"That's good. Any of the Divine Beasts or spirit orbs happen to be in nice places you want to visit together?"

"Maybe! I've already been to the places I want to show you first, so less likely, but still."

"Do you have a map you could show me where we're going on and where the other Divine Beasts are?"

The Sheikah Slate has a map. "I think one is up here, on Death Mountain. You can see something big moving around up there sometimes. And I heard from the Rito that there's a big desert with people living in it down this way, where it's still blank. There's also a jungle to the south, probably people living in there somewhere. They might know where it is."

"Can we get where we're going the same way you got to the shrine from Vah Ruta?"

"That would be super convenient, but the Sheikah Slate doesn't like bringing other people along. It's annoying. Traveling the long way can be relaxing in some ways, though. You get more of a sense of the land than hopping around all the time does."

"If I were a force mage I could just fly us wherever we're going." Sigh. "At least we can gather food on the way, right?"

"Yeah, and I have plenty saved up for emergencies. What, you don't like travel? Maybe you'll change your mind when you see some more landscape. Zora's Domain is really pretty, right?"

"Zora's Domain is great! Landscapes are great! Being with you is great! Maybe I'll find out I like being attacked by monsters every day once I've tried it."

"Ah, it's the monsters... I'll deal with those. But I can see how they're worrying."

Eventually there are baths.

The trees await them.

Trying to hack together a raft is an interesting way to spend a morning! Link cuts down a bunch of trees and helps Valanda arrange them and tie things together. A few Zora drop by and give advice.

The result is not a great raft, but a reasonably large and sturdy-looking one. At some point Link finds a nice straight stick of about the right length and width and balance and tries to teach Valanda basic self-defense.

He takes to the training pretty well. Not nearly well enough to justify how proud he looks about it but better than most people would be who've never picked up a weapon before.

"How long does it take to be able to kill monsters?"

"Longer than this. Don't get ahead of yourself."

In two quick moves, Link sends Valanda's weapon flying and puts her own stick against his throat. "Don't feel too bad about that either, I'm very good at this. Also, you want to learn to stay alive in a fight, not to kill monsters in one. Next lesson is blocking and dodging..."

Well that's hot.

"How do I figure out when to block and that kind of thing?"

Link tosses Valanda's practice stick back. "Practice and guidance with someone who isn't actually trying to kill you. I'll hit hard enough to hurt, though - pain is a good teacher. Watch this, if I swing like this-" She swings, but doesn't quite complete the motion "-You want to dodge backwards instead of blocking the hit if you can. If you step back, you're still on balance but now I'm overextended, see, and I have to take a moment to get my balance back..." The lesson continues.

"Watch your stance, you'll fall over like that."

"Good block, but stay focused! A bokoblin won't stop to compliment you!"

"You're doing better than I expected, you know. This isn't really something you get good at in a day."

"Do all the species here fight the same way? With the same kind of weapons?"

"There's a lot of similarities for most of us, yeah. I'm not teaching you to use a bow and arrow yet, we can try that if you want. Monsters have different styles but tend to hit others with sharp things or use bows and arrows more or less the same way. Not even gonna think about showing you how to fight mounted, that's very hard to pull off and I bet you don't know how to ride a horse at all."

"...ride a horse? No, never heard of that. So monsters usually walk on two legs and have hands?"

"Mostly, yes. Chuchu, keese, guardians, and octoroks are exceptions to that. We might see chuchu, keese, and octoroks. I can tell you about them if you're curious? But Guardians are very dangerous, and we're going to give them a wide berth."

"Definitely tell me what to avoid. What makes them so dangerous?"

"Guardians are kind of like giant spiders... Shaped like pots. Agh. I'll draw one... Here. They shoot blasts of light that explode when they hit. Extremely dangerous. I've mostly killed the old broken-down ones before. Only got one that was still in good condition once. So we're gonna do our best to avoid them."

"...Yeah. Yes. Good idea, let's avoid those."

"The route I picked out doesn't have any. They mostly stick to Akkala in the north and the Hyrule Field in the center of the kingdom - we're skirting to the east. Worst we'll face is some Lizalfos."

By the time they're done with the lesson and the raft he's asked about all the monsters she's mentioned.