omegazeta5

[omegazeta5]

Elden's Bane: A Legend of Zelda and Elden Ring Crossover

Ship(s): Link/Ranni, Past Zelink

summary: Beyond the fog, a trio of Goddesses find a land in dire need of repair. In doing so, they send their chosen soldier as their emissary, unaware that he will lose all of who he is just to reach the shore.

His presence in this Shattered country may spell its doom, or its very salvation.

Ch. 2

Limgrave's Tree Sentinel was dead. 

News spread fast. For many a century had the golden champion terrorized any and all would-be Tarnished to come ashore. He had patrolled the plains with vigor relentless and unending. Not a single man who chose to take up swords against the rogue sentinel survived the encounter. Now, Tarnished Recusant and Bloody Finger alike could rest easy. Southwest Limgrave was safe now. 

No one knew who landed the fateful blow. Presumably, no one had been around to witness it. 

—

"So he's met Sellen, I take it?" Varre asked. 

His attendant nodded. Varre huffed. A chilled breeze blanketed the plains of grass before them. He allowed it to raise the flesh beneath his gown as he considered options. The Erdtree was growing brighter in the distance, slowly but surely. The dark of night was beginning to fade over the golden country. Dawn was coming. 

"Resourceful little bugger, isn't he…" Varre gave his attendant a nod. "Assign two more trackers. I want to know his next move before he does." 

The servant vanished in a pool of fermented blood. Varre crossed his arms, tapping his fingers all the while. The possibility of recruitment was still open. The boy didn't seem particularly loyal to the Greater Will's dogma when they spoke. He'd also hardly spoken at all. He had listened to the lures Varre had spread out before him and bitten onto none of them. Typically at least one catches a Tarnished's ear. The fear of dying in obscurity, the veiled glory of storming Stormveil. The boy's expression hadn't twitched once during any of Varre's standard schpiel.  And he was a boy. Varre had seen it in his cheeks, his gait. He'd assumed the boy had stolen those ornamental paired swords off a dead scion. Once he saw what the boy did to the Tree Sentinel—his Sentinel—he knew better. And on the boy's first try, no less. 

Moghwyn's future dynasty could certainly use a man—a boy—of this Tarnished's talents. It could not come to the light of day without them, in fact. It could also be smothered in its crib by one. The difference between both outcomes lay on a thread easily snipped. Thankfully, Varre had sussed out at least one piece of information to go off of. 

"Link," he mused aloud. "Fair-faced, vicious Link. I will remember you, little lambkin." 

—

Melina wasn't sure what to say. "You wish to know if he likes…'carrots?'"

A troop of dead Godrick soldiers lay behind them. Link was still examining Torrent. He ran his palm across rugged muscle. The steed snorted, shuffling his hooves in place. Link nodded without looking at Melina. 

"Long, orange stems. Leafy bits. Tasty. You don't have those here?" 

Melina cast him an uneasy glance. "We have rowa fruit." 

"How's that?" 

"You don't eat it. He does."

"So he likes it?"

"I fail to see what this has to do with the accord." 

Link turned to face her. His expression (what could be seen of it beneath his cowl) perplexed Melina. She could spy soft cheeks, a pointed nose. But his brow was all hard edges, deep and perpetually serious. It made it difficult to discern what the Tarnished was thinking. A pair of ornamental straight swords hung at his hips. She wondered if he knew how to do anything with them. 

"It's a straight shot to the capital?" Link asked. 

"Not exactly," Melina said slowly. "I would guide you as necessary." 

Link seemed to give the notion some thought. "I'd move faster on my own. And I don't know what's along the path. You could slow me down. You could be a liability." 

"I'm a light and…sensible traveler." 

Link eyed her up and down. He nodded. "Yeah. You look sensible." 

He patted Torrent's rump, and Melina took it as a cue to send the steed away. Link stared as Torrent vanished in a floating cascade of blue glitters. "That's so convenient." 

Melina frowned. The way he spoke made this whole endeavor sound like a school trip of sorts. "Then it's settled?" 

Link looked at her again. Melina had known many travelers from beyond the fog. She had seen many of them perish before her feet. At this juncture, this strange boy with a strange face and strange air about him…she was not so certain he wouldn't join them.

"Yeah," he said. "I'll take you to the Erdtree." 

Melina cleared her throat and raised her hood over herself. "Very well. What will you do next?" 

"I'm gonna keep looking around. I just got here, you see."

"I'm well aware…"

"Then I'm taking Stormveil."

Melina blinked. Link left her with nothing to say. He jaunted through the camp's main gate, to where a whole entourage of fresh troops waited. Swords were drawn. A giant's roar shook the rock beneath Melina. She sighed. 

Perhaps this accord wouldn't take up too much of her time after all…

—

Torrent was a good steed. He understood Link's nudges and suggestions with intelligence that seemed beyond a normal mount. How Link knew the difference between a good steed and a bad one was up for debate. The weather was kind to Limgrave; a full sun and a cool breeze accompanied Link on his journey through the open country. It made the land seem almost beautiful. 

But the scars were plain for anyone to see, and Link saw them all. The rotting nobles who milled about the roads, soldiers who'd lost their minds a century or three ago. The very dirt itself seemed tainted somehow. It was like the Erdtree in the distance had its roots in everything. Link could feel the engorged undergrowth wherever he went. It made him nauseous. Hitting various military encampments and pilfering their loot was all he could do to distract himself. 

She was there with him during his travels and battles alike. The faint smell of smoke and ash clung to him even when she was nowhere to be found. She hadn't spoken to him since their first meeting, and Link was glad for that. He wasn't sure why he accepted her accord; maybe because she'd had a horse, and she'd seemed harmless. Either way it was another soul cataloged in the pendant. 

It grew warm against his chest whenever he met a new face. The surgeon in the white mask. The witch in the picturesque helm. Even the oversized jar with hands and legs to boot. Each new name he learned he only had to hold the pendant in his hand to recall with perfect clarity. Every word of every conversation held with every Tarnished. A useful tool, if beguilingly frustrating. If only it could bring him more of the lady with the golden hair. 

She didn't feel like Tarnished, though. The girl with the scarred eye. He wondered why the pendant found her at all important. It didn't matter. They all felt tainted same as the soil beneath them. That sickening feeling in his gut. The one that made him nauseous. 

He decided it must mean he hated all of them. 

—

"Darriwil's gone, My Lady. I'm sorry; I've failed you."

"A dead traitor is worth as much as a jailed one, my friend. I'd told thee as such before thou embarked on this charade." 

"I was supposed to leave him be after what he did to us? It wasn't supposed to take that much of my time, anyhow."

"Just as well; the deed is done. Do we know who struck the killing blow?"

"No. His corpse was rotting by the time I found it. Something awful strange clings to it, though."

"Oh?"

"A scent that's not his. To tell you the truth, My Lady…it doesn't smell like anything that ought to belong in Limgrave. Or the rest of the Lands Between."

"You worry of yet another God come to rob the Greater Will of its vacuous price, is that it? Perhaps we ought to send word to the Formless Mother, or the Frenzied Flame. Set up a dinner date."

"Mistress Ranni…"

"Forgive me, Blaidd. I'm in decidedly high spirits as of late."

"Should I drop the issue?"

"No. Follow the trail, if you'd like. See to it the endeavor doesn't impede your other duties. Alert me of any new developments."

"You don't have to humor me, My Lady. There's a fool to be made out of any outlandish errand, I know that." 

"I know just as well. I am, however, the slightest bit curious."

[omegazeta5]

Elden's Bane: A Legend of Zelda and Elden Ring Crossover

Ship(s): Link/Ranni, Past Zelink

summary: Beyond the fog, a trio of Goddesses find a land in dire need of repair. In doing so, they send their chosen soldier as their emissary, unaware that he will lose all of who he is just to reach the shore.

His presence in this Shattered country may spell its doom, or its very salvation.

Ch. 1

"Rack them up, boys."

Link was jostled awake by the line shifting. His hands were bound in chains, same as every other man lined up against the wall. Dried sweat clung to his bangs, his hair was in tatters. A moonlit sky peaked through the broken rafters above. He shifted and grimaced. Wherever he was, he'd broken something trying to get to it. Or out of it.

"That one."

A pair of men in commoner garb wrested their new candidate away. The man chained next to Link had his head hung low. He was muttering something beneath his breath. Link tried to speak but all that came out was hacking and coughing. That was a shame. He wanted to ask the man if he knew who Link was, or how he got here. There was something else up there mingling with the moonlight. A golden aura, faint but growing with each minute. The night was ending. 

Screaming came from the room the grafters had led the prisoner into. The sound of cleavers on hard wood. The prisoner's cries began to gurgle in his throat. 

"Oh Marika above," the prisoner next to Link murmured. "Please grant me your grace." 

Link stirred at that. Marika. Grace. Thoughts began to trickle in, but none of them were memories. That was only frustrating for a moment. He was Tarnished. He was lucky to remember his own name at all. 

Tarnished. Yes, that...that is what he was.

"Next!" 

They came for the man next to Link. His prayers increased in volume and fervor. One of the grafters smacked him across the face, but the prisoner kept muttering. 

"Maybe we oughtta take his tongue first," the grafter said. "It'd be the first scion in history to have one, eh?" 

The grafters chuckled, dragged the man away. Link was next in line. It smelled like ash in here. He was in blue tatters, leather vest and gloves. They hadn't taken his cowl, and the cloth was crusted dry and smelled awful. His scabbards were empty. He'd had swords. Did he like swords? 

More hacking cleaver sounds. This one did not scream. There must have been some dignity, before the end. A rotten end it was. To leave in mind and soul and watch helpless as the cravens cut away the parts of you they liked best. Even if they buried you near the roots, as they should, there wouldn't be anything to come back to. 

How did he know all this? 

Link became aware of something cold clinging to his chest. Something metal. It hung around his neck. He tried to feel for it. The chains dug into his wrist. 

"Next."

They came for Link, and he did not fight. He was still thinking about whatever it was that hung around his neck. He was thinking about the stars and how few of them he could see. That aura of gold washed out most of the sky. That felt wronger than the chopping block he was being dragged to. 

They hoisted him onto the table. They bound his limbs once more. One of them had teeth yellow and rotting. One of them didn't have any teeth at all. He gnashed his gums, and spit trickled onto Link's cheek. 

"This one ain't flinch once, chief. Where'd you drag him off of?" 

The grafter's partner scoffed. "Nowheres, is what. Poor bloke was laid out on the coast, waterlogged and all."

"Blimey," the first grafter said. "Tosser tossed off his own ship?" 

They cackled. Link was watching the last star twinkle out. 

"Had a pair of measly scimitars," one of the grafters said. "All he had to his name, that is." 

"Wee Tarnished thinks he's the Blue Swordsman, that it?" 

"Either way, he's clay for the scion. Get the tools." 

They started rummaging through his pockets. They ran knobbled fingers through his seams, through his leather. A cold, dry hand closed around his necklace. The grafter frowned. 

"Eh?" 

He yanked the necklace free. The pendant had a sharp edge. It nicked Link in the cheek. A fine line of blood trickled down his jaw. It snapped him back into the now, and he focused on what dangled just over him. 

The necklace's gold had long rusted away, exposing the raw iron beneath. The pendant was a collection of triangles, three in all. They were arranged in such a way that they made one whole triangle in and of itself. It dangled overhead. It caught the golden light. 

The images came to him all at once. Link tasted sea, and tasted current. He felt stalks of wheat between his fingers, and the light of sun on his face. The images grew more concrete. They were out of sequence. Silver soldiers marching in single file, row after row after row. Brilliant blue flags waving high overhead. An old weathered face peered into a cradle, waggled a chipped rattle. A sword being brought to each shoulder, one after the other. The slender arm that held it. 

"Ey mate," one of the grafter's grunted, "he's struggling now—"

"Tosser got some fight left in him after all, don't he—?" 

A head of golden hair. It fell past her shoulders in a forever river. Clear blue eyes. Full of scorn, once. Full of hate. Full of something more, right before the end. 

She'd thrust the necklace in his hands. He wouldn't take it. Not when it could risk everything. But she wanted him to have something. Something to remember what he was, and what he was fighting for. Who was she? Why was she looking at him like that? Why was she crying? 

"Blimey. Pack of elephants in this one's arms—"

"Just hold him down, will you—"

She blinked through her own tears, pendant clutched in his hands. "You will forget. I know you will. You need something to hold onto. Something to spur you onward when the ship lands, and the true hard work comes. You have to remember the task at hand." 

Link's wrists were bleeding. The bolts holding down the chains were beginning to tear. A grafter was yelling at his mate to get the cleaver. 

"Because you will think you are one of them. And we will make you like one of them. But you can never be one of them. Because they do not know where Grace truly lies. 

And you will be the one to show them." 

The bolts shattered free. Link shot a hand out and snapped a grafter's neck instantly. The cleaver slipped from his grip and fell right next to Link's head. Before any of the other grafters could do anything he grabbed the knife and freed his other hand. The other grafters began to draw swords. "Stubborn old git—"

Link was on them in a whirlwind. He snapped a grafter's arm at the joint like a chicken bone and silenced his cry with a swipe of the cleaver to his throat. He brought it down on another's skull, driving it through the bone. One tried to get him in the gut, but his limbs were so frail. The sword just grazed the leather, and now it was within arm's reach. Link wrenched the blade free from the grafter's hands and shoved it up his throat. The grafter crumpled to the floor. 

That left just one more. He was scrambling across the worktable, suspended chains clattering against each other as he went. Link was in between him and the door. The grafter dropped his sword of his own volition. 

"H-heheh. You're real handy with those, ain't you? You'd," he tripped, scrambled to his feet? "you'd make a good knight, I'd reckon. You'd work wonders in Godrick's keep, swear on me mum. I can take you there. I can help ya meet him. You'd only have to let me go, so I can lead the way."  

Link drove the sword into his groin, and left it there. The grafter choked on his next words, the tendons tight in his neck as he collapsed with his hands clenched around the blade's handle. He hit the floor with a thud. The necklace lay splayed out across the wood. 

Link bent down. He touched it gingerly, like it was an open flame. He picked it up carefully and wrung it around his neck once more. Nothing else came. No more wheat, no more sun. No girl with golden hair. He just stood in a butcher's shop with fresh decaying meat scattered all around him. 

He went back out the hall, to the remaining prisoners. He broke their chains. They did not thank him as they went. A harder death probably waited for them out there, wherever 'there' was. And now it was time for him to see it. His footsteps creaked the wood as he went up the stairs into an empty chapel. A statue of a woman he did not know stood over him, arms held out, head hung low. He could not tell if she was in pain or not. He pressed his palm against his chest, into the pendant beneath the leather. He made for the doors. Time to see the sun, he thought. 

When he saw the Erdtree, everything clicked into place, even if he knew nothing. He knew what he was here for, even if he didn't remember how or why or who he was fighting for. He knew what he had to do. He had to bring a kingdom to its knees. 

He had to kill a god.

[omegazeta5]

'In the depths of ZDR, she finds she's not alone. She finds someone wearing the same armor as her. Someone she doesn't remember knowing.

But she does.'

My first writing foray into Metroid! And my first OC I've ever featured in a fanfic 😅

I really have to thank ClaraAeri so much, not just for feeding me the initial inspiration for this fic, but also for making art of my OC!! Here's James, everyone, I love the shit outta him

If you read, hope you enjoy!

[omegazeta5]

Photos

prompt: “Last night I tried to imagine myself without you. The thing is, I could and I felt so much better.” 

Hurt/Comfort

Sort of sequel to Devotion

Really all the context you gotta know is BOTW Link cheated on his Zelda with the one from Smash 

  He’d been drinking ever since she stumbled upon him awake in the middle of the night. Purple morning chill in the fogged windows of the house in Hateno. Hard yellow lamplight in the dining hall and the glare only worsens Zelda’s headache. Silken nightgown bundled around her feet as she sits and watches from the banisters through bleary eyes. 

  He shakes the last few droplets from the tenth bottle before dropping it on the table. Fumbling movements. The glass rumbles the wood until it falls to the floor. Link stumbles back. 

  She should say something. Anything. Nothing she thinks of drowns out the words that drove him to the bottle in the first place. But what of the thing that drove her to say them? 

  Her gaze flits over to the Slate on the ground by the bedside table. He hadn’t bothered to put it back properly. Sometimes it’s easy for her to look through it. Like it’s the most natural thing in Hyrule. Sometimes she wants to strip it for parts.

  It’s her fault. She said he didn’t have to delete them. Always so eager to please. What a pair they are. Zelda sighs and lifts the Slate on her way down the steps. 

  He stares haggard through the sheen of his sweat. He was never a happy drunkard. “That’s mine.” 

  “Get back in bed before you hurt someone.” 

  He laughs roughly. “Like you want me there.” 

  “I didn’t mean what I said.” 

  “I didn’t mean a lot of things.” 

  As he’d been so keen to tell her. That period of time after he hadn’t told her anything at all and their world ended because of it. But it didn’t, did it? They’re still here. Moving. Doing. Isn’t that what she told him to do? 

  “We don’t take any new ones,” she says. “Why is that?” 

  He braces himself on the table and looks at her. “Memory’s full.” 

  The words are there and she should say them. One tap of a button on the Slate and like that, all their problems disappear. And then he’d forget what he did and she’d forget what he said and they’d go on living in the land where they died a hundred years before and where she died twice, in a way. Because it’d be that simple. 

  “You’re going to fall,” she says. 

  “Heh. All the monsters. A bottle does me in?” He hiccups. “That’s good.” 

  “I’m sorry. I mean it.” 

  “I know you do,” he says through labored breaths and his eyes unreachable and his tone unknowable. 

  Zelda’s eyes squeeze shut and her breath burns her nose. Why did she say that? It’s the last thing he needs, at this point. What about what she needs? What about what he needed? She couldn’t give it to him then. Not really. Stop. He tells her to stop thinking that way. He’s right. He shouldn’t be right on anything after what he did. He’s right on too many things. Like this Slate and everything in it. Why can’t she accept that he wants to move on? Because he was looking at them when she woke up. And then they spoke and their words grew louder and she said her piece and now they’re here. 

  There would be nothing to look at if she just told him to delete the photos. 

  “Circles,” she mutters. “It’s all circles.” 

  “Yeah,” he says. And then he drops.

  He stirs later in the afternoon and the first thing he does is grimace through his hangover. She sits on the bed’s edge and waits for him to blink his way to her being there. The Slate sits between them.

  “Morning,” he says.

  “Morning. I made you that.” She hides her face as he looks over to the bowl. 

  “Oh. Oh man, I’m sorry. I know you don’t like to-” 

  “No no,” she reassures, “I wanted to. Really.” 

  He eyes the soup. “What’s in it?” 

  “Hydromelon. Voltfruit. Carrots.” 

  His brow lifts. “Oh yeah?” 

  Zelda nods with her hands to her lips. He picks it up and he’s already nodding before the spoon’s anywhere near his tongue. 

  “Mm. Yeah. It’s good.” 

  “Don’t lie.” 

  “I mean it. Just…” 

  “Oh?” 

  He winces like he doesn’t want to say. Her gaze narrows and his own wilts apologetically. 

  “It’s...radishes. You put radishes in Creamy Heart Soup, not carrots.” 

  “Oh. Oh Hylia.” 

  She smacks herself on the forehead and he leans up immediately. “But it’s good. I mean it. Really. Zelda—ah, hell-” 

  The bowl tips and spills onto the sheets and she’s making strange and fervent noises as she tries to help him place it back on the table and more just spills and he’s laughing. She’s laughing. 

  “Well, there goes my culinary career,” she says. “You have my gratitude.” 

  She helps him wipe and flick the stray droplets off his face and he stares hopelessly at the stained sheets. “It was good, though.”

  “Really.” 

  “Yeah. It really was.” 

  He looks up. His smile. She hasn’t seen that in months. Her hand caresses his chin. Soft, warm breath on her lips. His eyes flit down once before returning to her gaze. Their precarious and shared lean. 

  The Slate tumbles to the floor. 

  Zelda jumps back and Link settles into his seat on the bed again. He brushes the bangs from his face as he looks away. Sulken shoulders. She looks down for an eternity. 

  “...I think it’s time.” 

  His gaze burning on her neck. “You do.” 

  She looks at him and it’s hard to keep that helpless smile from her own lips. “It was time a long time ago, wasn’t it.” 

  He gazes into her. Open and unjudging. “Yeah. Yeah, it was.”

  A wetness in her eyes and she hates it. She can’t let him see it. “Link...I—I’m so, so-” 

  “Goddess,” he says, shaking his head. “Look at us. Look at what I did to us. It’s...no. It’s me. It was always me.” 

  She looks at him through her fingers and what she sees hurts. “I can be sorry, too. It’s not...mutually exclusive.” 

  A smile flickers past his expression. He looks down, broken from himself. “I guess it’s not.” 

  She hides her face again and the seconds pass and the bed creaks and his warmth envelops her. Chin on her scalp. She sinks into his embrace.

  Gray morning. Dew on the grass. Deja vu. The fresh wind lifts her curls as they stand on the patio and watch the branches sway.

  “Hey.” 

  “Hm?” 

  “Let’s take one right now.” 

  “Are you certain?” 

  “Yeah, sure. There’s a lot of room now. A lot of memory. Only if you wanna, though.” 

  “...I’d like that. I really would.” 

[omegazeta5]

Questions and Maybe Answers

Hello hi @dontwaitupxx reminded me this page exists by tagging me so here we goo

Name: OmegaZeta5(AO3, here)

Fandoms: So far I’ve really only written for Legend of Zelda 

Where you post: AO3 and sometimes on ff.net

Most popular oneshot: Light Reading 

Most popular multichapter: Only Natural 

Favorite story you’ve written so far: Memento Mori, probably. From outline to final draft it was the fastest thing I ever wrote even by oneshot standards, and everything for it clicked into place very naturally I felt 

Fic you were nervous to post: Devotion due to the subject matter and how tricky it felt navigating through all those emotions. Writing and tweaking everything in it felt very draining but I’m happy with the end product which is what counts in the end(and making readers cry is pretty fun too)

How you choose your titles: They’re the last thing I think of, usually right before publishing a work(lol). And how I choose them varies too, for Light Reading I picked a line of dialogue, Devotion was the WIP title and I just stuck with it, etc. I try to have something that fits the tone of the piece 

Do you outline: Yep, I like to know where a story is going and where it’s ending before I write it out, even if I feel it slows me down. I would very much love to be a pantser but I find I burn out a lot quicker working without an outline than with one 

Complete: 6 so far, all on AO3 

In progress: Yes

Coming Soon: Maybe 

Prompts: I need them

Upcoming works you’re most excited about: Yes. 

Tagging @clemonade1 and @ashleyswrittenwords (if you’ve already done this then my b, tumblr mystifies me a little more than it maybe should)