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The statue in Lookout Landing speaks, and no one else can hear it.
Poes... it says, again and again and again. It is distracting, but perhaps it thinks that no else one can hear it, either.
When Link tries to pray to it, he gets no response, though there is a tugging sensation in his chest. His fingertips start going numb, and his eyes become heavy. His consciousness starts to slip, it feels less like falling asleep and more like the half-forgotten memory where the fields are burning and the rain is pouring and every part of his body is shutting down and-
He stops, and pulls himself back to the present. He is in Lookout Landing, and Josha is standing next to him, seemingly unaware. The bins next to her are full of zonaite and brightblooms seeds. The Calamity is defeated. He steps away from the strange statue, a little shaken.
If it were any other time, he'd probably go to Zelda about this. She might be interested in the statue, and whatever Link is feeling right now, she is the only one who would come close to understanding. But Zelda is missing, and Hyrule castle is currently pulling itself up and out of the ground. On top of that, and on a smaller scale, Robbie has just run off down a chasm somewhere, so Josha is counting on Link to keep him safe. There are more pressing concerns right now, he does not have time to deal with this statue.
He moves on.
-
Robbie finds another strange statue in the depths. This one, thankfully, does not speak. The air down here is oppressively heavy, the darkness is cloistering. If something down here could speak, he doubts it would have anything pleasant to say.
-
He follows the statues, and along the way, he finds a Poe.
He finds many Poes, actually. A cluster of small blue lights, soft and fragile and blurring at the edges. They do not speak either, though it almost feels like they could.
Curious, Link reaches out for one, tries to take it. It pulls itself into him, finds a place within his chest. It is not warm, not cold, not anything, but he gets the sense that it does not belong down here in these depths, that it is lost.
This is a Poe, some part of him thinks, and then another part of him remembers the statue at Lookout Landing. Is this what it wants?
He takes it with him, and leaves the others behind.
-
You who stand before me, I am the one who returns Poes to the afterlife where they belong.
The statue is speaking to him this time.
Offer Poes to me. They are spirits that ought to return to the afterlife.
He offers the one that he brought with him. It dissipates from his hand.
Yes... Oh this is indeed a Poe
...
I have returned the spirit to the afterlife where it belongs.
The statue thanks him, and offers him a strange clump of... something in return.
If you offer me more Poes, it tells him, I will give you suitable compensation.
The statue offers more of the... clumps. It also offers bomb flowers and something called a muddle bud, another flower he'd found in the depths.
The statue does not strike him as malicious, not like the other statue that used to lurk near Hateno village, the one that would steal his lifeforce and his rupees. He does not think this statue is trying to trick him to obtain Poes. He'll search for more, then, the lost spirits deserve as much.
For now, though, he has no more Poes to give, so he declines what the statue has to offer. He tells it that he does not have any more Poes, but he will search for more.
That is not true, the statue tells him, There is still one Poe left, I can sense it.
Link feels the tugging sensation again, the same one he felt the first time he prayed to the statue. This time he pulls back before it can go too far.
"I am not offering that one," he tells it.
...
The tugging sensation stops. The statue does not say anything more. Their conversation is done.
"Swordsman?" Josha calls over to him, snapping him back into attention.
"Are you OK over there?” she asks, “You looked like you were somewhere else just now."
He looks down at his chest, looking for any evidence of a soft blue flame, he does not see anything there.
He shakes his head. It doesn't matter, and even if it did, he has more important things to worry about. Zelda is still missing, after all, and the evil being they found underneath the castle is still out there, threatening the world. Lost spirit or no, it cannot matter, because he still has work to do.