"What is this place?" Link asked Navi as he traversed through a stalagmite-filled passage layered in frost and ice. Even with the pelt he was still wearing, this air particularly chilled him to the bone.
"This place..." Navi responded to Link as he ducked under a cluster of icicles complementing the jags rising from the cave floor. "I feel this place is special... somehow."
In the next room, dimly lit by the light from outside, an object best described as a cluster of knives came sliding towards him. Link dove out of the way, the shing of the blades nearly catching his boots. Sliding across a floor of slippery ice, Link was stopped by several chunks of ice grouped in a cluster.
"A blade trap... for defense, perhaps," Navi postulated as Link propped himself up against one of the chunks of ice.
This chunk of ice then slid away from him, leaving him to fall flat on his back. When he got to his feet, Link had to dive to the floor once again... this time for a crystal cloud of cool white vapor.... blasted from within the chunk of ice. It had become mobile of its own volition.
"That's a Freezard," said Navi, "its freezing breath makes your body frozen on contact."
Forming a mouth from which it blew the freezing air, it became abundantly clear that this sentient chunk of ice was a statue, taking the shape of a bull, its eyes of ice somehow sending a fierce gaze that angrily pierced Link's soul.
He suddenly remembered the other chunks it was clustered with. He spun around, discovering that they move absolutely silently. He ducked again, this time reaching for the Megaton Hammer he acquired inside Death Mountain. Keeping low to the icy floor, he shattered each one of them, reducing them to the chunks of ice that they were.
"They're guarding something..." Navi suggested.
"...something King Zora needs..." Link stated, knowing this was the case.
Continuing onward, leaving the room full of pitfalls behind, another icy chamber greeted him. The ceiling was very high, invisible in the dark shadows. Somehow, this room was getting enough light to cast those shadows. In it, Link could see another icy floor, with ice formations littered across it. Clear across from him, he noticed the blue beacon that lured him into this cavern in the first place.
He proceeded across the slippery floor, over to what he could now see was an alcove high up on the cavern wall. By the time he reached it, the mysterious flame vanished once more.
"It's in there!" Link shouted with confidence.
The ledge was just out of reach, however. Looking around, Link spotted a flat chunk of ice, just the right height to use as a stepping platform. He walked over to where it sat, butted up against the same wall that held the alcove. All he had to do was push it over beneath the ledge.
"Wait!" Navi intervened as he flexed his upper body in preparation of giving it a hearty shove. "You're not going to be able to stop its momentum across this icy floor." Navi flew over to where it would have gone. Link followed her, slipping to a stop as he noticed a feature of the cave he overlooked.
A dark chasm lined the side wall of the room, running deep into the cave system. Link would lose his nice little platform if it kept sliding over to this edge.
"What do you suggest, Navi?"
Navi flew over to the ice formations. These ones didn't come to life. "Try using these formations as stoppers."
Link thought he followed her logic. If he pushed the block in a straight line to an ice chunk, the chunk would stop it from sliding across the frictionless floor. If he could map out a path for it, he could direct it straight under the alcove. "A puzzle..." Link realized.
He didn't know whether this puzzle was a natural occurrence, or if it was set up as another layer of security, but he carefully traversed the block of ice around the floor until he could slide it straight onto the wall with the ledge. He climbed up twice, reaching the alcove. A passage snaked deeper into the cavern, one much tighter than the entrance.
The icy tunnel led him into a chamber brilliantly luminescent with reflective blue light. A continuous surrounding crystalline structure encapsulated the perfectly cubical room, the texture of its intricate surface bouncing the blue light everywhere. The source of this blue light... was of course the blue flame that had been alluding him... It blazed, finally unmoving in one place, atop a shimmering pedestal.
Link walked towards it, mesmerized by its glow... enough so that he fell victim to a surprise attack. A snarling creature pounced out of nowhere and mauled him, giving him a slash to his left arm.
It had caught Link below the sleeve of the ring mail he wore beneath his two layers of clothes, so there was no resistance to the nine-inch claws. Through the fur of the pelt he had on, a flow of viscous blood came steadily oozing out. Link could not do anything about it because the creature had his right arm pinned to the ground.
Upon closer inspection, the beast was a Wolfos, but with white fur. The thing howled as it celebrated the capture of its adversary... could this beast somehow have been yet another guard to the blue flame?
Either way, the White Wolfos was distracted. The sting was more than Link had ever felt before, but he lifted his wounded arm... grabbed the canine by the ruff of its neck, and hurled the beast aside. He used his right hand to handle the Master Sword, dancing with the rabid hound in combat, while he kept his left arm curled at his chest. Though his swings weren't pretty, Link eventually vanquished the beast, leaving nothing but a lifeless Wolfos corpse, and a pool of blood from his arm.
Link fell to his knees, sheathed his sword, and examined his wound. Navi began to flutter about in a frenzy. He could barely look at the sight of the deep gashes, as they had reached the muscle of Link's bicep.
He cocked his head up in agony, only to find a familiar face standing before him.
"We meet again, Link." Sheik entered in from where Link came in.
"Sheik!" Link cried, trying to show him his arm, hoping Sheik could help him.
"The blue flame up there..." Sheik started, "it is a legend held by the Zora. It is said to be a protector of this region... some believe it is the Flame of Nayru herself."
"I need help!" Link moaned as he held his hand over his wound.
"The flame is also said to have restorative properties..." Sheik said, "do you have something to hold it in?"
Link's hunch about the flame was proving to be correct. "Like a torch?" he responded.
"A bottle..."
Link recalled the bottles he still had in his knapsack. One of which held the distress note Ruto wrote when she was trapped inside Lord Jabu-Jabu... right outside this cavern.
"Here you go..." Link gasped once he dug it out, handing it towards Sheik.
He continued to stand there, though. "You must be the one to collect it; you were the one who passed the trials."
So those were defenses of the home to this mystical flame, just as he thought. He stumbled to his feet, and turned towards the flame. He approached it, wincing in pain, and carefully dipped the bottle into the very top of it, slowly filling the glass bottle with the strange substance.
The odd fluid behaved like both fire and fog, and was not scorching hot, but both cooling and warming. With nothing to lose, Link poured it onto his wound. Like a sizzling slab of meat, the scarred muscle receded back under his skin, which repaired itself along with the rest of the flesh.
Link looked up at Sheik, amazed at what he had just saw. It seemed to all but confirm that this substance could be used to bring King Zora back from the brink of frozenness. "This is what he was pointing to!" Link somehow was sure of this. His mind began to race... it was excited by such power witnessed within this flaming substance, and arrived to a thought... "Could this save the other Zora too!?"
"If you came here to meet the Zora," Sheik started, "you wasted your time... This is all there is... With one exception, the Zora are now sealed under this thick ice sheet... and even the blue fire cannot save them, I'm afraid."
The response was sobering, immediately crushing any hope Link had for all the Zora. But Sheik did say there was an exception... "With one exception?"
"I managed to rescue the Zora princess from under the ice, but...she left to head for Lake Hylia, to the Water Temple..."
Link's heart sank to his stomach... he knew what that meant. Sheik must have seen it on his face. "You're concerned for her..." he said, "you were technically engaged to her, were you not?"
"I was so young, Sheik..." Link had finally started to feel his age, even though from his perspective, he really was just so young several days ago. "I didn't know the Spiritual Stone of the Zora was their royal engagement ring! I didn't want to think about marriage at that age."
"A childish mind will turn to noble ambition... Young love will become deep affection..." Sheik spoke, almost in a soliloquy, "take it from someone who was around arranged royal marriages... nobody should at that age."
"Maybe I should have stayed here and married Ruto... then I would have been a Zora prince!" Link snickered emptily, "...and none of this would have happened."
"You still feel guilt..."
"Every corner I turn... it's something else..." Link lamented, "and this is the worst yet. Is there nothing the fingers of Ganondorf's evil hasn't touched?"
"Time passes, people move... Like a river's flow, it never ends..." said Sheik.
Link didn't quite understand, but Sheik's monologues had always comforted him thus far.
"Yes, this ice is created by an evil curse... A monster in the Water Temple is the source. Unless the source is shut off, this ice will never melt..."
"And Ruto has gone to try and do that..." Link surmised, "I have to help her."
"I think you know what comes next, Link," Sheik addressed him, "your hope has been defeated, but don't forget... there is one soul the blue flame can save."
Link looked over to the cool fire. He had nearly forgot about King Zora.
"The clear water's surface reflects growth..." With that, Sheik disappeared with his signature flash.
Link filled up the bottle again. Recalling the other bottle that he still had from Lon Lon Ranch, he took that out to fill as well. With the blue fire corked in the two glasses, he exited the cave the way he came.