Link gasps softly, knowing the significance of that pendant, of being trusted with itā¦ at the request, he nods.Ā āYouāll tell her yourself,ā he gently insists, but if somehow something does happen, he knows heāll find his way into Termina and make sure Anju knows what happened.
At the next opening, he slips out the back of the tent, and moments later he can hear Kafei starting up. Goddess, heās good. The words seem to flow effortlessly, one after the next, spinning a baffling tall tale that heās sure has the Gerudo scratching their heads. But even he canāt distract them forever. Link watches the guards patrolling and darts between them, behind their backs, peeking into tents as he passes them. Not that one, not that one, not that oneā¦
The fourth tent is the winner. Only one guard out front, so Link scurries in under the back to see a table full of gear. Most of it is his, but some he doesnāt recognize. Must be Kafeiās. And then, lying so casually on the table, is the mask he remembers so well. He picks it up with shaking hands, staring into the lifeless eyes.
It only occurs to him then ā itās been so long. What if the magic has faded? What if Darmani is no longer inside? Has he come all this way only to fail? And how will he rescue Kafei without the Goronās helpā¦?
Thereās only one thing to do. He takes a deep breath, and presses the mask to his face.
And all at once, itās just as he remembers. The rush of another consciousness slamming into his own, his body stretching and snapping into another form. A scream rips from his lungs, starting as himself and deepening into an inhuman bellow. Then as quickly as it began, itās over. He stands there, a Goron in the middle of a Gerudo tent. And Darmani is there in his head, the voice that isnāt a voice, the same noble hero as always.
Link grins, then snaps to focus. His scream had to draw attention to his location. He snatches his equipment and Kafeiās bag, then curls up into a ball. As three Gerudo burst into the tent, he rolls forward at top speed, barelling into them and sending them flying. The camp is quickly in chaos ā no one is prepared to deal with a Goron warrior. He plows ahead, aiming for the supports of the tent where Kafei is hostage. The entire structure is overturned, revealing his friend inside.
As the Gerudo begin to swarm, he lets them approach ā then launches up into the air only to slam back down. The shockwave sends them collapsing, and he uncurls to look at Kafei, tossing his bag to him.Ā āGo! Now!ā
The world has been captured in a kaleidoscope of motion and sound. Thereās a scream, not human or goron, maybe not living or dead. The tent falls. So many feet are in motion, armor clinks, women shout. Heās grabbing and pushing sturdy canvas, then thereās a shock of fresh air and a sudden view of the camp. Heās scrambling upright, snatching a tent pole. Thereās a huge goron who must be Link, fending off attackers. Now the goron is slamming into the ground, and if Kafei hadnāt rammed the tent pole at the ground for balance, he would have fallen with the soldiers. Thereās a sudden challenge; he has to catch the sturdy leather bag. It was a gift. Shouldnāt have taken it to another universe. The goronās voice, Linkās voice, shouts for him to Go! Now!
Kafei catches the bag and runs. Thereās a chilling vertigo in his gut. Every sound of danger around him is very real. If any of the soldiers catch him and have deadly intent, he just isnāt a match for them, his life will go out like a candle in rain. Running with a tent pole is a risk in of itself, but any weapon is better than none. Kafei knows that his knife is in his bag, too, provided he can get to it. The soldiers found it in his boot, and he saw them put it with the rest of his things. He still has rope around his wrists. Couldnāt the knife, the rope, and the tent pole be used to make a spear? His mind crunches through the creative challenge of how to actually make a useful spear with a knife and a tent pole and some rope, something sturdy that wouldnāt just fall apart. As if heāll have time to stop and create it any moment now. But what else is he supposed to focus on? His fate is nearly out of his hands. His mind is having a hard time letting him contemplate that.
When danger doesnāt come crashing down on him in one, two, three, four, five heartbeats, he glances back once, a wounded glare for enemies who did him wrong. Thereās no one immediately behind him, but he canāt say for sure that he isnāt being chased or that heās become unimportant to the Gerudo. He doesnāt look back again, and he pulls his thoughts from spear construction. He isnāt feeling winded at the moment, but he knows heās no runner. Heās had enough shady run-ins with Clock Town guards to know that a survival sprint is going to wear him out tremendously once the action settles down. He doesnāt know how far he has to go before it will be safe to be worn out tremendously, or if he can expect to make it to a safe point like that on adrenaline. Heās used to working alone, and the urge to immediately find a hiding place overpowers any impulse to try and regroup with Link (though he wouldnāt complain if Link followed him). He sees a tangle of scrub and rocks off in the distance, and he makes for it, still sprinting for his survival. He has no idea if this first patch of cover available will be any good as a hiding place. But he does know that once he stops running, heāll finally have some time to make that spear, and the environment will work in his favor if it comes to a fight. Link was right. Itās best for him to come back to Anju with the pendant, himself.
Kafeiās story about the ghost goron will add a mythical complication to the gerudosā attempts to properly make sense of Darmaniās appearance. But one of the soldiers will listen to the others debate with quiet skepticism. She wasnāt close enough to catch Kafei before he got away, but she did see him look back as he was escaping. And his energy just didnāt quite match the degree of bewilderment and drama that the others describe about the way he told the story.
It was something about his eyes.
