The creature's final question—what will you choose to be when you finally hit the bottom?—hung in the dead air of the canyon. Link, his body a symphony of fractures and pain, realized with a chilling certainty that he was already there. He was at the bottom. He was broken, alone, and trapped at the feet of a being whose power was as vast and as indifferent as the sky itself.
He looked at the creature, and for the first time since he had left Ordon, his eyes formed a silent, desperate plea. Help me.
The creature, who had returned its attention to the fire, seemed to hear the unspoken words. It did not turn its head. "The walls are steep," it observed calmly, as if discussing the weather. "Your arm is broken. Your ankle is sprained. Unfortunate." It then produced a bright red apple from a fold in its simple tunic—an apple that could not possibly have grown in this desolate canyon—and took a crisp, loud bite. "If you wish to leave," it said, chewing thoughtfully, "you will have to climb."
The finality of the statement was absolute. There would be no magical healing. There would be no helping hand. This was his problem, and his alone.
The first week was an ordeal of pure, animal survival. The pain was a constant, white-hot fire in his arm and leg. With a grit that bordered on inhuman, Link managed to set the broken bone in his arm himself, a crude and agonizing process using a flat piece of shale for a splint and a strap cut from his own leather belt. He found a small trickle of water seeping from the canyon wall and ate the strange, tasteless moss that grew beside it.
His first attempts to climb were a pathetic, humiliating failure. He would find a handhold with his good arm, try to pull himself up, and a searing bolt of agony from his injured ankle would send him collapsing back to the canyon floor in a heap of shame and pain.
All the while, the creature simply sat by its impossible, eternal campfire, which never seemed to need more wood. It ate its endless supply of apples, watching Link's struggles with a look of detached, academic curiosity. Sometimes, it would offer a casual observation.
"Pain is an excellent teacher," it remarked as Link cried out in silent frustration. "It reminds the body that it is mortal."
The second week, his frustration began to curdle into the familiar, cold rage that the old man had taught him to cherish. The physical pain had dulled to a persistent, grinding ache, and his Hylian body, blessed by the Triforce, was already beginning to mend. He decided to use the old man's philosophy. He would turn his pain into a weapon.
He focused on his hatred of his own weakness, on his fury at this indifferent god, and he threw himself at the canyon wall, trying to conquer it with sheer, aggressive will. The rage gave him strength, but it made him reckless. He would climb higher this time, his muscles screaming, his mind a storm of fury, but his movements were clumsy. His injured foot would slip on a patch of loose gravel, or he would trust a handhold that was not secure, and he would fall again, his progress undone, his body newly bruised.
"Your anger makes you strong, but foolish," the creature observed, tossing an apple core into the fire. "Your spirit burns hot enough to melt stone, but it has no focus. It is a fire without a forge."
Defeated, Link tried the other path. He remembered the lessons of the Deku Tree and the Sage. He sat, trying to meditate, to find a quiet center, to let the frustration wash over him. But the constant, indifferent presence of the creature, the rhythmic, mocking crunch of its apple-eating, made it impossible. There was no peace to be found at the bottom of this hole.
The creature seemed to notice this attempt, too. "Your peace makes you calm, but weak. It accepts the reality of the stone, so it does not try to climb." It sighed, a sound of profound, cosmic boredom. "You are a house divided, child. A warrior's rage and a priest's patience, both fighting for a room that is too small."
The third week, something changed. Link, having failed with both rage and peace, was left with nothing. Nothing but the simple, hard reality of his situation. He was a boy with a broken arm at the bottom of a canyon. The philosophies of others, the lessons of gods and monsters, were useless here.
He stopped trying to conquer the wall. He began to study it.
He spent days just watching the path of the sun, noting which parts of the cliff face were in shadow and when, where the rock was driest, where the wind was weakest. He memorized every crack, every crevice, every potential handhold. He began a new kind of training. He would practice his grip with his good hand on a low boulder, hanging for hours until the muscles burned. He would do slow, painful exercises with his injured leg, carefully rebuilding its strength. He was not trying to force a solution. He was adapting, learning, preparing. He was becoming a creature of the canyon.
He had accepted the indifference of the world, and in doing so, had begun to master it.
The creature, for the first time, seemed to watch his new methods with a flicker of genuine interest. It stopped eating its apple for a long moment, its ancient, knowing eyes observing the boy's patient, meticulous work. "Ah," it whispered to itself, a smile touching the corner of its lips. "The pebble learns that it is made of stone."
A month had passed since the fall. His arm was a network of angry scar tissue, but the bone was mended, the pain a dull memory. His ankle was strong enough to bear his weight. He had a path. He had a plan. He was no longer fueled by the hot fire of rage or the cool embers of hope. He was fueled by a cold, practical, and absolute resolve.