"Well, all right." She pays the exact amount of what she took, and smiles at Paya. "Thank you for being our guide today! I think you can show us to the inn now."

Paya nods and leads the way. The inn turns out to be just opposite the grocery store. A man in an apron is sweeping when they come in, but stands to attention quickly when Paya enters.

After a moment of conference with the him, Paya turns to Link and Zelda and says, "We'll be covering your stay... whenever you're here, not just this time. If you don't have any questions, I'll leave you with Milo?"

"I think we'll be all right. Thanks again!"

Paya makes a small noise of affirmation and strikes a retreat. Milo shrugs and puts down his broom by the wall. He heads towards the stairs, gesturing at them to follow.

"Room preferences? One room, two rooms, how many beds, window facing directions? Communal facilities only for south-facing."

"One room, two beds, please. North-facing, if possible?"

Milo introduces them to their room, explains the indoor plumbing in case they're unfamiliar, informs them of mealtimes—food's paid for with their board—and finishes with, "Tell me, Rudo or Pico if you're checking out or going away for more than two days. One of us will be downstairs any time of the day."

Then he leaves them to their room. It's tidy and in good condition, with fresh sheets and decent furnishings, not exactly a royal residence, but better than most accommodations they stayed in while travelling about before the Calamity. The window offers a view over the rooftops of the village.

Zelda sits down on the bed farther from the door.

"Well. Here we are." She pulls a fresh pastry out of her pocket and holds it out. "Hungry?"

Link takes a bit, chews thoughtfully, and nods in approval.

"What now?"

"We could look at the shrines we skipped over on the way here," she suggests. "Or you could, and I could stay here, or wait for you at the shrine by the village. After that... now that I know Purah is still around, I want to see what she has to say about our Slates. And my ability to summon more of them. I'm hoping she can get them sharing information with each other, which would be very convenient. But that seems like perhaps a journey to set out on after we've slept at least once."

"I can complete the shrines when you train," he says. "But I still don't know how to use the power from them. Who could help?"

"I'm... not sure about that. There should be a way..." She thoughtfully nibbles a pocket pastry. "The messages in the shrines don't say anything specific about it?"

He shrugs. "They just say the fate of Hyrule is in our hands and so on." He thinks for a second. "Maybe I should meditate? The corpses were in meditative poses."

"A promising avenue of exploration. If that doesn't turn anything up... I'll think about it."

Link looks out the window at the lanterned streets.

"So—tomorrow towards Hateno Village, and teleport back in the afternoon to see about your training?"

"I think so, yes. If we use this inn as our home base we can do a lot of journeying one morning or day at a time as long as we keep finding shrines along the way."

Link nods.

"Dinner?" He looks round the room. "What time is it?"

Her Slate knows the answer to that question! She checks it.

"Half past six. They should be serving dinner in another half an hour."

He wonders if there are other guests. Didn't see any but they might just not be about.

"I'll spend a while meditating," he decides.

She nods agreeably.

So he will sit on his bed and attempt to meditate.

It is quickly obvious that he does not know how to meditate. There is not an atomic action of mystic introspection he can perform. He just sort of sits there thinking about nothing and trying to contact this ephemeral power inside him that doesn't actually have any sort of interactivity more than, say, the sense of being full after a meal.

He gives it a good shot nonetheless, but the half hour passes agonizingly slowly, and at the end there's not really much he's made of it.

Zelda, meanwhile, has been thinking.

It feels like she hasn't had a chance to stop and think since she... has... existed? She's existed for a hundred and seventeen years. But this form of her, this newly made body, this person who remembers being two people—she has only existed for a very short time indeed, and has spent nearly all of it busy in one way or another.

Traveling with Link, it's easy to... let Zelda be all she is. But she feels that this is doing both of herself a disservice. She has more breadth of experience than that, and she should use it. She shouldn't think of herself as Zelda-plus-shenanigans. She is both people.

For example! Both of her have a penchant for organization and scheduling, but Zelda tends to use her memory for things that Rosy would write down, and she's starting to suspect that the inclusion of Rosy in the mix is making her a little worse at her usual memory tricks, and she has not compensated by starting to write things down. She should check in Hateno if the Slate has a notetaking app, or can be made to have one—another useful concept courtesy of her other half—and either way, in the interim, she should semi-urgently keep an eye out for the chance to pocket some writing materials.

What else, what else... her fingers itch for a sparkly pink gel pen. This world has not invented sparkly pink gel pens. Perhaps the Sheikah had them but she doubts it, on the whole. It feels... good, though? It feels good to miss the things that Rosy misses. It feels like being more whole.

She really hasn't... processed this very much, has she. It's been go go go since she got here. She literally physically hit the ground running. And she's been neatly eliding the details of her duplicate personality the same way she neatly elides the details of her strange powers, to nearly everyone she meets.

...is there anyone in this world she can have a conversation with, about this? Link, for all his many strengths, isn't really someone you can Talk To About Your Feelings. Impa... Impa might be closest, but across the gulf of a century, Zelda isn't sure how to relate to her. And... also isn't sure she knew how to relate to her even before that century. On reflection, Zelda isn't sure she has ever had the affordance to talk about her feelings to another person. Perhaps this, like the concept of notetaking apps, is a technology she should be thinking about how to import.

Okay. Action items: Acquire writing materials. See about Slate notetaking when they make it to Hateno. See about a private chat with Impa at some point, in case figuring out how to talk about your feelings is as simple as sitting in a room with someone you trust and care about and letting your thoughts fall out your mouth of their own accord, which it manifestly isn't, see also: Link. And maybe try to arrange to have more of these stretches of time where she is neither Actively Doing Anything nor Passively Processing The Sight Of Her Father Disintegrating Before Her Eyes. All set? All set.

She sits up in her bed, unvanishes the pastry she was in the middle of, and takes a few more bites.

Link is... bored.

He sneaks a glance at Zelda when she sits up. He wonders what she's been thinking about so hard.

"Nothing," he finally says as she starts snacking. "I can try again tonight..."

Wait.

"Maybe I need to sleep?" he says dubiously.

"Maybe. You'll find out once you've slept, I guess. Anyway," she checks her Slate, "it's just about time for dinner." Pastry returns to pocket. She's going to look like such an incredible gremlin to anyone who doesn't know her secrets, but the Eternal Pocket Pastry is just so convenient.

Link nods and gets up.

Downstairs, Milo is just setting out the tables. Dinner is no five-course meal, but it's good and hearty, and Link can't find any complaints. It's served with a red bean dessert that can be sneakily enpocketed, even.

A few other guests show up. A painter with paintbrushes pinned in his hair and a large covered canvas under his arm. A dark-haired man in spectacles who tromps in drenched and dripping from head to toe, despite the clear weather  outside. A woman carrying what looks like a chunk of a Guardian's chassis.

She wants to ask the drippy one what he did but fears the social consequences.

...she is unable to contain herself about the Guardian part. "Ooh, where'd you get that?"