Link mentally checked the description of the item he held above his head, quickly stashing it. Judging by this thing and the obstacles he had encountered it, his flippers just weren't going to cut it anymore, and he'd be able to progress. There was just one tiny question. Why Mermaid Suit? Why not Merman? Or Fish Tail Suit? He swore, he didn't want to wear this thing. Forget ditching the flippers, he was only going to put this thing on when the water was deep enough for nobody to be able to see him. The things he did for the pursuit of peace and light and the restoration of the balance of time and all that.
--
Link dove into the water, looking down below him, the water being far too deep for him to swim without drowning. Oh, great. Well, had to use it sometime. Hopefully it lived up to its description. He dove down, and pulled the tail out, awkwardly shoving his lower torso into it. Maybe he should have taken his flippers off first. And his boots. After a moment of nearly drowning, he managed to get into it, and swam down, having to awkwardly flop to move and hold it on. It was kind of loose around the hips, and the fact that his legs and feet were too wide for the thin end of the tail made it extremely uncomfortable. The thing was practically sliding off him. How was he supposed to swim in this? Suddenly, it began to feel less loose, and he sighed in relief, letting go of it. Actually, it was kind of snug now. Wait, what? He had inches of room before! His hips were feeling kind of weird too...
He looked down, and nearly choked on the water the suit was allowing him to breath as he saw that his hips were significantly wider than they used to be, not overly so, but practically girly now. To make matters worse, his rear end was swelling to match, and while it wasn't exactly large, it was round and feminine. Was this what this suit was supposed to do to keep itself on? He was really glad he was in the middle of a pool of water in a dungeon where nobody could see him.
He had made the mistake of assuming that that was the only thing it had done, and didn't notice the suit becoming a lot more comfortable as his leg grew slimmer, his feet shrinking and fitting easily into the thin end of the tail, his thighs growing slender to match his hips. He felt a his waist push in an inch or two, while his overall frame shrank, losing an inch of height in the process. His eyes widened as he felt the most valuable item in his inventory shrink into his body, its accessories going with it as she let out a high-pitched, bubbly gasp.
Her arms slimmed down like the rest of his body, going from muscular-for-her-age to slender and toned, her hands shrinking. Her tunic felt a lot looser on her, until she realised that it was starting to feel tighter in one particular area. Her chest was starting to swell outward, nipples puffing up as a small but noticeable chest protruded through her tunic. Up top, her panicked but still masculine face began to shift and contort, her jaw growing thinner as her lips grew slightly, her nose shrinking as her eyebrows thinned out. Her features shifted from that of a young man to that of a young lady, and if he hadn't been panicking and it been the last thing she wanted to call herself, she would have described herself as pretty. Maybe even cute. Not the description of the legendary hero she had wanted.
Somehow her hair was pretty much the only thing on her head that didn't change in any way, although it was kind of long in the first place. Her hat even managed to stay on throughout the whole thing. Link, who had been trying to pull the Mermaid Suit off for most of this, finally managed to do so, and was dismayed when she failed to start changing back. She held off putting it back on as long as she could, until she began to practically suffocate. She let herself sink to the bottom of the cave's floor, extremely unhappy as she did so. She decided to stay down there a bit longer. She wasn't looking forward to leaving the cave.