many eyes and ears among his people, all out searching on his command.

Since I couldn’t swim up the river like he could, he showed me the road that would lead me to Zora’s Domain. He also warned me that there were many enemies upon it—enemies who used electricity. He supplied me with an elixir that would protect me somewhat from its effects, and we arranged to meet in Zora’s Domain....