It had only been a few months since the defeat of Calamity Ganon, and the kingdom of Hyrule was slowly starting to recover from the century long decline it had entered ever since the day the Primal Evil had last emerged. With Ganon defeated the blight that had coated the land had all evaporated, and the Blood Moon had ceased appearing in the night sky. The various monstrous creatures were still present across the land, but now unable to be reborn under the cursed red light they were being driven back, and Central Hyrule was much safer to enter now that the various Guardians had all shut down. Leading the reconstruction efforts was Princess Zelda herself, primarily focused on Hyrule Castle to secure and catalogue the knowledge still found in the Royal Library.

However while the various citizens were slowly starting to reclaim the kingdom from the wilds, the Hero Link found himself called to a different task. Still not fully used to the larger crowds and confines of hard civilization like the Castle and its attendant town, as well as not much use to the reconstruction now that the monsters were all cleared out, he decided that he was of best use continuing the monster clearing in the more remote areas of the Kingdom, as well as locating and dealing with any decayed but now revealed artifacts. With the Princess's blessing he set about travelling to every corner of the kingdom, sometimes out of contact for days or weeks at a time before he would pop up near one of the stables or other towns.

This day brought the Hero to the lands near Kakariko Village, in particular near a cliff-side in the forest above the village that had broken up and collapsed a little after the near cataclysmic final battle with the Calamity. After a brief rest at the inn the night before Link set out, not noticing when he left for the day that his pack was lighter then usual. It was only once he arrived that he realized he had forgotten to restock on several supplies, ammunition chief among them. Normally this would be cause to turn back for the warrior, but this close to the village of the Sheikah he knew there would be no monsters or dire threats, so he felt secure enough with just melee weapons.

Arriving at the site of the collapse itself, Link looked things over fairly thoroughly for an hour or so carefully shifting rocks to try and avoid causing any further rockslides. For a while he thought that he would find nothing, but then just as he was about to give up he spotted a strange pattern on the rockwall. Looking closer he saw that it was on a portion of the rock that was formerly buried under solid stone, but the slide had revealed some of it. It appeared to be writing of some sort over a small stylized door, but he could not make out what it said. It did not appear to be Sheikah Runes at least, but his curiosity overcame him and he began to look closer, brushing a hand across it to try and remove some of the dust.

Suddenly the runes lit up with a green light, shining brightly and with such obvious magic that Link had to back up for safety. The light on the runes began to spread further, making designs low on the rock and starting to outline the top of the door shape. Link reached down to his side for his Sheikah Slate to take a picture of this only to discover it missing. He instantly recalled browsing through some of the other pictures the night before in the inn, and he realized he must have left it there instead of returning it to his side like usual. This hesitation and recrimination was disastrous for Link, as the green light intensified and washed over him. At the same time he heard some ominous rumbled from above and looking up he saw more of the cliff face starting to crack and fall. He turned and began to run away, but as he did so his whole body was struck by light coming from the wall design before it was cut off by being buried in more rubble. The Hero began to feel light headed as he ran, until finally he blacked out still in the woods.

When Link awoke it was an unknown amount of time later, but based on the general light level he could tell that it was still daytime. However the sunlight was washed out due to a dense canopy of plant life around and over him, and as Link looked around he found that he could not recognize where he was. The plants around him were strange, tall flatish ones that seemed to be a a mix of aiming straight upwards and starting to bend over from their own weight. Something about this tickled the back of his memory, but he could not place it. Right now his main concern was finding out where he was, as without the Sheikah Slate and its mapping function he was currently very lost.

Still the Hero was no quitter, and technically he had done this sort of thing for months at this point, and several times before he had needed to bushwhack until he was able to activate the tower of a region. Striding forth across the fairly loosely packed dirt ground Link drew out a sword, the Master Sword currently in the Lost Woods recovering so that it could eventually permanently regain its power. With this weapon he could react quickly to most threats, and it was easier to use in the confines of a forest this dense. The number of times he was able to handily deal with enemies wielding weapons too big for their surroundings had long taught him that lesson. Plus if he needed to cut down any of the trees he had a few axes as well.

After several long minutes Link made three observations of interest in his travels, the first of which was that this forest was larger than he had given it initial credit for. The trees seemed to just stretch on and on, one after another in a dense pattern that kept visibility to a minimum. The second was that in this forest lived some truly enormous insect-like creatures, their shells hard enough to deflect casual attacks and requiring either heavier blows to break through or attacking weakpoints in their armour. The third was that aside from the trees and insect monsters there was no other visible plant or animal life. This was strange as only the most desolate locations in Hyrule had such limited ecologies, but the fact that it was a FOREST seemed to contradict this. Then some deeply ingrained instinct, something nearly forgotten by the Hero put him on alert, and he took a defensive stance. It took him a few moments to figure out what this instinct was, and he nearly loosened his stance in confusion. It was his reaction to...a Molduga?

---

When the granddaughter of the Elder Impa Paya heard that Link was visiting, the silver haired woman had been a mixture of overjoyed with excitement and aquiver with nerves, unsure of how to approach the young man. In the end she tossed and turned for most of the night, and so slept in a little bit the next morning. She hurried over to the inn to try and meet him, only to find that she had missed him a while ago as he had left early that morning. Paya was about to give up and go home to try again later, only to be stopped by the innkeeper.

“Actually, last I heard the Hero was headed up to the cliffs above town, and I kind of need you to do me a favor. When I was checking his room I saw that he forgot his Slate on the bedside table, so perhaps you can go and return it to him?” Paya was a little shocked at the revelation that Link, the Hero and Savior of Hyrule could actually FORGET his Sheikah Slate, but she recovered quickly as she took the item.

“Not to worry, I will get it to him as soon as possible.” With that she walked out of the inn and dashed her way up to the forest. She placed the Slate in the bag at her side and began to walk in the light forested area, enjoying the sunshine and undisturbed nature of the location while also trying to listen  for Link. As she approached a clearing of basically just grass towards the middle of the forest she continued to walk, not knowing that she was getting much closer to the Hero then she realized with every step.

---

Link looked around for any of the other telltale signs of an approaching burrowing super predator, despite this being an utterly unknown biome for them. Normally found only in the desert, the enormous creatures burrowed through the ground searching for the vibrations of their prey, that is everything smaller than they were, but that same ground based movement created vibrations in turn that Link was detecting. Slowly Link started to move again when he noticed that something was off about the situation, namely that instead of a constant low rumble these vibrations were coming in pulses, short breaks between them where there was nothing.

On further investigation the Hero realized that what he was feeling was not a Molduga, but something large and heavy taking footsteps. At first he shifted his assumption to a Talus, the massive stone golems having the weight for it, but even that proved incorrect when the impacts became even greater indicating something even large than a Talus. The only thing that could match that however was a Divine Beast, which should have been impossible. After the defeat of the Calamity all four of the massive creatures had remained shut down and immobile where they stood, but then what could be causing these small quakes?

Link knew that he would soon find out, as the increasing power of the impacts through the ground indicated that whatever it was it was getting closer, and now he was starting to hear the physical sounds of the approach. The booms of heavy objects impacting the ground, the faint snaps and screams of abused plantlife being smashed down, it all indicated that something gargantuan was breaking its way through the forest towards him, and distressingly he could not yet see it. Deciding to go and face whatever it was head on the blue clad warrior leveled his sword and shield and ran forwards, heading in the direction of the sounds.

Link ran onward to face the danger head-on, but as he got seemingly closer to the source of the likely footsteps he felt a hint of doubt enter him. Whatever this was must be huge, to create impacts such as the ones he was currently feel-suddenly he entered a slight clearing in the trees, enough to at least allow him to look up past the green canopy above. What he saw then shocked him, and granted him no small amount of fear. He barely even registered the sight of a few of the bug “monsters” running out from the forest at the far side of the clearing and scurrying across it and past him without even pausing.

Towering high above him, reaching up as high as the very top of Hyrule Castle to him was a familiar figure practically literally writ large, her grey, blue and red clothing painting a vast mural to him leading up towards a tanned head topped in pure silver. Walking towards him was unmistakably Paya of the Sheikah, at a scale larger than any living thing he had ever scene before. The Dragons would be as simple snakes to her, and even the final form of the Calamity Ganon would be no larger then a mid-sized ordinary boar.

Every shaking impact in the ground was matched by a swinging of the girls legs, and soon the brown tabi sandals at the bottom of them became visible to Link alongside the sight of countless trees being flattened underfoot. It took Link another moment to recontextualize what he had just been thinking with regards to the current stature of Paya, and he developed a cold sweat as he realized that the “trees” compared to her looked an awful lot like “grass.” The danger of his position then dawned on him, and he realized that he was currently in an even more dangerous situation then he had at first realized. His moments just standing there stunned had granted Paya more time to move and come closer, and at the moment she was NOT looking down even as he shadow started to cover Link.

When her sandal finally reached the clearing/gap in the grass Link finally leapt into motion, turning tail to run and try and get some more distance between himself and the oblivious girl. This was not a moment too soon as the very next step of Paya landed right where he had just been standing, the ground compressed down underneath her step until it lifted back up and left behind a shallow to her footprint. What followed was Link desperately running to try and stay ahead of the girl, the only thing letting him keep any sort of distance being her slow walking pace as she took her time listening and looking around. She was still rapidly gaining on him, but at this moment Link would take any sort of time he could get. He even tried to call out for her, but his naturally fairly quiet voice was easily drowned out by her own footsteps and the other ambient sounds.

---

Paya looked around the clearing in the forest, taking slow stealthy steps subconsciously due to her training While the grass under her feet bent and broke it made no sound to her ears, and all that could be heard was the wind in the trees. From this spot she could now see the collapsed cliffside, the pile of rubble there only around knee height and too small to hide anything. Still by now she figured she should have at least seen Link, but there was nothing. Continuing her slow walk she remained otherwise silent, wondering if the Hero had found something and had left the area.

---

With every crashing impact behind him Link nearly jumped out of his skin, especially as the volume and force of the vibrations continued to increase every time. The situation was made only harder on him because while the titanic Paya could just walk straight, Link was forced to dodge and weave around every cluster of grass and rock that would be impenetrable barriers or too slow to climb. Even as he began to feel gusts of wind at his back that could only be coming from the air displaced by her falling sandals, he could also feel his stamina, while very great, beginning to flag and fail him. He knew that no matter how much mystical stamina he had it would never be able to save him under these circumstances, which only drove him on harder.

A few seconds later Link was still face down on the ground in darkness, but slowly it downed on him that he was somehow still alive. Almost not believing it he raised up his head and looked around from his prone position, now seeing light up above him as well as walls all around him. Looking forwards past the rock he could see Paya still nearby but walking away, and examining around him revealed a fairly clear footprint all around him. Trying to figure out how he survived he looked again at the rock and noticed that it was sunken into the ground deeper then before, but also still jutted up higher than his prone body height. It then dawned on Link that what had happened was that when he was stepped on, he was so close to the rock that it had acted as an umbrella, holding up the sole of the sandal just enough that it hit him, but did not crush him into paste.

Link remained stunned for several second marveling at both just how lucky he had been as well as how close he had come to death, and had to fight to suppress a small shudder. He was only snapped out of his stupor when a deafening voice echoed from on high like a roaring Divine Beast, only this time he could just barely make out actual words being said. “LINK? ARE YOU THERE? WHERE ARE YOU LINK?” The Hero nearly had to place his hands over his ears at how loud Payas voice was, but then he noticed something else. At the moment she had started to call out the Sheikah had stopped moving, and was only a few of her own step lengths away from him.

Seeing this as his best and possibly only opportunity, Link ran forwards towards the girls location even as she began to shift and turn. Images of her spinning around and heading back to where she came and blocking out the sun for him once more with nothing to same him this time crossed his mind, but he was closely aligned with the power of Courage and so banished those thoughts. Indeed Paya had turned all the way around while looking for him, so now instead of her heel he was directly facing the front of her sandal and the red strap there. Dashing forwards with what stamina he had been able to recover he leapt upwards at just the right moment, even as her other foot was lifting off of the ground to grab onto the top of the front edge of the footwear and pull himself up.

Once he was on top of the mostly smooth plain of the sandals sole Link wasted no time in continuing his run towards the red strap between her big and second largest toes on instinct as he knew she would likely be moving this foot sooner rather then later. Indeed He had only just barely reached it when the girl began to lift her foot, her toes flexing and the ground beneath him bucking and starting to toss him down the dark cavern revealed underneath her lifting tabi sock. At the last moment he reached up and grabbed onto the white fabric rising above his head and held on, lifting him up as well and letting him keep his position on the front of the sock in the space between her toes. Based on how warm and unstable this place was, he wasnt going anywhere until she stopped moving for an extended period of time.

He just had to hope that time came soon.

---

Paya finished looking around the small clearing confirming what she had suspected, it seemed that Link was nowhere to be found in the area. The girl frowned softly to herself at he failure to locate him, but consoled herself with the knowledge that this was Link she was talking about, and he could handle just about anything. She would hold onto his Sheikah Slate until he returned for it, and keep it safe.

In the meantime she would take one last look around the area before giving up and moving on, and then continue to the next thing on her agenda. This just so happened to be her practice and training, and the search for Link had made her behind schedule so she would have to work twice as hard to make up for lost time.

First things first, a couple of running laps around the village...