"How many?"

"Weird, you can conjure previous reincarnations? Wait, does everyone have reincarnations or just Link and Zelda?"

"Hundreds and I haven't tried anyone else, do you want me to check you?"

"Yeah!"

(Purah does not have any previous incarnations.)

"What are the implications, though, that they're the same people reincarnated over and over... and what does 'favored children of Hylia' that even mean?"

"It is only a loose pharsing, I am afraid. They are special in some way, it is clear, but the precise character of it has never been told."

"No more Purahs."

"Hmm."

"So the ancient Sheikah knew that I would reappear?"

He knew this, in theory, but now that they're talking about the inhabitants of ancient Hyrule like actual people who existed and made decisions, it feels... disquieting.

"They knew of your eternal cycle. And they knew that in ages past, the Calamity had been beaten back by your incarnations. Anything more specific... memory fades, that far back, but I do not believe so."

"If this has been going on for this long I'm not actually confident I'm enough of an out of context input to... meaningfully affect it, as opposed to maybe making this iteration go a little faster."

"Calamity Ganon has waxed ever stronger in his iterations for all that I remember. If you cannot destroy him, then in another forty thousand years, fifty... hope may need to be abandoned for this world."

His leaves rustle.

"I wondered if the Sheikah had made a terrible mistake in their calculations, but if you here, young girl, says the truth, their plans fell to intrigue and treason, not shortfall of genius. Perhaps..."

"You think it could have worked?"

"It is what they petitioned my wisdom on. Ten thousand years ago, I said I did not see any reason it could not succeed. The only new evidence that has surfaced to the contrary is their failure.

"Such a bold and terrible endeavour has never been attempted before. I do not believe... in all my life, it has been possible before. The rivers of the world are at low tide, in this era. In the long past, it would have been as draining the seas dry.

"There were once old gods and goddesses that drank of the well of creation as those Divine Beasts of yours do, but a being of magic cannot exhaust its own life source without perishing. The Sheikah's devices can take and take without falter until the last light gutters from the old fairy groves, and still stand, no lesser for their crime."

"So to you, young man, I would urge—it is not so that what has not been done can never be done. What a world that would be! It is the mayfly lives that bring about great turns of the ages. It is stone and steel that shape the ages, for all the gods wish to pretend. You have the tools to destroy or remake Hyrule in your hands. Ponder it wisely."

"I hope to be helpful! It just seems like most of the action is happening on a level I cannot directly affect. Maybe I will mostly be useful for handling the agricultural revolution once there isn't enough magic to make apple trees pop up full size in weeks."

"We may still yet need Divine Beasts conjured! Haven't ruled that out yet!"

She pauses.

"Actually, do things you conjure have to be things that existed, or can you create from a schematic?"

"...Also, if you can interpolate the Blights," Link feels the need to point out.

"I can create from a schematic, and, yes, I should interpolate a Blight and see if that helps."

"Okay! Awesome!" Purah claps her hands delightedly. "That expands our solution space a lot!

She scribbles in her notebook.

"Here's the game plan: us researchers and Mr Deku Tree here put our heads together to understand what exactly was going on back in ye old ancient times, while you go test out your snazzy powers... hey, what's going on with the sword that seals the darkness, anyway?"

She waves at the sword in the pedestal.

"I'm not powerful enough to draw it."

"In... what sense. Never mind, you'll figure it out! "Anyway. If we can conjure arbitrary schematics, we can do things like—encase the whole of Hyrule Castle in a planar isolation dome and drain it without breaking everything else, at the least."

"Zelda's in the castle."

"...Oh, yeah! Whoops, good thing you reminded me! We might want to try out that 'attempt to contact Princess Zelda' project we were talking about earlier. We just need more information, we need—samples. If you're going off looking for a Blight. Cam, can you create a box around something? Say a..." she flips through her notebook. "...Chi-Matter Containment Unit III. Shouldn't need power."

"I have to be able to target it but no reason I shouldn't be able to in principle."

"Great!" She writes down the name and tears it out of her book to show him. "If you can make one of these to trap part of the Blight, or failling that, some of that awful goop they leave lying around, and bring it back, that would be super useful! It's about this size"—she gestures a span about the size of her whole body—"so that would be a hand or something, if I'm remembering that thing right."

"So, to-do list: you and Link investigate the Scourge of Akkala Citadel, Symin, Robbie, the Deku Tree and I on the archaeoengineering and history books, once you're back we put our heads together, figure out a way to talk to Princess Zelda, and see how we want to play it from there."