(After surveying suggestions from my last post it's unanimous that their ship name will be "Minurah" ~!
I will be tagging their ship content with that from now on~ I hope others that are also aboard this ship will use it too so we can share things better!!)
(I really have no idea if I'll finish this, but oh well. Crossposted to AO3.)
Link brings a broken-down Zonai construct to Lookout Landing, and asks Purah if she can fix it. She agrees, but it looks like there's more to it than she bargained for.
(Or: a study of what makes things stay beyond their purpose.)
Lookout Landing never had a dull moment, to Purah's chagrin. The bustle of people coming in, seeking orders and carrying them out— the breathing of a living city, ready to grow and eventually fill the ruins that had been left behind by its ancestor— it never ended. Most Hyruleans had no love of the past, nor any desire to dwell on it unless it benefited them. Lookout Landing represented that. It wasn't like she blamed them, either. She considered herself a woman of the present as well. When they had first started building here, she had vehemently agreed with Zelda about centering their efforts around the Royal Family's secret shelter, dusting off floors, carrying away a few skeletons. Even when some settlers had started looting buildings for materials she hadn't minded. After all, it was available , and the people who would care were dead.
She scooted forward on her stool as she watched the floating Hyrule Castle from her favorite platform, youthful legs crossed and hair in a messy bun. Holding a mug with one hand, she raised it to her lips and started chugging coffee. As much as she missed Hateno sometimes, Zelda had set up an arrangement with a Gerudo Town cafe to bring her ground coffee every few months, and she couldn't say no to that. The floating castle reminded her that her supply was running low, though, and that the princess— wherever she was —could be in great danger. Linky would handle both problems, she supposed. Nothing to be done.
"Miss Purah!" The captain of the volunteer guard, Hoz, walked up the steps.
Aforementioned Miss Purah turned around, finishing the last dregs of her coffee. "Good morning, Hoz! What's wrong?" It wasn't said out of malice; she just wanted to cut to the chase.
The question deflated his puffed-out chest like an octo balloon. He chuckled quietly. "Nothing, actually. Or, uh. It's not my problem. Mr. Link wanted you to see something."
Purah raised an eyebrow. "Okay…so where is he?"
"Just outside of town, near the south gate," Hoz said, pointing towards the gate.
"Alrighty," Purah said, curious enough about Link that she started down the stairs without putting her coffee mug away. She loved going downstairs. Just a few years ago, her knees would have buckled every two steps, but now she could skip down them with her pretty legs. It felt so good to be twenty-five again; she reveled in it and abused it when she could. Making her way through town, she noticed it seemed emptier than usual. What was that hero up to?
When she slipped through the southern gate, she couldn't see what everyone was gathered around. Through the unintelligible murmurs, she kept picking up a word.
Zonai .
Oh, Hylia and the guardian frogs. Purah pushed past a few Hylians, and her eyes settled on something she had never seen the likes of before. A jade-colored robot, collapsed into tiny pieces on the ground, with an intelligent, owl-like face. She knelt down. Purple sparks flickered between its limbs and body as it tried to right itself. For a moment, she saw its third eye light up, and it met hers.
"Miss Purah! Isn't it neat?" Josha crouched down beside her. "Mr. Link said he got it from the Depths!"
She looked up at Link, who was standing above the heap with his hands on his hips and a puzzled expression. "What's all this about, Linky?"
"I think you could fix her," Link replied.
Purah frowned. "I don't know that much about Zonai machinery. Are you sure there isn't someone else who could do it?"
Link shook his head.
Purah sighed, and stood up. "I'll take it, then. It might be a while before it's done, though."
"Can I help with any of it?" Josha asked.
"Tell you what," Purah said, adjusting her glasses, "if you can get ahold of any useful research or spare parts, I'll take them. And…tell everyone to defer to you for scouting mission planning and the like. I'll be busy."
Josha seemed stunned. "Me?"
"Of course. Do you think you can do it?"
"I'll try…" Josha fidgeted with one of her braids, thinking. "But if I can't figure something out, can I ask you?"
Purah nodded. "If I'm too busy, then ask Hoz."
With everything settled, the residents of Lookout Landing headed back into town. Link had used his strange new abilities to stick all of the robot's pieces together, and lifted them above his head with a large procession of onlookers surrounding him. It looked more like they were following a mysterious floating heap than a young man. She decided to stay behind the crowd.
Link had a good idea of where to put the parts, and deposited them just outside where she stayed, shaking the connective goop he had on it. Most of the onlookers had left, except Josha, who was still studying the robot.
"Perfect," Purah said, making her way up the stairs and moving the stool she had been sitting in earlier. "Do you know what happened?"
Link glanced up at her, and shrugged. "She broke down."
"Is she…meant for combat?" Purah tilted her head at Link's choice of pronoun.
Link nodded, and placed his right hand on what looked like the robot's chest, a large, round piece of material with a purple stone. Then he looked back at Purah, gesturing with his head towards her, as if he was introducing two friends. He took out the Purah Pad, tapped on it twice, and disappeared.
"That's Linky for you," Purah said, with palpable annoyance in her voice. "I'll look over her and see if there's any obvious damage."
She knelt down over the torso. The robot shivered, rattling pieces of itself all over the platform. Purah startled, then tentatively placed her hand on the robot like Link had. "Don't move around so much, please. I won't be able to figure out what's wrong, and you won't be able to help him."
The robot made a gentle whine as it shut down, and its pieces fell still.
"She listened!" Josha chirped. "That's so cool!"
"It is," Purah agreed. "But let's not get distracted by that. We have a lot of work ahead of us."
After working on the robot into the evening, Purah moved the pieces inside her room for safekeeping. Josha had brought her some relevant research to look at, carefully bookmarking every page that looked useful. So far she hadn't made much of a breakthrough. It was broken, that was obvious, but how, and why had it stopped working? Link had told her next to nothing, as he tended to do. She had to twist his ear to get him to tell her what had happened to his arm , for goodness sakes. As she pored over another sloppy paper on Zonai devices that apparently could hover, she saw something faded appear over the robot from the corner of her eye.
"Are you having difficulty with your reading?" a voice said.
Purah jumped, and turned to see a ghost sitting on her bed. She was tall and slender, with two long, white ears and thin gray arms covered in jewelry, a floating orange and black cloth weaving in between them. A gray wrap barely covered her breasts, extending down to her hips, where she wore loose skirts around her short legs.
"No," Purah blurted out, adjusting her glasses. "Why do you ask?"
The ghost tilted her head. "You were squinting."
Purah felt heat rise to her cheeks. "That happens sometimes. Don't worry about me, past midnight is when I work best." She adjusted her glasses again, this time more out of nervousness. "Um, are you the 'she' Link was referring to…?"
"I believe so. And you are the technician he has entrusted my construct with?"
"That's me," Purah said. "Call me Purah. Head of Lookout Landing…researcher, sort of." She struck a little pose, then yawned.
"...Mineru, Sage of Spirit." She smiled faintly. "I cannot help you physically, but I have some theories as to what happened."
"I would appreciate the help," Purah said. Really, she didn't have a clue as to what she was doing. Sheikah tech vastly differed from Zonai tech, in both function and form.
"You…would." Mineru placed a hand under her snout, and wrinkled her catlike nose. "Then I will certainly provide it. I believe there is a problem with its power dispersal unit. It may have been dislodged, or possibly broken."
Purah's eyes lit up. "Perfect! Where is it?"
"The standard location for a construct."
"I don't know where that is."
Mineru frowned. "How much do you know about our technology?"
"Not much," Purah said. Our? "Just what I've learned from hearsay, and what I've been reading."
"You are a researcher, are you not…? Haven't you seen the many constructs around your Hyrule?"
Your? Everything Mineru said gave Purah a dozen more questions to ask. "Oh, I have. But they only appeared about a month ago, so there hasn't been much in-depth stuff. It's not really my field, anyway." She rolled her eyes.
"What is your field, if I may inquire?"
"Sheikah technology."
Mineru put her hand on her chin again. "I have heard of this before. You created the Purah Pad, correct? I believe this technology was of great interest to someone I knew."
"No, my colleague developed most of it. I just thought Purah Pad was a better name than Robbie Pad— rolls off the tongue. I've been developing blueprints for Sheikah Towers after our tech disappeared." She felt her stomach twinge, and waved her hand in dismissal. "So, where's that power dispersal unit?"
For a few hours, the two of them worked together on the construct. Purah didn't have the right tools to work with Zonai tech, so after Mineru described what her tools had looked like in the past, the Sheikah researcher cobbled together something similar from old parts she had around her room.
"Aha!" When she was finished making one of the tools, she held it up triumphantly. "How's that?"
Mineru startled, and backpedaled a step. She had been looking over Purah's shoulder to watch her work. Leaning over, she examined the tool, then reached out to touch it, putting her hand right above Purah's. It went right through the tool, and Purah felt a strange energy rush through her body as Mineru's hand phased through hers.
The taller woman pulled her hand away. Her ears tilted towards the side, and she glanced away for a moment.
"Oh, do you want me to turn the tool around?" Purah asked.
Mineru nodded. "I wanted to feel it, but for a moment it seemed I had forgotten my current state."
"You're a Zonai ghost, right?" Purah said, turning the tool around slowly in her hand.
"Yes," Mineru said. "From many ages ago."
Purah squinted again, piecing together information in her mind. "Link said he saw a ghost named Rauru. I told him that was the name of the first king of Hyrule."
"I believe it was him," Mineru replied. "His spirit remained, to carry out the work required to keep his kingdom alive, and to assist Zelda's knight, as have I."
Purah stared at her. "...Zelda??"
"The princess from your time. She was transported to the past, and we met her. I assume you know who I am referring to?"
"Of course I do. The princess is— well, was? A friend of mine." Purah picked up her coffee cup, and finished the dregs of the drink. "She brings me coffee. Not to mention the Sheikah Tribe serving the royal family for generations." She put the drink down. "Linky never told me any of this. Everyone's been looking high and low, saying this and that about where Zelda's been and that they've seen her around, but I never heard that she went into the past ."
"Yeah, but he still followed her around like a lost puppy. Old habits die hard, I guess. I think she's gotten used to it by this point."
"She always saw the best in every situation," Mineru said. "She told me about how she had been displaced in time before. She steeled herself and carried on, keeping the memories she had of the past. I envy her strength."
"Nothing lasts forever." Unless you forced it to.
Mineru smiled sadly. "She would have said the same."
It turned out the power dispersal unit was near the back of the head, and completely fried. Some of the connectivity between the various pieces was poor, so not only would they need to replace the dispersal unit completely, they would need to recalibrate the connectivity between pieces. Mineru knew how to build the dispersal unit, but getting the materials and teaching Purah was a different matter.
"So, is there anything we can do without the parts?" Purah asked.
Mineru shook her head. "Not that I am aware of. I also fear you will not be able to find the specific components I need. I haven't seen them in this time."
"If we have all the basics, we can build it from scratch. That's what I always do."
"Cobbling a delicate piece of equipment together is not something I want to do, but if it is necessary…"
"Then it's building and testing time!" Purah exclaimed.
"...I question your enthusiasm."
"Come on, are you afraid of a few explosions? Mistakes are part of the process."
"I am aware, but I don't know if explosions are…ideal? We will need to plan, so as to not waste materials."
"The explosions aren't intentional. Usually. Of course I'll be careful! I wouldn't want to disappoint the king's sister, after all." Purah winked.
Mineru covered a smile that had started to form— or was it the sleep deprivation making Purah think that?
"...Anyway, I should probably go to sleep for a few hours," Purah said. "See you in the morning, I guess. Unless you're a hallucination."
"That would be very disappointing," Mineru replied. "Goodnight."
With that, Purah took off her glasses, undid her hair, and collapsed into bed.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Summary: Every other Sage had been given their roles by ancestors, previous inheritors of the Secret Stones and their power.
Except for Mineru.
In which Purah meets Mineru for the first time, helping her find out who should inherit her power and role of Sage of Spirit before she passes on. What Purah wasn't expecting was to get so attached in the process.
Decided to do some fandom writing for the first time in a hot minute. Minurah is one of my favorite pairings from recent memory, and it’s criminally underrepresented in terms of fanworks, so I figured I’d try my hand at it. Enjoy!
They could compare the technology from their different time periods
Purah is more chaotic and expressive, Mineru is more responsible and reserved, they'd play off of each other in some really interesting ways
Imagine the shenanigans if they worked on a project together
EDIT: I just realized that they also both have a younger sibling
I think that when they first start getting to know each other they'd clash over their differences, but as they get closer they'd realize they have more in common that they thought
(spoilers for the 5th sage quest under the cut)
Both have made inventions that increased their lifespan (kind of?)
Purah would be so interested in Mineru's robot body
They could even make Mineru some new bodies together!
