Third-Person – Focus on Purah – Tone: Intense, slightly unsettling, romantic tension with a hint of unraveling obsession
---
Purah didn't sleep.
Not anymore.
Not after the Tear flared to life.
For weeks, she had picked through forgotten Zonai ruins, studied unstable Shiekah data cores, argued with ghosts in the Depths — all for answers to a problem that shouldn't have existed.
There had been a ripple in the spiritual grid. An anomaly.
At first, she thought it was interference from another dormant Sage relic. A static echo.
But then she saw the readings.
The energy wasn't ancient.
It was alive.
---
It began with dreams.
Unprompted memories that didn't belong to her. A voice she didn't recognize whispering numbers and names into her sleep. She dismissed them at first — sleep-deprivation hallucinations. A side effect of overuse of the Purah Pad's experimental memory-link interface.
But then she dreamed of him.
A boy with starlight in his eyes.
Standing in the Temple of Time. Laughing beside Mineru. Holding hands with Zelda in a field that didn't exist anymore.
And when she woke up, she found those locations — exactly as they were in the dream. Coordinates burned into her brain like a curse.
It didn't make sense.
None of it did.
Until she saw him.
---
Now, standing at the edge of the sky island, staring at the boy with the glowing Tear on his hand, Purah felt something she hadn't felt in years.
Fear.
Not because he was dangerous — though he clearly was.
Not because he was unknown — though her entire database had zero results on his existence.
No.
It was because for the first time since becoming Purah the Genius, Purah the Eternal Young, Purah the Mind that Even the Sages Feared…
She wanted something she couldn't explain.
And it wasn't data.
It was him.
---
He stood still, eyes narrowed. Wary, but not hostile. The mark on his hand pulsed with Balance — something that shouldn't even exist, not in this era, not without the Triforce itself reshaping reality.
Purah took a step closer, her boots scraping lightly against the platform.
"I always knew Hylia lied," she said, eyes glinting behind the lenses. "But I didn't think the lie would be you."
The boy didn't respond. He watched her, the way one might watch a wolf across the firelight.
Smart.
She liked that.
Her smile widened.
"You don't remember me yet, do you?"
He blinked. "Should I?"
Purah's heart skipped.
> Good. That means I get to make you remember me.
From scratch.
She closed the gap between them in three strides, stopping just shy of touching his arm. The Tear flared once, reacting to her proximity. It made her breath hitch.
"You've activated something ancient," she said, voice hushed. "Older than the Goddess. Older than the cycle."
"I didn't ask to," he murmured.
"That's the best part," she replied, grin sharpening. "You're not bound by rules. You're an error in the timeline."
Then, softer, almost reverent:
> "And I've always loved solving for X."
---
A gust of wind swept across the platform, brushing his cloak against her. She didn't move away. Her mind was working faster than lightning, already calculating simulations — where he came from, what his presence meant for the Flow of Time, how much of him she could safely contain—
No.
Not contain.
Protect.
That was a more… acceptable word.
She'd seen the look in Zelda's eyes recently.
The vacant stares. The way she'd whisper names under her breath. The quiet pacing in the halls of Lookout Landing. Always near a certain ruined map. Always sketching a certain face.
Purah had seen the signs.
Zelda was dreaming of him too.
> No no no no…
Her fingers twitched.
Zelda was the Princess.
But Purah was the Mind.
And if this boy was the spark that could unravel — or rewrite — the cycle of endless suffering, she would be the one to guide him.
Not Link.
Not Mineru.
Not even Zelda.
Just her.
---
"I want to run a scan on your Tear," she said quickly, trying to sound professional even as her pulse spiked. "Compare the Balance signature against known Zonai data. I can do it back at my lab."
He hesitated. "You want me to trust you?"
She leaned in. Close enough that her voice was almost a whisper against his ear.
> "You don't have a choice."
His eyes narrowed. "That sounds a little… yandere."
She smiled sweetly.
Then said, without blinking:
> "Oh. Darling. You don't know the half of it."