The halls of \[REDACTED\]'s home stretched out for miles in front of Lilara. There was a low but constant level of light, in spite of there being no lit torches or windows of any kind. All she could hear was the rhythmic tapping of her footsteps. Still, she knew she needed to keep going forward. What else was there to do? You can't go back to the way things were, no matter how hard you try. After hours of careful footstep after careful footstep, Lilara came upon a wooden door with a corroded brass knob and a small window at the top with black iron bars. She stood on the tips of her feet in hopes of getting a look inside, but all past the door was darkness. There was something important in there. Something or someone long forgotten. Something about the door carried a sense of finality. To walk through this door was to close it behind you. Lilara reached out to the corroded brass doorknob. To her surprise, it was quite warm. Like somebody had just walked in ahead of her. Twisting the knob allowed the door to swing inwards, and she stepped through it into the dim candlelight of \[REDACTED\]'s study. A fan gently rotated on the ceiling with a golden chandelier hanging below, filled with gently burning candles. The back wall facing the door was lined with bookshelves that ran all the way across the room. Near those bookshelves was a plush leather chair and a wooden table, which had a pile of four books arranged in a messy pile. Lilara walked over to the stack of books. The spines bore what she knew were names, names of /people/, but only two of the names were intelligible: Lilara, and Mineru. The top-most book had Lilara's name on the spine, and it sat open on top of the pile with its spine facing up. She took the book with her name on it and looked inside. All of the pages were filled with dense writing in black ink, but she saw many of the pages had been torn out, leaving only tatters in their place. The rest of the room bore no signs of the missing pages. She folded closed the book with her name on it, and looked curiously at the book with Mineru's name on it. As Lilara picked up the book and was about to open it, she felt gentle arms wrapping around her waist from behind. "I thought you'd never come back to me," Mineru's voice whispered in her ear. A shiver ran down Lilara's spine. She opened her mouth to speak. "M-" The dream vanished before her eyes, and she found herself staring up at Ameleru, who shook her awake. "Lilara? Are you okay?" Ameleru asked. Lilara groaned loudly and slowly sat up in her bedroll. "Why'd you wake me up?! I was so close!" Ameleru frowned, her eyebrows creased in worry for her friend. "Close to what?" The frustration burned through Lilara like wildfire, leaving a searing pain in its wake. "Who's Mineru?" she asked. She looked up to meet Ameleru's eyes. "She's... she's important, I know it, but I can't- I can't see her face, no matter how hard I try!" Ameleru's face softened, she reached out to gently place a hand on her shoulder. "I was wondering when she'd come up," she admitted. "She was our friend, before-" She shuddered and her breath caught in her throat. "I don't even know how to summarize this. She was incredible. Her specialty was matters of the spirit, she even had a Secret Stone for amplifying that magic. She was... she was one of the kindest, most brilliant people I ever had the privilege of knowing. "And you loved her, back then. Unfortunately the difference between her social station and yours meant you both couldn't express that publicly. For what it's worth, though she never told me, I'm virtually certain she loved you too." Lilara blinked away the tears that she didn't even realize were falling. "W-what happened to her?" she asked softly. Ameleru looked away and clenched her fists. "Lilara, you don't want to know. Please, don't ask me that." "Damn it Ameleru, tell me what happened to her!" Lilara yelled. Ameleru looked back to Lilara, then down to the ground. "There was a war, between Hyrule and the king of the Gerudo. Mineru, Rauru, and Sonia all went to fight. I don't know much of the details. I wasn't there." "You- and you didn't fight with them?!" Lilara grabbed Ameleru's bed shirt by the neckline and yanked her forward. "I didn't even know it was happening until it was over!" Ameleru insisted. "They came up with the plan to deal with the Demon King while I was far from Central Hyrule. By the time I got back and heard what happened, it was already done. Rauru and Sonia were dead, and Mineru died soon after. I swear, that's all I know." Lilara glared at Ameleru for a moment, then she released her grip on Ameleru. "You said her magic was for the spirit, right? Is it possible she might've survived until now in some way?" "I know the road you're going down," Ameleru mumbled as she wiped at her own face. "I did the same thing for a long time. I tried to think of any possible way that our friends might've survived. Spent decades searching for anyone who could have made it. They're gone, Lilara. They're not coming back, and there's nothing we can do about it." Lilara leaned back in her bedroll to stare up at the gently twinkling stars above. "I miss her," she choked out. "And I can't even remember her face." "I know. After all this time, I can't either," Ameleru admitted.