Nod. He taps his Sheikah Slate to the pedestal—hopefully duplicating it didn't do something weird—no, it works. The doors slide open.

He gives Zelda one last nod before he steps into the descender platform.

She looks around, decides that her safest vantage is probably on top of the shrine, climbs it, and sits down to play with her pockets. Bowl of stew? Just as warm as it was when she first pocketed it. Live lizards? Still a no-go on the live lizards. Bundle of mushrooms? Absolutely. Empty stew bowl? Just as it was when she finished eating. Empty stew bowl completely clean of stew? She has to position her thoughts on the matter very carefully, but she can do it.

There is a pile of miscellaneous food-related items accumulating in front of her and she will soon have to start throwing them off the top of the shrine.

...wait... can she vanish things by putting them back into her pocket? She tries it with a pepper cube first, and not a full bowl of stew. It takes a few tries, but she manages it! She settles in contentedly to practice vanishing things, saving the messiest ones for last.

The top of the mountain is peaceful, and no monsters nor wildlife see fit to disturb her science. The wind is blowing, but between her clothes and the peppers—and her enhancements—it's nothing to bother her.

If she takes a break to enjoy the scenery, however, she might notice a figure lurking behind a tree some way down the southern slope, not really moving.

She pauses.

She considers her response.

Eventually she settles on a friendly wave.

The figure emerges from behind the tree, but does not quite meet her eyes.

He presses his staff into the snow before him. But then his shoulders slacken, and the old cane fades away to nothing, like it never was, and his hands fall to his sides, closed into fists.

...this is not a conversation best had from a slightly farcical vantage. She hops off the top of the shrine, landing lightly on the transport pad in front of it, and takes a few hesitant steps toward him.

He will not make her wait. As footsteps take him towards the shrine, his tattered disguise begins to burn away in ghostly flames.

The royal garb left behind is charred and ripped. A great gash cuts down his sternum, ridged in dried blood. There is nothing through the gap. A crown sits atop his head, half-molten. The erstwhile King bears no regal poise, no puffed-up chest. He looks as he did in those last days, when Zelda would glimpse him alone in his study after dusk, talking to old paintings. But—older, and more tired.

"I have not seen you in very long, my daughter," he murmurs, almost too quiet to hear.

She has, it turns out, a lot of things to say to him. Too many. And half of them are the coldly furious words of a stranger who's offended that he compares unfavourably to her impossibly wonderful family. Those ones, she thinks, do not get a seat at this metaphorical table.

But what comes out is, "I'm sorry I wasn't in time to save you."

He shakes his head.

"It was not meant to be. The King... dies with his kingdom."

She shakes her head angrily, but then sighs, her anger subsiding.

"I guess it would all come out the same in the end, a century later. ...what have you done with Link's glider?"

He's pulls the paraglider out from shimmering air under his coat.

"I planned to give it to him after he completed the shrines on this plateau. I feared that he would set off in undue haste otherwise.

"I... am sorry about your mother."

"Aren't we all."

"I fear that all I did was only to harm you. In the end, how did..."

"How did I find my power? I... still don't know. It came to me in the last moment when all seemed lost, which makes for a pretty story until you realize it means that if it's really how things work then everything I've ever done to become stronger and better prepared only made things worse. Maybe the difference was that for once in my life I had something to protect that I cared about for my own sake and not out of duty. I really couldn't say."

"A cruel joke the Goddess plays on us. All our well-laid plans to only bring ruin."

He looks to the east.

"What shall you do now?"

"...save the world, obviously."

"Did you know that the stones that make up Hyrule Castle were enchanted?"

"—I've seen it mentioned in books, yes. Why?"

He lets out a deep sigh.

"Have you wondered why the great magics were laid in the deep foundation stones of the castle, not the walls?

"One year after I married your mother..."

He shakes his head.

"I have told you that no one is ever to venture beneath Hyrule Castle."

She listens alertly. "Yes, I remember."

"It is a warning passed down for countless generations. What it is of has been long lost in the telling. But when the signs of Calamity Ganon became nigh... I cannot tell you what it is I suspect. I do not know myself.

"When Ganon launched his brutal assault that day, he came out of nowhere. But if I were forced to say what it looked like..."

"...like he came up from beneath the castle," she murmurs.

He nods slowly.

"I do not know what the first Kings of Hyrule feared. But the legends say—in the folktales and old songs—the Calamity returns stronger time after time. And our Kingdom... Hyrule... you know, as much as we've tried to hide it."

"I know. How could I not?"

She takes a deep breath.

"I'm going to fix it."