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The following is a Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild fanfiction, featuring Zelda interacting with a society of micro-sized people. Contains themes of micro-sized interactions; mass abduction/captivity; crush/destruction; giant breaths; feet/footwear; surviving off a giant body; sweat; ear play + ear wax; hair; insect interaction.]
Routine had roughly returned to the New Empire – two weeks of their time since having been abducted from their homeland. Farmers tended to crops, traders took part in commerce, and in their few sparse hours of free time, they played games and made jokes. Some could even relax after a hard day’s work, regardless if the blonde-haired goddess was looming beyond their horizon with her celestial eyes watching over their society. Her presence had become an everyday part of their lives, a harbinger of both blessings and destruction; she continued to provide sustenance and water that was essential for minish civilization, yet she also acted upon the cities without warning, effortlessly undoing hours or days of labor whenever she grazed a place with her finger or allowed a stray hair to befall a community.
As that was often the case, the minish responded with crucial expansion efforts to spread out across their table of a landscape. They acted fast, even from their tiny perspectives, quickly laying down foundations for new colonies that would soon become fully-realized towns. Of the four regions that remained on the desk, each had a ring of subsidiary communities gradually growing each day – a development that the goddess seemingly permitted, having yet done little to investigate or interfere. They were unaware how ecstatic their progress truly made the goddess, that they were expanding exactly as she had hoped; they simply survived, day to day, attempting to make the best of their lowly, displaced circumstance. They had lists of unsolved questions regarding the goddess, but had since learned to best live under her influence – always wary of when she would next inflict some unexplained terror upon them.
But none were more motivated to monitor the goddess’s behavior than District Minister Jokari, whose appointed role had not distracted him from his main ambitions. With his privileges as a government figure, he was able to discreetly direct resources towards his personal goal: the construction of a working telescope, with which he could watch the goddess more closely. It needed to be large, and so his office was adapted into an observatory; he planned to study the goddess from his balcony, where he currently stood, planning its completion around what was thus far half-built.
Of course, Jokari also kept on the goddess that moment, often looking away from his project and up into the sky, where her head was held like the sun, providing a warm glow from her complexion. He was entranced with her minute movements – the heaviness of her blinks, the breeziness of her breaths, the rumble of her slightest shift – and, from watching her so much, seemed to sense when she would eventually leave. Indeed, she soon moved away from the desk, departing with a sigh that was a wind across the empire. Jokari watched her lift high away and leave, as did thousands of other minish, though he was the only one not relieved by her absence – bitter, in fact, that he would have to wait days again for her to return so closely.
Fortunately, he had come to understand the goddess’s schedule, more keenly than most anyone else in the empire. Though he could only ponder what grand and divine tasks she set out to perform, he had at least developed an idea of her routine – times she would leave her chamber and return long later, and times she was asleep, not so far, but out of view of the minish. Jokari inferred from how she turned away that it would be an instance of the former, and so she would be gone for several days. By then, he hoped, his telescope would be finished, and he could peer at his obsession and study every tremendous feature he could see; it was the closest he figured he would ever get to her, unless fate changed and the goddess saw his district fit for intervention. That would be a dream come true for Jokari, raptured by the goddess and relocated onto her holy body…
Attitudes were mixed, however, among the populations that had endured such a godly decision. Since first having arrived in the goddess’s domain, there had been three distinct colonies seeded elsewhere from the desk. Two had been planted onto her personally: the crown colony and the ear colony.
The crown colony had adapted surprisingly well to their jungle environment, utilizing the vast natural resources to their advantages. They had expanded across the scalp, developing houses made of tiny trimmings and dandruff, building up the huge hairs to establish treetop-like homes, and even burrowing into thicker fibers to turn them into households. Sweat frequently threatened their budding civilization, but ingenious dams and waterways helped prevent flooding and instead direct that liquid to be purified into usable water. Occasionally, the goddess’s fingers would comb the land, mangling their efforts – but they managed to survive, taking emergency shelter into bunkers that could withstand the storm of her scratching her head, outlasting the itch and left with untangling their lives from giant knots.
The ear colony was not so fortified compared to the crown colony. Made of a smaller population and with less resources to utilize, the minish living inside the goddess’s ear were frequently devastated by her impacts. Every itch or impulse was an unpredictable disaster, creating constant anxiety for the people; at any moment, they might be assaulted by a monstrous fingertip drilling into the canal, or oppressed by a twisting knuckle that massaged the area. As their most abundant material was the goddess’s ear wax, their homes were often dragged away – scraped off by a relentless nail, rolled into a ball of mush and never seen again. Their best defense was to bury deeper into the cavern, away from her touches; the cramped, humid environment had lists of effects on their society, resulting in a high-tension civilization of people with no room to expand. Indeed, when they dug too far into the canal and reached her mighty ear drum, they suffered for their curiosity, triggering a finger to attack the colony and nearly annihilate them. They thus lived delicately and privately, humbly surviving, few daring to venture her long earlobe and settle somewhere more open.
The least disturbed of the goddess’s chosen colonies was, ironically, the lowest placed of the three. The sandal colony had enjoyed a peaceful span of existence, after first overcoming the desert environment of the insole. They were left under the goddess’s desk, situated besides similarly mountainous footwear, none of which were as ragged and textured as the hundred-year-aged sandal; the worn-out condition was actually a blessing for their survival, as every tear and wrinkle proved to be vital for their development. They harvested the old leather as construction material, and by mining into those weak points, they created tunnels of shelters to inhabit. If they were lucky, they would come across a well of dried sweat – a place they could strain precious water. Though life in the sandal colony was far from luxurious, it had been fortunately overlooked by the goddess’s curiosity, left to evolve on its own.
There was no chance they could have predicted the disaster about to strike, however. In the ongoings of another middling day, the rumblings of the goddess’s movements grew ferociously closer than ever before – until, without warning, their entire world was shaken and disturbed, suddenly swallowed into the shadow of a fleshy ceiling. Farmers from the heel region were the first to be aware, watching the whole length of a divine foot fly overhead, and then crash into the middle like a solid tsunami. The goddess had decided to wear her old sandals afterall; an apocalyptic situation for the sandal colony, whose population saw each toe as its own meteor, and the rest of the foot like a falling moon.
Fortunately, the minish were wise enough to have predicted such a catastrophe. As the colossal sole slowly slipped into place under the bridge-like thong, the people took to emergency shelters – underground cave systems that they had tunneled into the footwear. They rushed into holes, abandoning their surface-level villages and farms, that which the unfeeling foot gradually vanished as it shifted into a comfortable position. Many were just shy of being trampled before making it to the shelters, delving as deep as they could into the cool, pitch darkness; it was not yet over, as a godly weight was then pressed overhead, crunching the leather catacombs into tighter, flatter channels. As if a flood was hunting after them, they endured the pressure from up above, until they felt the sickening flow of motion occurring all around them, their home – wide and complicated as it was – then coursing through the air in gigantic bounds, the leaps of the goddess’s footsteps, surely just the first of many, many more steps to come. Trapped within their own shelters, the minish knew nothing of when peace might return, but in that time, they diligently adapted as they had to: an era of living underground was upon them, defined by the constant seismic stomping and the inevitable threat of sweat drowning them out.
---
Zelda realized her mistake only after she was a hallway down from her bedroom. She winced, freezing mid-step, a sinking feeling falling in her chest; “O-Oh no… Did I…? A-Are these…?”
Lately, the princess had found her mind more scattered, resulting in the accident below. Forgetting about her minish experiment, she put on her old sandals like she was used to doing, leaving in a hurry to tend to political and spiritual obligations that she was already late for. She had only her fascination with the minish to blame, spending hours late into the night watching and recording their developments; she was falling asleep with notes in her bed, thinking of the minish right up until she was asleep.
Yet with all that thinking, Zelda failed to remember an entire colony she had set aside to experiment. Hoping she was wrong about which sandals she wore, she spread open her toes and peeked between them; to her dismay, there were crumbs of civilization to be found, between her toes and under her sole, as though a hurricane had slapped the remnants of society against mountainsides. She considered going back and changing out her footwear, but royal attendants beckoned to her – she could not excuse herself then, not when she was behind schedule.
“I-I’m coming! Apologies!” Zelda took off again, putting the thought of her thundering footsteps to the back of her mind, as best as she could. It was hard to swallow, but she had to accept that it was a brutal but worthy test for the minish under her foot. I believe in you, minish! she wished for them. Stay strong and adapt~!
It had been several days since the minish empire was first discovered. In that time, Zelda had explored many corners of curiosity regarding their micro-sized existence, testing their capabilities and studying their culture through various experiments. Returning to her ongoing research was the highlight of everyday, always eager to see how much more desk was taken over as minish territory, as well as checking up on the other samples planted around her body. Stepping into the sandal colony was not her first error; similarly had she been combing her hair or scratching her scalp without thinking of the epic-sized consequences. She often found tiny structures webbed in knots of hair, or evidence of minish swamped in scrapes of ear wax. Yet no matter how she devastated these colonies, they persisted, exactly as she hoped they would.
After the first couple days of having such samples thriving on her very body, Zelda began to feel less awkward about their presence, and instead felt increasingly confident. When she was thoughtful of the minish clinging to her, she instinctively rose her head higher, walked more gracefully, and spoke with spirit. Indeed, she acted more like a princess than she ever had – she felt greater than that, aware of the civilizations that hung to her hairs and in her ear, superior to them than any royalty. She did not merely rule the minish as subjects, but was their planet to be permitted to live on; when she overcame the chills of that dynamic, what settled in her chest was pride and fulfillment.
The minish remained her little secret, regardless of how she went about her day in the castle. No attendant or royal guest would guess that a miniature kingdom existed on the princess herself, nor would they ever find evidence to believe so. The most Zelda leaked of her discovery was to one fellow scientist, whom she was meeting that very day. Purah, the director of the Hateno Ancient Tech Lab, was the most appropriate mind to share even hints of the minish with. Zelda kept the details subtle, but convinced Purah to begin development in a new type of Sheikah Slate tech: miniature camera drones, from which she could survey minish life on a closer scale.
Purah accepted the challenge wholeheartedly, and so that day, she was pleased to pass on a prototype design to the princess: a palmful of little machines, smaller than marbles. Zelda stuttered trying to say the drones were actually too large, that the minish were even smaller than Purah predicted, but she was also too excited herself to waste the opportunity. Purah was equally energized when teaching the tech to Zelda, showcasing how the drones rolled effortlessly on any surface – skin, clothes, or otherwise – while streaming a steady picture of a near-micro perspective. Both were agasp, and laughed, at how dramatically huge Zelda looked when the first drone booted with the slate; the princess felt a surge of strength, prompted to remark aloud, “Such an intimidating angle… Don’t I look scary like this…?”
Immediately after the tutorial, Zelda was bound for her room, avoiding all distractions that might otherwise pull her away from performing new leagues of research. She kept the handful of bead-sized machines closed carefully in her fists together, wondering ahead at where she would utilize the cameras first, as well as imagining the minish reaction to such contraptions rolling among them. Though she and Purah were both amused by her own image on the Sheikah Slate – huge and wide-spanning, a mountain that kept rising skyward – the reflection had left a deeper impression on the princess than she let on, dwelling on her scale and her ever-present nature. For the first time during all of her experimenting, it dawned on Zelda just how god-like she was to a civilization of people – not merely a descendent of a divine bloodline, but empowered with true godhood.
Yet that mighty importance did little to stagger her intentions; her resolve was affirmed, that she found herself playing a critical influence in the lives of tens of thousands. As intimidating as it was to see herself in such a way, Zelda determined the justness of her actions, that she was uplifting minish society and deciding a better fate for their future. I wish they could understand, Zelda thought as she approached her chambers, but I suppose they do not have any choice in the matter, regardless… Such sad little things~
“I’ve returned, my minish~” Zelda sang while closing the door behind her. “It was such a long day, but I’ve come with gifts! I can’t wait to show you all~” She giggled, rustling the marble cameras in her grasp – so enthusiastic to use them, yet she still was unsure where to begin. That was until she slipped out of her sandals, struck with inspiration while undressing from her gown; gazing down at her footwear, she remembered – having forgotten again – of the colony she had planted. “Oh! Hmm~ Whatever happened to all of them? Did any survive? What must it have been like for them, underneath my foot all day…”
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An oppressive era had been upon the sandal colony since having to abandon their homes on the leather surface. When that legendary foot overtook their sky, a time of darkness began as they retreated into the sandal itself, beneath the insole and into the subterrain – a cavernous world Zelda was entirely oblivious of, most so while following her routine, step by step. The years from being worn had produced tiny tears through the material, which had become the safe havens the minish retreated to. All across the countryside, they burrowed into these bunkers, and waited.
The council of the colony had expected such a day might come, but all they could predict was a time of uncertainty. How long would such a dreadful period of history go on for? They prayed it might only be brief, but by their time-scale, it was days of having to live underground – days defined by constant seismic attacks as the princess walked, days of enduring a musty odor of aged skin and sweat. The tunnels, though numerous, were cramped and known to shift according to Zelda’s balance; without fresh air and sunlight through a window, food banks had to be rationed out, resulting in general distress from a population that had been pressed to their breaking point. As if outlasting a planet-pounding storm that went nonstop hour after hour, the minish feared it would be their demise, made extinct under a kingdom-sized foot.
Then, all at once, the storm ceased. The flattening pressure from overhead was relieved, and there were no more rocking, throwing motions of their world. It was still and quiet, a harsh halt of the disorder they had endured. Doubtful it was the end, they waited with bated breath for confirmation, as scouts hurried up the tunnels and burrowed out from their underground.
The light was blinding to those who first resurfaced, yet it was also cleansing. Fresh air had never tasted so sweet and free. No ceiling meant they could lift their heads and stretch. The scouts nearly did not report back, so ecstatic to have their world returned to them – grateful even for its desert likeness. Truly as if a storm had ravaged the land, the bare dryness had been moistened with a day’s worth of sweat; the plains and slope of the footwear had become slick, with the most significant fissures and dips in the material having formed into oases. The goddess’s foot had produced a glistening new world for the inhabitants of her old sandal.
The scouts never had to return, for behind them came a cropping of minish, eager to see the changed landscape. Crowds spilled out of the tunnel exits and out into the vast openness, the stretch of the sandal having been reset – all of their civilization, the farmlands and buildings and roads, had all been wiped away. Few remnants of anything could be found embedded in the leather; most of it had been ground to dust by Zelda’s foot, the rest stuck to her sole. A new beginning was laid out for the surviving population, but for the moment, they celebrated their release from the leather caverns, rushing through the sweat puddles and dancing in the resonant warmth.
Before too long of joyousness, however, came the revelation that the goddess was not gone. After so much gazing across the unworn sandal, heads inevitably turned skywards, where her presence could still be felt hanging above. The goddess remained close and seemingly perceptive, her faraway head leaning forward. Some worried she might soon chose to wear the sandal again, and that threat spiraled citizens back into hiding, but when the goddess moved, it was not with her foot – she knelt low, and what came hurtling towards the leather surface was her hand, with a pinch of some item grasped between the fingers.
Crowds parted in the toe line region of the sandal to make way for the divine delivery. Though it appeared small, less wide than any of the goddess’s fingertips, its scale was no less substantial to the minuscule minish, who gawked at the perfectly round artifact as it was set down beneath the thong. Standing there, its hugeness was understood, an orb that rivaled the heights of castles from the old empire. The goddess had given it to them, but what purpose could it serve them?
The curious were drawn closer, against the advice of others. They surrounded the orb, inspecting it for clues or openings, anything that could explain itself. They looked to the goddess, but as she knelt there high above the footwear, her face was aimed into a wide slate, no longer paying attention to them – so they believed.
Without warning, the massive ball shimmered with light. It made a crackle of sound that scared the surrounding minish, followed by a jolt of movement – it had activated, one point of its glassy surface suddenly illuminated with an eye-like red. It stared at the startled citizens, emotionless and blank, but before anyone could reapproach it, it approached them.
The machine rolled on its own, driving forward suddenly, traversing the leather ground like it was frictionless. It moved much faster than any minish assumed, a speed that betrayed its hefty size, undisrupted by any slope or crack in the terrain. All obstacles in its path were tanked through – including unfortunate minish, trampled under the machine, their bodies flattened and left pressed into the insole in the orb’s wake. The red-colored iris adjusted and turned, scanning the region to decide its destinations, yet it was completely heartless to the perils it imposed on the tiny people, never flinching in the face of a desperate minish trying to get away.
That was until its behavior took a sharp change, some time after it had rolled away from the toe line and back towards the dipped-in heel. A crowd of unsuspecting minish were suddenly overtaken shortly after they had exited the chasms of the sole. Some fled back down under, while others raced away from the behemoth ball – but suddenly, it stopped, with a row of minish just in front of it. It was back to stillness, though its red eye moved across its surface, inspecting and analyzing the tiny faces before it. Unblinking and unbreathing, the machine coldly stared the minish down, those too paralyzed to move yet were itching to run away before it jumped back to life.
When it did move again, it was significantly slower. It rolled to the side, not through the innocent minish, but carefully around them. It had found something more fascinating, it seemed, as it moved to one of the longest cracks of the insole, the crevice that went to the underground shelter. The minish gave it wide space to explore, frightfully staying out of its way, left without an explanation as to what it was searching for, as after it looked into the chasm, the eye pointed upwards, directly towards the goddess. They, too, looked up at her, but her expression was too distant to infer – they looked back at the ball, connecting the two together, struck with the awe that the goddess was monitoring them.
---
Zelda’s expression was stiff as she tapped and stroked the screen of her Sheikah Slate. With each interaction, her display whirled – the marble camera moved according to her clumsy commands, not yet having mastered the controls. “No, n-not that,” she muttered, “like this…? No… Purah made this seem so simple…” Zelda tilted her head, glancing away from the controls and down at the camera itself, a little dot in the middle of her sandal. By keeping the camera still there, she was able to configure the view to look skywards – far and high into the air, features of herself posed over the camera like monoliths. She blushed while admiring her sense of size, immersed in the minish perspective, or at least as close as she could get to their’s.
“Okay. Let’s try that again~” Zelda centered her thoughts as well as the device itself. Her excitement had been her undoing, too eager to drive the camera along and find scenes of minish civilization. Having slowed down, she had ample time to survey the landscape – a truly wide plain of a world, eerily similar to the arid deserts of Hyrule. There were dune-like wrinkles and dips across the aged insole, as well as cracks branching through the dry ground; she scowled at the shimmering pools that must have been her foot sweat, produced over the course of the day, a detail she could have lived without. Her nose scrunched when she imagined the odor that surely dominated the region, nearly interested in lifting the sandal and smelling it herself.
But before imposing that ordeal upon the minish, she remembered their existence – realizing, after a blink, that all around the camera were remnants of a civilization. Flattened across the desert were fallen walls that once stood as buildings, and stretches of land once cultivated and purposed for farming, paths that were once constructed as roads or reservoirs and lots meant for homes. She could paint a picture in her mind of what the sandal colony once looked like in its prime – all gone now, desolate and destroyed. Of course, Zelda had to wonder, “Where did they go…? Where are they all–?” She winced and curled her toes, keenly aware of what spread such overwhelming destruction.
That sympathy did not last long, however, as the princess found glimmers of hope through the camera’s lens. Slowly maneuvering and rotating the marble with the controls, Zelda saw the minish below – all significantly small, even compared to the camera’s diminutive design. Their panic was quick and impossible to follow for long, but she discovered how crowds were taking refuge into the cracks of leather, burrowing underground to avoid the rolling of the camera. Rather than consider the danger the camera itself posed, Zelda grew curious of how the minish hid from it; she drove the marble to the longest chasm, a tear of leather that stretched down the middle of the footwear, damaged enough to be visible even without the camera. By pointing the camera into that canyon, she peered into the cavernous world of the sandal colony, locating gatherings of minish huddled together or delving deeper into the tunnel system. It was a dim, desperate atmosphere for the pitiful minish – but Zelda happily chronicled the cramped environment, noting the extreme means the minuscule people would go to in order to survive.
“A whole colony, buried within the sandal! Oh, this is so impressive~” Zelda chimed, zooming the perspective closer into the chasm. Though her view was limited, she made out features such as channels for welling sweat-water and minecart systems for transporting materials. Zelda giggled, “So this is what you’ve been up to all day! Ah, I was so worried~ but the minish are a determined people! I see now that I’ve fretted too much for these colonies. If the sandal colony can withstand being walked on, then surely the others must be prospering…!”
It was with that in mind that Zelda giddily turned away from her old sandal and the camera inside, leaving the device there as she picked out a fresh one to activate. A breadth of options was ahead of her, knowing then that the minish were even more adaptive than she estimated. She first looked to her desk, where her core samples of minish civilization were situated, having progressed seemingly well; she traced around her ear and lightly combed the hair around it, remembering the other displaced colonies that actively lived on her body – and how even those light touches were likely disturbing their routines. Zelda bit her lip, enticed with curiosity, regardless of what consequences would befall the minish people.
Zelda stalled as she decided which of the colonies to survey next, until it struck her that there was no reason to choose just one at a time. She had a handful of Purah’s cameras in her palm, functioning and ready to deploy, all connected to her Sheikah Slate. Overflowing with theories and thoughts, Zelda selected several cameras to roll out, plucking them up and putting them into place – a few threaded in her locks, the rest dotted on her desk, all magnetically attaching themselves to the surfaces for smooth traversal. On the Sheikah Slate, Zelda had access to every active angle, able to switch views with just a flick of her finger. As if embarking on a microscopic adventure, Zelda leaned into the screen, absorbed in the miniature worlds she was free to explore.
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In the minish-days that the goddess had been away, the civilization on the desk had advanced exponentially. Though the different selections of society had all faced their own unique obstacles, they overcame and persevered, recovering to a point of general stability. The weak were treated while the strong were tasked; minish attitudes gradually simmered as a sense of order and routine was slowly established, expedited by the goddess’s absence assuring them that they had the peace needed to make progress. More roads were completed to connect the different districts, allowing travel and trade to prosper, equalizing the burdens and benefits shared by the New Empire – a proper title for their divinely-displaced realm that was announced in ceremony only a day prior. Indeed, chroniclers had called it a New Age entirely, a period unlike any other from minish history.
Such fast advancements were monitored by Jokari, all the way from his residence in the edge-based district he had been made minister of. He had such farseeing abilities due to the completion of his invention: a grand telescope, winding upwards from his office, a creation that had required all of his attention in the time that passed. While the rest of the New Empire developed, Jokari watched the expansion as an experiment of his telescope – tests to see how far he could see and how clearly, all in preparation for its true purpose to survey the goddess. As he was able to look over fine details as far as the most distant corners of the desk landscape, he was left to hope that when she arrived, he would be able to gaze successfully upon the world that her beautiful body was to the minish.
Jokari had been attending to his minister duties by the border of his district when the first rumblings of her arrival began. He sensed her approach prematurely, his head snapping to that horizon. Days had gone by with her missing, meaning it was only more inevitable she would return; with barely an excuse given to his staff, he dismissed himself from a government project, hurrying on his own back to his residence. There was no time for anyone to ask him for clarification, not when the tremors intensified – and the far portal of a bedroom door opened.
The population became restless and worried, stepping outside to see for themselves that the goddess had returned. Jokari sped past his constituents, ignoring their concerns as he pushed through a crowded town center, back into his home and right up to his office. By then, Zelda’s movements were near enough to make furniture quake and walls creak; he was almost tripped to the floor by one such shockwave from a footstep, made more excited by the pressure the goddess exerted so passively. He could only stay so calm when he was in front of the control panel, urgently twisting a crank to turn the telescope towards his obsession.
His breath was taken when he then looked through the eyepiece. A few minor adjustments to the telescope’s angle, and Jokari had a supreme view of the goddess’s visage. Though she had occasionally brought her face low to the plain of her desk, her radiant image was too huge and too high to be inferred as just simply a face – more akin to a mountain peak, distant and almighty, obscured by mist and unmeasurable to any minish. But through the lens of Jokari’s telescope, a clear picture of her expression was maintained; its scale could never be undermined, still seen as a sweeping landscape of gentle slopes that were her cheeks and nose, but it was now comprehensible, and thus better to worship from Jokari’s perspective. He wanted to memorize her soft features, to be able to trace every detail of her curious smile or pinpoint each sparkle in the deep blue-green of her eyes. What he marveled upon was celestial – a true heaven that he wished to be with.
It rekindled his jealousy to then remember the few hundreds of minish that she had picked to live on her body. Though he could admit the perils and tragedies that likely unfolded for them, he thought they were fortunate to be chosen at all – a blessing to be picked out by such a powerful force, relocated to coexist on her gigantic form. To be able to see the goddess so closely through his telescope was only so close to his ultimate desire; to get even closer, he wanted to observe those stolen fractions of the empire, to see for himself what life was like upon a world that was literally alive. Was any part of her inhabitable? Could minish genuinely thrive in such an unusual and hostile realm? Jokari realized that, if anything could be confirmed, he would be the first of any New Empire minish to learn of the fates of those other colonies.
After searching closely around the goddess’s face, he finally found a hint of colony civilization up high into her hairline. While she looked and operated a device of her own, Jokari focused and zoomed onto the slope of her brow, where small beads of sweat were forming – and then harvested by minish. Jokari gasped when he saw a company of minish rappelling down the goddess’s forehead like a cliffside, chasing after a giant droplet of sweat, big enough to flood a plaza. On their backs were round kegs with hoses that they used to drain the sweat bead as it crawled downwards, taking the water before it could drip away any farther. Jokari could see the organization of the team even from afar, how quickly they acted to keep up with their target while also adapting to any idle sway or turn of the goddess’s head – all very impressive efforts, if only for the prize of sweat water.
Suddenly, danger was afoot, and the sweat-collecting minish knew they had to retreat. There were calls to ascend back into the hairline, the company then scurrying up the forehead and abandoning the sweat – as it appeared that Zelda had become aware of it, too. She thought nothing of it when she raised her wrist to her brow to wipe across, but the effects on the minish were catastrophic; a foraging mission for precious water turned disastrous as the monolithic hand scraped the cliffside of a forehead clean, removing every bead of sweat that the minish would have gratefully used for their civilization. Swept away in that wave of motion were unfortunate collectors, ripped off their rappelling gear and rolled away, never to be heard from again. The goddess’s expression was totally unchanged, thinking nothing more of those lives than as grime to be cleaned off on the side of her dress.
Enthralled with the escapade he just witnessed live, Jokari better refined the focus of the telescope, honing more closely onto the sweat-gathering survivors. Despite the pathetic tragedy that had occurred, the amount of water they successfully collected was worthy of praise, and so they did not look back to the brow long with regrets; they filed into the jungle of hairs, making way for another team that was prepared to rappel down and do the same task again. To Jokari, they disappeared behind countless blonde trees – he had to find another angle of the goddess’s hair if he wanted to continue his observations…
Meanwhile, the sweat-gathering team that had just concluded their day’s work followed a route of scalp, a path down the middle of Zelda’s head that was the divide in her hairstyle. They navigated through a musty, swamp-like atmosphere – sprawling threads of hair of various sizes surrounded them, glistening with a golden color, their bases dotted with boulder-like flakes of dandruff. A misplaced lock meant trekking over or under the obstacle like a felled tree, and any angle the princess pointed her head meant adapting to new inclines. Yet they had become familiar with such difficulties, and in the days Zelda was out and about, they had minish-weeks to map out the terrain and build themselves a proper colony, a home they could feel safe returning to.
Against titanic odds, the hair colony had miraculously flourished into a healthy and expansive society. From the initial scatterings that they began from, organization quickly came to be after the first days of enduring the world of hair. Though threats were abundant, so too were natural resources; sweat, dandruff, and hair all proved effective in rebuilding civilization in addition to the remnants of the old empire that they still had, enabling them to quickly construct new buildings and fortifications along the central region of the goddess’s head. Magically-infused dandruff became bricks and planks that were the foundation of simple houses, wound together using the plentiful hairs, chopped and whittled like wood. Channels built around the streets were designed to funnel excess sweat, as was a gate established to keep out flooding – not always the most consistent systems, hence the minish strategy to build upwards as well, into the blonde canopies. While a lower class of civilians were scalpbound, an upper class laid claim to the strands of hair, where finer complexes were webbed between the trees overlooking the wetlands. All minish yet had to beware the suddenness of trouble, for as developed as they had become, they were still helpless against the goddess; when she scratched her hair without thinking, or even merely combed loose hairs back into place, shockwaves of her touches would rattle their civilization, often shaking buildings into rubble if they were not outright torn away under her nails. The minish persisted, however, and in the aftermath, they mended what broke and built upon what had changed in their realm.
The gate made of hardened dandruff was opened to welcome the sweat-collectors, proceeding inside wearily after a day of hard work and sharp losses. As it was nearing the end of the day, the team had casual plans to unwind, but there was a commotion ahead that would ultimately interrupt those hopes of resting. The initial alarms were not too startling, sounding the alert of the goddess’s touch incoming – usually to scratch an itch – but crowds at the border of the colony responded differently, screaming and fleeing towards the colony’s center. The rumbling that went across the scalp was not the hard, jagged shaking of fingernails clawing through the terrain, but a completely new sensation – an eerie hum of a machine plowing through the dense jungle.
Watchtower guards were perplexed by what they signaled warnings for, unable to describe the exact nature of the beast that was rolling towards their walls. Larger than the sweat beads they were used to closing the gates against was a spherical device – one of Zelda’s micro-cameras, effortlessly maneuvering through the forest, trampling any minish obstacle in its path. That included the crown colony’s precious gate, a barrier that stood no chance against the marble, shattered underneath its shell; watchtowers only half the height of the device were knocked down by its debut, instantly falling and crumbling into its trajectory, where guards were laid to be overrun.
But Jokari could only observe so much of the crown colony’s fate from his lowly angle. Starting steeply upwards at the goddess, his view was limited through the jungle of hair, and any shift of her celestial head meant readjusting his grand telescope. He needed another peek into the body-bound societies, and that was when he remembered those that had been tucked into her ear canal – a passage that turned towards him, as if inviting him to peer inside.
Right away was Jokari able to see signs of minish life budding from Zelda’s long ear. Honing focus revealed tiny buildings built along the ridges of her ear, simple but stable homes that could withstand the mighty winds of the goddess traveling around her huge world. The length of the ear proved useful for expansion; once the ear colony had dug deep enough towards the eardrum, they had no choice but to build outwards, reserving the deepest tunnels of the canal to officials only. It was a wise decision they learned, for attempts at communication with the goddess had triggered attacks from fingers drilling into their community, scratching them away and completely warping everything they built.
In general, at least, the ear colony had managed to thrive. Like the other colonies, they too utilized the natural resources abundantly around them, with no concern of how pathetic it was to be living off such meager parts of a bigger body. Wax was an extremely helpful material, used in just about every construction, a plentiful resource that had to be cleaned out anyway; indeed, the entire working industry of the ear colony was based around mining and processing ear wax for clay-based purposes. The adhesive quality was also important, enabling the minish to reliably build on unlevel surfaces, to the point they had houses stuck to the ear’s walls. With access to her hair as well, the ear colony was perhaps the most well-developed of the colonies, if also the smallest and most tightly packed.
But so much progress in such a dangerous place could be scrubbed away in an instant, and Jokari was a witness to just an example of that devastation. The ear colony had done no wrong – they did nothing on their own to offend the goddess, always respectful of the life they lived on – yet because of an ordinary itch, the society was punished dramatically by a knuckle that massaged into the canal. Likely the goddess was not thinking, or the itching sensation was simply too bothersome to ignore, but all the same was the outer layer of the ear colony turned to dust, crushed against the walls and ridges it was made upon, unable to resist the driving force pushed upon them. It was merely a second of Zelda’s time, but Jokari saw the destruction she laid, the displaced lives covered in wax that would have to rise and rebuild again.
Even as obsessed as Jokari was of those colonies, his heart sank worriedly, beginning to feel gratitude for the fact his life on the desk was plain and straightforward. Certainly it was less stressful and eventful, and had Jokari been within those selected samples the goddess pulled from, he very well would not have had the privilege of being able to build his telescope, from which he could immerse himself in the worlds of others. The round of his eye was sore after he finally pulled up from the view hole of his device, blinking and breathing, his mind flashing with the images he saw. The scenes were strange and even disturbing, yet when he paced his office and circled back around to the telescope, his determination persisted – his fantasy and desire to be with the goddess had not waned.
Jokari had tried to convince himself to go about his other duties, but the telescope was too tempting. He sat before it again, chuckling as he peered through, chasing a glimpse of Zelda’s mighty visage. He wondered what else there was to observe of the goddess, but it was while he pondered that something else dashed across his sightline – a foggy image that flew by, too quick to follow. It went by again, mobile and erratic; Jokari had to look out his window, unable to follow something so swift with the telescope, but the sky was also vast and hard to specify any one thing.
Then, he saw it. Others in the community below saw it as well. Fingers pointed skyward, tracing a distant object circling far, far overhead – something of the goddess’s realm, flying and darting in the atmosphere. From such a distance, it seemed so small and consequenceless, but to the minish, nothing ever was, and its true scale was revealed when it descended upon the sample, a winged-monster that landed in a plaza on long, stick-shaped legs.
A gnat had invaded.
---
As if enthralled with a storybook, Zelda was captivated by the glow of her Sheikah Slate, giggling quietly as she surveyed the shrunken world through Purah’s machines. The entire experience amused her, whether it was watching the minish up-close, or simply feeling the marble-shaped devices rolling over her scalp and skin. “This is addicting,” she admitted, her cheeks blushing as she did so. “There’s so much to discover in these little places… The minish truly live from an entirely different perspective! So very intriguing~”
She was not so oblivious as to not acknowledge the hysteria she saw of the minish, how they responded drastically to the arrival of her cameras and fled from it. She expected as much of a response, assuming well they would be intimidated by something they had never seen. Yet the scenes of chaos and terror never staggered her enjoyment; completely callous to their pleas, Zelda was convinced of her judgment that the minish would be suffering from something regardless, and that what she learned from them was priceless – valuable discoveries she only sometimes considered sharing with the rest of Hyrule, a thought that fell deeper and deeper to the back of her mind.
For the meantime, Zelda was allowing herself to have fun, like she had so rarely had in her position as princess. “Aw, such adorable little houses~” she cooed, observing a row of crown colony homes built out of dandruff; citizens sprawled out of these places, evacuating from the menacing eye. Zelda giggled, “Don’t be afraid~ It’s not going to hurt you. I’m just watching!” Yet the device then rolled over those very houses a moment later, traversing elsewhere once the area was too desolate.
Zelda’s ears perked to the sound of something buzzing by. It was responsible for finally pulling her attention off the Sheikah Slate; she scanned her room with an annoyed glare, bothered to have been interrupted. It buzzed again, causing her to scowl and massage her ear to listen more closely. “It’s that season, isn’t it?” she huffed, turning to try and follow the flying insect. “Hylian gnats… One must have followed me inside…”
Rising from her bedside, Zelda pursued the bug, difficult as it was to locate it. She searched up and around herself, chasing the pesky sound as it flew around her. Setting aside her Sheikah Slate, Zelda prepared her hands to clap the gnat dead – a stern bend in her brow indicated her lethal intent. She considered how the gnat could possibly affect her precious samples of minish, but mostly, it just annoyed her like most common insects did, and she wanted it gone for those selfish purposes first and foremost.
“Where did you go?” Zelda groaned, carefully stepping around the room. She had lost it, but not for long. It was a hunch, but she was right to think the gnat would be attracted to the minish civilizations; she turned to her desk and loomed above, eyes darting from colony to colony and the roads connecting them, until she finally spotted it. “No!” she groaned. “Ick…!”
The gnat had landed on the edge of her desk, crawling across the colony closest to her. Its movements were nonspecific, but nonetheless was it causing mayhem for the minish citizens. She hesitated, instead watching carefully; “M-Maybe they can handle it on their own,” she hoped, as it would relieve her of the task of killing the bug herself. But as she leaned low and studied the interaction, it was quite clear how overwhelmed the tiny population was. As insignificant as the gnat was to her, it was as imposing as one of Ganon’s monsters to the minish, who were all ill-equipped for such a threat. The minish empire had defenses against these insectoid beasts and many others, but after being seeded on Zelda’s desk, the New Empire assumed themselves to be safe from those dangers, and so no effort was put into rebuilding catapults or ballistas. Under the gnat’s terror, all the minish could do was flee outward onto the desk space, abandoning their homes to the singular bug.
“Ghh… I’ve got to do something…” Zelda sighed, fidgeting over the dilemma. She raised an open palm, as it was her first instinct to simply slap the insect dead. Rightfully, she stopped herself and put her hand down; absolutely would an attack like that eradicate the sample, and very well tremor out to the other corners of the desk. She tried thinking of something similar but of a smaller scale, but she concluded violence could not be the solution, not without a hefty sacrifice. “Something else, then… Perhaps it will just… fly away…?”
Doubtful it would do that on its own, Zelda knew she would have to get involved, and so she knelt low to the edge of the desk where it was level with her face. She had a plan to help the minish, but it would still come at a cost. “Sorry… Try to hold on,” she whispered to the population, unaware of just how impactful her involvement would be. Her head pulled away to breath in deep, returning to the desk then with a lungful of air and her lips pursed forward.
“Fwooo~” Almost a whistle, Zelda blew over the minish sample with a firm exhale, targeting the gnat specifically – though the entire town would be swept back by her breath, struck by one disaster in order to be saved from another. Immediately could the princess notice the damages, how nearly every crumb-sized construction was pushed or toppled over, as if she had blown a layer of dust from her desk. Her expression was dim with an apology, but it had not been a waste; the gnat, too, was forced to fly away from the minish, successfully driven away back into the air.
“S-Sorry about that! I-Is everyone okay?” Zelda scanned the patch of minish society she had blown for survivors. She was reassured when she saw micro-sized struggles bubbling up from some of the wreckage, but her concern was brief; her attention turned back to the airborne insect, still a threat to her research if left allowed to fly around. She once again chased after its annoying buzzing; “What a bothersome thing! Just leave us alone…!”
---
Terror had overtaken the community after the gnat had landed. Soulless and indifferent, it wandered through the town causing havoc with every step of its long legs. Crowds fled as the insect turned-over houses and bisected roads, carelessly uprooting the foundations the minish had labored over, leaving a trail of wreckage in the path it circled. It sifted all that it ruined in search of nutrients, rewarded by crops and foods that the minish had kept stocked. Attacks against the beast were fruitless, all their makeshift weapons bouncing off its hide – unable to even urge it to leave.
Jokari watched the monster from his balcony, before retreating inside back into his office, hiding when the gnat crawled quickly in his direction. He heard its patterns of destruction occurring outside to the neighboring buildings; when he peeked past a curtained window, he saw one of its legs stride right past. Stumbling towards the center of his office, Jokari was paralyzed with inability, looking to the walls where he heard the bug lumbering on the other side. Of all the damages the gnat was capable of, he prayed to the goddess herself that his telescope be spared.
But its length and shape made it a prime target of investigation for the gnat, soon noticing the device that was pointing out towards the sky. It took the shaft of the scope under one of its legs, stepping on top of it and cranking it downward, as much as it could be strained. Jokari dashed to the balcony while that metallic screech went on, realizing his worst fears were unfolding, and that he was still helpless to do anything about it. The gnat continued to weigh onto the telescope, shattering its lenses and making it bend; Jokari screamed at the thing while throwing any household item at it, doing all he could to discourage it from dismantling his creation of passion.
The gnat, however, ignored every attack like it had done so already, and by applying a second leg to the telescope– rrrrrr-krrrshk! The device was ripped down, splintering the walls and floor, effectively cutting the government office in half. Jokari’s balcony was broken by the force, left tilted and pointed into debris; Jokari clung to the railing with both arms, but was dismayed when he glanced down, wounded to see his telescope in pieces. Shattered glass and metal rings were among the debris down below, harder to look at for Joklari than the giant gnat overhead.
In his dangling despair, Jokari looked to the distant end of the desk, to offer another prayer to the goddess. What he found far away was her celestial visage staring back at him – her head lowered to be level with the minish world, her blue-green eyes pointing firmly at the sample. Her face was not merely on the horizon; it was the horizon, so huge and encompassing that it struck a new wave of fear across all the minish samples on the desk. Jokari was in awe of her beauty, seeing the goddess’s face as closely as he had through his telescope, as if her arrival was a gift to him personally.
A wind was brewing, however, that embittered the holy atmosphere – a literal shift in the air that pulled concern from every citizen, including Jokari as he dangled from his office. Everything went quiet, building suspense as the goddess’s lips rose above the ledge, plumped forward and proudly pink, picking a direction to strike. For however cute her mouth might have seemed from afar, all understood the great power that was being charged by the puffness of her cheeks, stirring a riot to seek out shelter in the seconds they had. Jokari, however, could only brace himself for the whirlwind that was about to commence.
Ha-fuuuuu-oooouuuussssshhh!!! Like a tidal wave gradually rising up a beach, Jokaris witnessed how Zelda’s breath came barreling through the town, how it visibly began at the far border and stormed quickly closer. That blow of air was as devastating as a bomb, wiping out the first rows of buildings entirely, their materials sent flying away as infinite projectiles that rained sideways through the rest of the sample. Jokari flinched against that first wind, but his eyes opened to see a greater force he would have to reckon with – a cloud of dust and debris, a wall of destruction that was rapidly plowing forward, the wrath of a tornado summoned by the exhale of the goddess.
The gnat buckled, for as monstrous as it was, the wind was magnitudes stronger. It lifted off the telescope and took to the air, riding away on the harsh gale. The tinier lives it left behind were in far more peril, unable to endure such ferocity; people were scattered by the wind, upheaved and thrown along with all the rubble, the storm only growing worse by the second. Jokari wrapped both arms and a leg around the railing, but even the balcony itself was too light to resist, and when the rest of the office began to cave, so too did his platform break apart. He was sent spiraling away, cast into a world of blurry dizziness, soaring without guidance in a whirlwind that smelled distinctly sweet and warm.
Flailing and tumbling midair, Jokari’s mind went blank. Beneath him was the town he was responsible for, tarnished and abandoned; somewhere looming above was the goddess, whose decision to breathe over the desk was the source of such tragedy. His world had been flipped upside-down, and he figured it would end that way as the wind carried him farther and farther. He was sure that nothing could change his fate, that he was bound for a cruel landing – to become a speck of a stain, invisible to the goddess, overlooked on her desk for the rest of time.
But fortune would have him grapple onto something while airborne, smacking into the side of something huge and mobile. His hands clutched the surface with iron tightness, refusing to let go once given that chance to survive, but it soon dawned on him what sort of lifeline he relied on. Jokari gasped and panicked, comprehending that he was upon the gnat itself – flying fast through the sky, zigzagging according to the goddess’s air current. The rapid buzzing of the bug’s wings was deafening down to Jokari’s own thoughts; he was mounted on a beast he had no control over, riding its back bound to wherever the insect ended up. All around him was a swirling view of the realm he and the minish had been taken to, a grand new perspective of the vast space – a realization of just how pitifully small his species was, that he could see how little they all were from so high-up.
Nothing was more aweworthy than the goddess, however. Though the gnat spun and turned in its mad flight, Jokari always kept an angle towards the gigantic princess. For once, he could see her full towering image – not from the lowly ground, but in the air, sometimes even above her, perspectives no other minish could have ever cherished. He could observe the fullness of her motions, how she rose above the land on the desk and spoke to it with her thundering tone, and how her head turned upwards, looking for the gnat that made so much trouble.
And then she found what she was looking for. Jokari’s heart sank when he felt the point of both of her eyes, a gravity like no other – the glare of a goddess. Her killing intent ran a chill through his blood, understanding well that her godly prowess would be utilized to crush the bug, and him as well. He shook his head and bargained religiously to be spared, but an open palm was lifted, aimed, and thrown–
Swwwoooooooshhh!! A surface of skin as broad and wide as an island went rushing past the gnat’s course, barely missing, but creating a rumble of turbulence that put Jokari’s grip at risk. The bug weaved and looped around in response, but the goddess’s anger never lost track of it; she would not give up so easily, and so another slap cut across the sky–
Whack! Though the gnat tried to outmaneuver the hand, it was struck on the side by a finger and sent spiraling down, an injured wing halving its ability to fly. It puttered in descent, messily maintaining momentum; all the while did Jokari continue to hang on, his senses lost after enduring such a critically huge attack, as if his very soul had been dismissed and had to return. In that disoriented state, he struggled to comprehend the direction of their descent, not that he had any influence over the gnat’s crash landing. Having been slowed and hurt, he expected the bug to be an easy target for a follow-up attack, and so he predicted one of those two gruesome conclusions – to either splatter on the goddess’s floor, or to be erased by her hands.
Finally, the sickening fall ended, and Jokari was tossed from the gnat’s back. He rolled across a surface that was soft, almost plush – a hard contrast to the floor he assumed he would have landed on. Bruised and exhausted, he lacked the energy to lift anything more than his head from the ground; his vision was badly blurred, but he could tell the insect was nearby, crippled and dazed worse than he was. But they were both alive, and also lost in the goddess’s realm, certainly far away from the minish territories and the wooden desk they were planted upon.
Jokari gathered his senses, and with a lungful of air, he strained himself to his knees, wobbling forward without direction. He found himself somewhere windy, but the ground was warm, a plain that stretched far forward and upward, pale-pink all the way. Sparse trees of thin fibers rose only so much taller than him; he placed his hand on one while passing by, realizing it was paper-soft and easy to bend. It came to him that the trees were hairs – the ground was skin. The ambient atmosphere was the aura of a living person, the very idol he had longed for, her energy completely surrounding him. He fell onto his palms and massaged the flesh in wider and wider circles, for he worshiped the skin of the goddess’s own arm, basking in her overwhelming radiance.
It was no fantasy – far from the ideal conditions he imagined, but that only enriched his experience. Suddenly, all life had returned to him, and he sprung to his feet, ignoring all weariness so that he could dance among the thin trees of hairs. His feet bounced on pads of skin, a path of various blemishes and freckles that he frolicked across. Every breath was dense with the goddess’s aroma, a faded scent of sweat in the open air. Most importantly was that he could feel her divine life flowing in the ground under his feet, that when he laid face-down and hugged the arm, he could feel the muscles and blood underneath pumping with a primal energy. All the while, Jokari laughed like a fountain, so immersed that he willfully forgot the direness of his situation.
His head turned steeply skyward. He peered far ahead, viewing the mountain road that was her arm, an ascent that went to a distant shoulder – and there, highlighted in a sun-like blond, was her magnificent visage. The peak of her holiness was impressively far, yet never before did Jokari feel closer to her expression, even with his telescope. He wanted to reach for her, to wave and greet her, but he knew how abysmal it would be to try and be noticed, as if he were anything greater than a speck of dust to her.
Yet there was a way her eyes looked back, crossing with his own stare, that lifted Jokari’s spirit with belief. As if looking at one another, there was a moment of suspense; Jokari tensed, feeling as though he was communicating to the goddess, contacting her somehow. Her expression was innocent and pure – until it was shadowed with a fury, familiar from when he was flying through the air.
The goddess’s glare was pointed upon him.
Not to Jokari, but to the crashed gnat on her arm.
And so, expressing merciless disgust, her other hand rose with a flattened shape, to an altitude level with her peak of a head. An intense strength was being charged – Jokari could feel the tension in the skin he stood upon, her flesh preparing for the massive attack. There was no shelter to hide within, no resources at his disposal, and no distance he could flee to; Jokari’s joy vanished, leaving him stiff and hollow in an open plain of the arm. His insignificance was recognized then as that landmass of a slap came rushing out of the sky, a ceiling of a palm that quickly darkened the area around him, a relentless descent that concluded with a deafening and final smack…
---
“...So gross…” Zelda whimpered, hardly relieved to have successfully swatted the gnat dead with a slap on her arm. She nearly fainted when it first landed on her; after removing her left hand, she watched it fall lifelessly to the floor, immediately lost among the dust. “Ugh…” She stroked her palm against the side of her dress, then did the same with her arm in a bout of shivers.
After sighing out her stress, Zelda pulled out her desk chair and took a seat to calm herself. She glanced at the closest minish sample, wincing at the sweep of destruction that was clearly visible, damages she was absolutely responsible for – no matter how much she tried to blame the gnat. She loomed apologetically, blushing and fidgeting, wondering if there was a way she could help, but she could tell she had involved herself enough for the minish people. They could rebuild on their own, so she had learned, and so she reclined in her chair, allowing the civilization to recover on their own terms.
Like removing accessories after a long day, Zelda began picking out the marble cameras she had placed around her body and room, collecting them all to be reviewed later. After that harrowing encounter with the insect, the princess had little lasting interest in the micro-scale world, shivering anew when she thought of the gnat from a minish perspective. “How do they manage to survive out in the wild…?” she wondered aloud after depositing the last camera into a satchel. She giggled, “I suppose if they can survive me, they must be well-prepared for any challenge.”
Oblivious to the many tragedies she had unrolled over the minish, Zelda smiled blissfully over the samples, sharing that enthusiasm with the sandal colony near her feet. Her research had given her only a glimpse of minish life, but she was ecstatic to understand it even more in the coming days. More experiments were perpetually coming to mind, with new ideas of where to plant additional colonies to test their survivability. Yet after so many days with the samples thus far, it was clear her engagement with the species was too much for her collection – and so she happily looked forward to venturing into the forests again, knowing there was a world more of minish waiting for her in that secret glen.