missed it by that much

"I could have sworn there was a Heart Container hidden somewhere on this battlefield!"

Lana hummed frustratedly to herself, passing the Summoning Gate from one shoulder to the other as she puzzled. An eye for treasure hiding in a heap of bones she surely had, but all of the keeps had proved empty - and they had captured all of the keeps, hadn't they? Lana ran over the list in her head, nodding at each memory of a shout from soldiers filtering in or Linkle clearing out. No, they'd actively captured every square, with only a few outposts passively assumed.

And the outposts...

"Maybe it wasn't a Heart Container?" Linkle offered, jerking Lana out of her reverie. "A secret costume, or a sealed weapon?"

Ever the optimist, wasn't she?

"No, no." Lana shook her head, smiling despite the correction. "No matter what it was, if it was hidden here, we would have found it by now. Hey, Link, we bombed all the freestanding boulders, right?"

Proxi responded in the affirmative, a little despondent-sounding.

"And I checked all the cliffs and vine walls..."

Lana's preoccupation continued as the girls counted and consolidated their spoils. Mostly fairy food (larvae and spores, too, yeugh! nothing properly appetizing like milk or fish) and old rags, though there were some more valuable monster parts scattered among the wreckage.

How horrible, to have trashed, if not desecrated, this land from another time, once and still home to holy sites and people's homes, and not even come away with the intended prize. Prize...as if. What prize could possibly be worth all this destruction?

Maybe, Lana thought guiltily, it was the privilege she now enjoyed of being able to fight alongside Linkle; to share her strength and protect someone else tangled with the hero's destiny, and even to scour the field, if fruitlessly, for usables to prevent total hopelessness going into the next scenario.

That was her job, after all - to prevent hopelessness? To stop Cia's weakness to destructive urges becoming the fate of all of Hyrule. To be the light pushing back against Ganondorf's darkness.

To be hope. Lana was here to represent hope. And who better to see that than Linkle?

So she shook off her worries and thought about all the treasure they'd found already - Rupees by the hundreds of thousands, into the millions, and enough Heart Containers to keep them breathing easy into the next epoch, and ancient, ornate weapons, and beautiful fairy clothing, and, oh, piles upon piles of shed scales, fangs, and leather from the Lizalfos family.

They lit a fire, later, soaking the rags in lantern oil. It had been a small party, for this mission: just Lana, Linkle, Link, and Sheik.

Usually, Lana would be the one feeling odd out, but it was Linkle, after all, who'd never held a piece of the Triforce, wasn't it?

And yet, there was probably no better candidate to lay hand and heart upon the sacred relic. Completely guileless, brave and bold, Linkle carried none of the darkness that had plagued the Guardian of Time; nor, honestly, any of the responsibility that set heavy on the wise ruler's shoulders.

Linkle was directionally challenged, and though Lana didn't know how to bring it up to her, she was starting to suspect that the young heroine had figured it out, given that she more and more often just silently followed along with the group, only occasionally perking up at crossroads to put her two Rupees in. She always fell back into the lead once they were on a straightaway, of course, but...well, Lana supposed Linkle was growing. Wisdom definitely wasn't her innate forte, though.

And, she wasn't as...conventionally powerful as Link, who wielded great gauntlets and abstruse artifacts with a certain sense of ease that none other could ever hope to replicate. The goddesses' chosen hero, indeed. Link was a knight, solemn and strong. It wasn't that Linkle couldn't wage destruction with the best of them, but power?

Well. Who should ever be entrusted with ultimate power? Much as the Triforce did guide the compass of their world, it also embodied its own power most principally. The power of the gods. Anyone who touched it should have eternity at their grasp, only able to be stopped and defeated by those who held the other sacred triangles.

"Say, Linkle."

She'd been busy tending to the stray Cuccos that had trickled out of Lana's gate, keeping them away from the fire but within the bounds of the cliff face under which they'd camped, to shelter from the wind. Oh, and what were they going to eat, anyway? Always something...

Linkle's bright face turned toward Lana, the fall of her hood so charming as it exposed her scruffy golden hair and sparkling blue eyes. "What's up?"

Trying not to squirm with the awkwardness of her question, Lana ran fingers over the worn edges of the tome that she always carried regardless of her primary weapon for the battle at hand. Sometimes it felt like she was nothing without her blue lightning, nothing distinct from Cia or any generic benevolent force.

Nothing to tie back to. Which was why... "If your grandmother had told you that you were destined to inherit the Triforce, would you have believed her?"

Linkle frowned, coming to sit next to Lana. "I mean, when Grandma told me I was secretly the legendary hero, I believed she was more right than anyone else's grandma, not just because she was mine but because I had her compass to prove it." She held it up to her cheek and flashed a grin. "Right?"

Lana couldn't help but smile in kind. "Right. But the Triforce..."

"Anybody can be reborn as the Hero. I'm still certain I was - after all, I met all of you!"

So unerring. So hopeful. And Lana, who was never truly that hopeful, even though she always tried to see so much good, was one of those fantastical people Linkle saw as confirmation of her heroic status. She didn't even bother asking what of Link. Linkle was probably happy to share, and for Lana, whose entire existence hinged on not wanting to share...well, it didn't do to think about.

"But, I don't think I really need the Triforce to help people," Linkle said, nodding in self-affirmation and ignorance of Lana's internal plight. "My grandma's compass guides me, and I can figure out the rest." She shrugged, gave a kick of her heels. The fire kept crackling, unbothered.

"But what if the Triforce were right in front of you?" Lana pressed. "What would you do then?"

Linkle grinned again. "I'm sure I couldn't do any worse with it than anyone else! Not that much worse, anyway. A pure heart's the key, right?"

Maybe it was just Lana's lot, as Cia's brighter half, to be drawn to this endless bubbling spark of hope. And, she reasoned, she didn't have to worry about Linkle going anywhere when their journey was over. She'd probably be perfectly happy just to return to her village and care for her Cuccos again. Unless there was more trouble, in which case the awakened hero(ine) would never back down.

"Yes," said Lana. "A heart as pure as the gold of your compass." She placed a hand over her friend's, atop her thigh, in the gap between tunic and boot. "And yours is, Linkle."

Never a dark mood. Never a thought of revenge. Never a plea to let her give up.

Though Linkle accepted the touch and squeezed back, she seemed dissatisfied. "Is that really always enough, though? Like, would someone like me really be strong enough to keep the Triforce out of the hands of someone like Ganondorf?"

Or, Lana supplied the disjunction to herself, someone weak-hearted and susceptible to manipulation, like Cia? So surely Lana herself wasn't much better.

She stayed silent for a bit, selfishly allowing herself the treasure of Linkle's warm hand, even gloved, for just a few moments. These were heavy questions, yet Linkle's resolve hadn't bucked one iota. Well, maybe she was a little doubtful, but anyone should be. It just went to prove how much growing she'd done. Just as a hero should.

Lana laughed a humorless laugh at the thought that occurred to her: "Imagine if the Triforce had been that treasure we were looking for. And imagine how close we'd have come, only to miss it, just barely."

"Just goes to show," Linkle replied, echoing Lana's mental judgement, "how careful we have to be, with whatever we find! I'm learning that it's really a great responsibility, to be the hero."

Unable to stop herself any longer, Lana sighed, petulant. "But you don't ever show it, Linkle."

Linkle's eyes twinkled, because of course they did. "Maybe I should! I'm not always as thorough as I'd like to be. And Grandma's compass can't show me EVERYTHING. It's not even like we were trying to kill less of the bad guys. We just...missed something. More to know for next time!"

Lana wanted to bury her head in her hands. More than that, she wanted to bury her head in Linkle's arms. But, still, she was encouraged by that estimation of the scenario. As long as they learned something from every battle, and were intentional...

Well, if that were true, then anyone could bear the Triforce, and not see the world fall to ruin because of it. But maybe that was still a big ask.

"Thanks, Linkle," Lana said, going with her gut and resting her head on Linkle's shoulder. Linkle, content, just smiled.

any resemblance to some given specific scenario in the game is purely coincidental. i was quite lazy and also avoidant of overengineered complication