#LOZ Fic

[phoenixcatch7]

It's always funny to me when in an lu fic the chain is offered bananas and don't accept them. Like, you're offering these high energy adventures free food?? Fruit they'll have never even heard of before??? A ridiculously expensive imported good at best?? AND it boosts your attack?

Not ONE of these idiots would ever turn down something new and interesting to eat at least once. They'd be all over those bananas and immediately get dubbed yiga and I'm honestly surprised no one has used it in a fic yet 🤭

[daeyumi]

Cycle of the Stars

Prologue I:

Protosphere

***

THUD.

THUD.

A wave of sensation washes over them, vague and fleeting, like light filtering down through deep water.

Colors.

Thoughts.

The impression of someone calling out to them from far away, obscured through the blurry images that whisper across their eyes.

THUD.

Silence. Oppressive and heavy.

It feels familiar somehow, this weight. A long forgotten dream. They feel that they’ve known it before.

They think they feel a sense of self. An identity against the current of infinitum, one blot on a blank sheet of paper. A tangible presence. It dissipates the next moment, rolled away on the tide.

‘Before?’

Not understanding the comparison, they sit alone with the word and it’s implications. More colors spring forth to their eyes, unbidden. A lone figure on a hill, his back to a ruined land. Red and grey and black. The gold-tinted-orange of a dying sun, bleeding out over the empty horizon.

A vast expanse of dying grass, crowned with innumerable gravestones. Grey earth, grey sky, grey stone. An aftermath, a finale. A beginning. A single swatch of green, kneeling before a headstone. Life among death.

A hole in a gnarled tree, leading down, down, into the recesses of the world, swallowing life and soul and self.

A call.

A name.

A word.

Link.

The connection, the void.

Everything and nothing.

The colors swirl before their eyes in an infinite flash of space and time.

THUD.

Memories? Visions? They try to close their eyes against the current of impressions and find them to be already closed.

THUD.

Mind racing, as if fighting through the muddy currents of a storm-bloated river. They can’t understand. Thoughts begin to feel impossible. Even the whirling forms within their mind’s eye start to close in on them, oppressive and threatening. Moving so quickly that the sound deafens their ears, crushing the blunt silence with an overwhelming pressure.

They crack open their eyes and find no relief in the cold darkness that envelops them, somehow moving even faster than the nauseating colors that threatened their closed eyes moments previously.

THUD.

THUD.

Thud.

Thoughts begin to slow, finally finding relief in the void beyond cognition. The intangible shapes and patterns flow languidly now, a comforting caress to replace the constant barrage on the senses. Blue. Like the shallows of a river that stretches to the horizon, through which can be seen the blue sky above, falling off into infinity. Above and below. An all encompassing finality to contain the world. Blue and green and the serenity of the day’s end.

Gradually, they become aware of a clenched fist repeatedly making contact with a thick pane of glass in front of them.

Thud.

A hand. An owner. Belonging. An emptiness to once again overtake the soul, blotting out the essence of the previous inhabitant to make way for new images to stamp their impressions on its walls.

Confinement.

A separation in the everything.

The e v e r y t h i n g

thud.

n e v. e r e n d. i. n g

thud.

thud.

thud

The quieting pulses are forced to one final crescendo as the hand, unbidden, makes a last desparate strike against the unmoving surface, shattering the barrier of the world.

Heavy glass bursts outward from the threshold along with a surge of viscous liquid, pouring out toward the ground; the draining substance revealing a limp, convulsing pile of limbs and torso, frantically coughing up fluids from their burning lungs. The sound of draining pressure coincides with the roaring in their ears and the desperate cacophony of retching and wheezing before falling uncomfortably silent; the only sound the steady ooze of solution falling to the ground far below in steady droplets. Drip. Drip. The solitary rhythm of measured time.

A heartbeat passes and they stir, blue eyes opening slowly as if wading through still water. Weakly, they try to raise their head to the glow of intense light radiating from above; their muscles strain tensely before falling limp again, exhausted.

Trapped.

The walls seem to close in again, threatening their inhabitant once more with darkness and manic imagery that still flashes before them when they close their eyes to blink. Forcing limbs to move, straining for something, anything but the paralyzing numbness that binds them. One motion at a time; but their muscles won’t obey, their mind won’t respond. Pain. Stagnation.

A hand passes through the right side of the eyes’ range of vision. Slender, pale fingers to match the hand from earlier.

Their own hand.

Panic sets in amid a tangle of flailing limbs.

Coughing, gasping for air, the pallid figure claws against the side of the cramped enclosure, hands scrabbling to find purchase on the smooth interior. Shaky fingers finally make contact with the shattered remnants of a glass wall in the side of the tank and grip weakly to the edge of the hole in the room, still dripping a slow current of colorless liquid onto the empty stone floor far below. In between ragged breaths, they start to pull themself desperately toward the edge of the enclosure. Muscles quivering from disuse, chest heaving from exertion. With a final effort, their body clears the opening and slides down to the floor below, landing with a quiet splash that shatters the silence in the cavernous chamber beyond the broken tank.

He lay unmoving for a moment, save for another round of violent coughing.

It takes everything they have to lift their shoulders off the floor, still-bowed head following suit. Hunched over, their weight barely supported by quivering arms. They try to lift their gaze and immediately retch again, a repulsive mix of bile and clear fluid spilling over the exposed skin of their legs and onto the panels of the already wet floor beneath them.

Bony fingers clutch at an emaciated throat.

Can’t—

The room spins and they fall the short distance to the floor.

Unconscious.

Unmoving.

Sodden, pale hair clinging to a thin frame. Skin, and bone, and earth. A birth or a battlefield.

The last gasps of echoing sound die alone in the vast recesses of that empty room, smothered by the endless labyrinth of tubes across the vast ceiling.

***

He woke.

A thick darkness suffuses the room, broken only by the cold blue light flickering through the thick haze that obscures the edges of their vision. The trembling figure pushes himself up on weak arms, bleary eyes surveying the landscape before them. Fallen pillars on the ground, crumbled beyond recognition until they snaked across the cold stone terrain and beyond to the edges of the horizon, starlight glinting off them in irregular patches. Beyond, small shapes protrude from the ground, obscured by fog and distance. Shrines? Homes? Some even show a faint glow of light that cuts through the mist.

Their head spins.

Blue eyes hazily follow the swirling patterns from the base of a row of short pillars up to the top where they meet the sky, seamlessly melding into the azure heavens.

An endless expanse of sky and clouds, above and below. All encompassing. Lightning without rain.

With effort, he directs his gaze to the pinnacle of the sky.

Six identical moons above, surrounded by a myriad of stars, trailing constellations back down towards the earth. Blue. The blue of the night sky, whose weakly blinking stars, too, are never strong enough to illuminate the land below. The blue of the deep ocean, where forgotten kingdoms sleep in disrepair, the same as the dilapidated landscape they see before them. Remnants of a broken empire. An unnatural blue, made worldly only by age and disuse.

Ages of….

A heavy weight overwhelms them, as centuries of water carving deep fissures through mountains; and they collapse to the ground, exhaustion reclaiming its hold on the figure once more. Cold. The void of the cracked tile below shoves daggers into their skin, leeching what little strength they had and reducing them to a crumpled heap on the frigid stone floor; the repetition of choppy, shallow breaths the only sign of life.

Another wasteland, empty as before, piercing white. Scattered glass upon a vast field. The cracks between lead down, down into the black oblivion of eternity, where all things are null, as time itself, as life, as identity, as color; and above, the frozen world. Colorless, unbroken.

Silent.

Melancholy; the soul of the interloper. Convergence. Concurrence.

Passed beyond knowing.

A lone tree in a grassy field.

Faces obscured behind titles and grand deeds.

Stories.

Legends.

“The face in the glass… is that the real you?”

They felt they should know… something. A past, a future. An identity. Surely they’d had one before?

…Before?

It’s empty; like walking a corridor lined with doors made of possibility that turn to dust at the moment of approach. A glass room bounded by mirrors and crystal vases filled with water. Tangible but hollow. Repeating in on itself with every refraction until the thin lines of light and shadow mean nothing to the perception of an observer.

Connections.

Thoughts.

Disorientation as one thought reflects back above the others.

Resonance.

The impression of a name. Link.

They felt sick again, and then they felt nothing.

***

The stars still shine above when they wake, crowned by those too-consistent moons. Not moons and stars, Link realizes as their vision steadily begins to clear. Too perfect to be….

Gingerly, they try to uncurl themself from their position on the floor and find that their body does work, though made none the easier by their atrophied muscles. He stretches out a trembling hand, placing it against the smooth floor and pushing himself upright. The air smells stale and slightly damp as Link looks around, cataloguing the shapes that their eyes hadn’t been able to make out before.

Strange figures in the fog solidify themselves into derelict machinery.

The walls are lined with rounded devices that give way to wide panels above, decorated with carved patterns of lines and circles evoking myriad constellations in a night sky; the points of the stars glowing faintly with ethereal blue light. Most of the light in the room, however, comes from the six identical skylights crowning the apex of the chamber. The “moons” Link had noticed previously. The large round lights form a circular pattern around the top of a singular central pillar in the room. A pillar which was not, in fact, a pillar; but the shaft of the massive incubation tank that, Link realizes with growing horror, they themself had occupied until just recently.

With difficulty, he shifts his position from where he sat on the floor, gradually turning around until he sits fully facing the massive apparatus. It is made of a hard material, more akin to stone than metal, and cool to the touch; an ominous column that bows out as it reaches the floor to make room for the cavernous space inside like a gaping maw. Link shivers as they reach out their hand to place it on the raised pattern of the tank, rough and almost porous in contrast with the sleek underlayer. It reminds him of a stomach, he thinks, or perhaps a tangled mass of intestines, with its maze of uneven lines twisting and curling in on themselves. They feel vaguely sick again but curiosity forces them to keep looking anyway, noting that the center of each circle in the pattern houses a window of varying sizes, some seeming to lead to other tanks, adjacent to the main belly but many times smaller in size. Empty.

Empty, too, is the largest chamber of the incubation tank, looming above their thin frame like a drooling mouth, with shards of shattered glass forming the teeth at the edges of the main window. Link hasn’t the strength to stand and look inside. He doesn’t think he could stomach the sight anyways; flashbacks to the manic fervor of trying to escape already rising to the surface of his memory.

Their eyes drift instead to the base of the structure, where thick tubes as wide as Link’s own torso run out towards the edges of the walls, joining with other machines and even to the wall itself. The tubes glow faintly where patches of the outer material has peeled away to display the translucent membrane beneath. It’s apparent that they would have been used to transport the clear liquid into, or out of, the massive cistern. There’s no current running in either direction, but Link wonders if they house the vile solution even now. They force themself to look away, swallowing hard.

From his vantage point in roughly the center of the stone floor, Link can make out precious little else about the darkened room. More tubes cross the ceiling, traveling again the distance between the walls and the central pillar and meeting it, Link presumes, at the top; though they aren’t going to risk passing out again to crane their head to see. More strange shaped rubble gathered around the corners of the room. Link can’t even begin to guess its source, as none of the constructs nearby seem to be crumbling or missing pieces.

Their wandering gaze solidifies on an incongruous shape sitting amongst the wreckage. Curious, and without any other course of action, they begin to crawl towards it.

The object in question reveals itself to be a small ring about the size of the palm of their hand. It appears to have once been a perfect circle, adorned in symmetry with the same constellation pattern as the walls of the cavernous room; now sharing in its fate. Broken and discarded, dust and other refuse clogging the fine grooves in its surface. A crack runs across the rounded surface, culminating in a sizeable chip missing from one side.

Link picks up the ring with a trembling hand, fumbling it once before gaining a steadier grip. It’s made of a similar material to the tank in the center of the room, but judging by its size must have once been a piece of something larger.

The image sticks in their mind as they continue to scan the room for anomalies among the mess of machines and wires running the perimeter of the vast space. A forgotten tool lying alone in the wreckage of a desolate land, buried with the past.

The parallels to his own situation seem significant somehow.

He finds his fingers curling around the ring instinctively, though his eyes now look past it, focusing on a dark gap in between some of the panels on the wall to his left.

The exit.

Or so he hopes. A brief flash of fear crosses Link’s mind, imagining a passageway closed off with more of the rubble before him. Trapped. Apprehension washes over him, imagining the suffocating embrace of the water inside the tenebrous vessel. Why was he even here? Alone? The rest of the room is empty, the machines deteriorating and, as far as Link can tell, inactive. Is there more to this place? The sheer number of control units along the walls suggest there should have been a sizable number of people to operate the facility. His mind balks at the implications of his solitary confinement to this place. The sole inhabitant of the tank, the sole inhabitant of the room. How long..? Memories of the interior of the tank are replaced by thoughts of a sealed chamber, no doors to be found on the smooth interior; or a narrow exit blocked by collapsed rubble. His breath quickens and new images flash before his mind. Bloody fingernails capping raw fingers, scrabbling at the walls, bruised and bloodied knuckles; and still the harsh, unmoving stone of the enclosure, one person unable to do what only time can accomplish, unable to tear down the boundaries, to free themself. An agonizing death by starvation. He doesn’t want to think about the alternative.

It’s too much.

He tries to fight through the rising alarm, shoving it down to the pit of his stomach along with his nausea. Deep breaths. Clenching his fist further, driving nails and the imprint of a stone circle into the palm of their hand. Forcing themself to lift their gaze once more to their destination.

Link shakes their head to clear it and immediately regrets it, the throbbing in his head only intensifying with the movement. I need to leave this place.

***

The hallways beyond the central tank chamber are more of the same in appearance. The now-familiar constellation pattern decorates the upper part of the walls, while the lower portion is tessellated with the twisting pattern of curved lines in chunky relief, boundaried by a single line of the same raised, rough material running unbroken down the length of the hallway. It is this conformation that Link clings to as they make their way down the dim corridor, leaning their weight on the wall as they half stumble, half pull themselves along the wall with shaky arms; making up the difference for their protesting legs. It’s the fourth hallway like this they’ve encountered, though there had been only one exit from the incubation chamber. The path had split often, at first, and he had needed to retread the same paths multiple times in places as he met with many dead ends in the labyrinthine halls. They had passed other compartments on their quest to find the exit; small rooms bare except for a couple sparse beds with thin shelves jutting from the walls beside them. An impossibly tall chamber with a vaulted roof that seemed meant for storage, but held nothing but dilapidated shelves and crumbled debris. A locked door at the end of an agonizingly long hallway for which Link did not have the key, nor the strength to try to open. They fervently hoped it didn’t lead to the exit. The door had felt cool to the touch, but Link had been forced to abandon it to continue his search down the previous passageways.

This whole place is abandoned.

Though he knew it already to be true; the deafening silence betrayed no signs of life. Link’s own shuffling footsteps, quiet though they are, are the lone sound in the eerie gloom.

He feels more lucid, now, though his head still pounds and his vision still swims even from this slow movement down the corridor. They try to recall anything about themself, but find nothing to betray their past in their memories. Link. He feels that he ought to know something about the owner of that name. About himself. But any attempts to recollect further are met with failure and the feeling of trying to lift water through a sieve. Meaningless, obviously, but they are far too exhausted to feel frustration. And they can feel that their body will need to eat soon, even through the lightheadedness and nausea that still blanket them like thick fog.

A blue aura ahead signals the room at the end of the hallway; too far to make out, but steadily coming into view. Narrow panels hang along the walls, framing the doorway as Link draws near. Smooth and blank, but placed as though a sign to indicate the path. It would have seemed significant if not for the fact that every door prior had also been marked in a similar manner. Link’s fingers catch on the edge of a panel and they stumble, crumpling to the ground as they enter the room at last.

Not the exit.

But this room was different to the others they had encountered previously. Link swallows bile as he raises his head from the floor, dizziness returning in full force while they reposition their legs beneath them and reach for the edge of a low shelf to pull themself to their feet. Rows of glass tanks line the walls at the edges of the room, more uniform by far than the singular pillar shaped tank in the chamber Link had awoken in, with its divots and knobby carvings surrounding uneven windows. These seem almost sterile by comparison, though each window was still rimmed by twisting patterns of stone. They had no apparent function, as they lacked the tubes that had connected the larger tank to the machinery and walls of the huge cavern. There also didn’t seem to be anything inside. It was hard to make out whether the clear liquid contained within differentiated from tank to tank, and even that would have been to difficult to see if some of the tanks had not been cracked and partially drained. A high table spanned the length of most of the chamber, rising up from the ground like a solid plinth.

Having regained his footing, Link starts once more down the rectangular room, supporting his balance on the intermittent tables or walls. They are struck once again by the sheer hollowness of the place; the tables, the shelves, the jars embedded in the walls- even the room itself, he realizes, lacks the network of tubes crossing the ceiling that had so defined other rooms in the labyrinth. It isn’t so much that the room is empty so much as… devoid of habitation? A strange… desolation that they hadn’t registered until now, even despite the layers of dust that coat every surface. He passes a small, round alcove in the side of the wall, housing yet another barren container, this one free standing but otherwise matching the others in the room; the only thing setting it apart being the myriad “arms” that protrude from all sides, each containing a channel that points toward the central chamber.

Trying to combine something? It looks like it was built to fit this space. Or the other way around…. Link shudders again, contemplating the purpose of his presence in this place.

It’s a short enough distance to the other end of the vault, but it takes them several more agonizing minutes to cross the expanse. Step by step, feeling the omniscient gaze of the empty tanks on his back. his legs refuse to increase pace, however; continuing his uneven gait towards the far door, and at last steps into the small antechamber beyond.

Carvings in twisted stone relief completely cover the interior of the round room, only serving to highlight the closed door opposite him. He’s reminded once more of the bowels of a giant beast, the writhing pattern enclosing him, constricted; waiting to be digested. It’s cramped and oppressive compared to the previous rooms, and Link feels the walls start to close in around them. Reliving. Clenching his fist on the circular charm he had picked up from the floor earlier, he focuses on the sole thing keeping him in the room. Fresh air. It creeps in from the edges of the door, fighting a losing battle with the dank, musty scents of the broken down facility. Giving its life to promise freedom to another.

The door doesn’t budge when Link turns the handle so they throw their weight against it clumsily, falling upon the access with a dull thud. They are forced to repeat the action again and again before the door relinquishes its hold and creaks open, heavy stone scraping aside as Link slides to his knees. He is moving forward again almost instantly despite his exhaustion, spurred on by the faint breeze he feels across his skin.

It’s the longest hallway he’s encountered so far. Not even a pinprick of light can be seen ahead; the corners of the wall all converging to a single point in the darkness. The tunnel ascends at a gentle slope that wears on his legs after just a few minutes of walking, though Link already uses the wall to support their weight. they long to sink to the floor and rest, to give in to the deep exhaustion that has plagued them since they awoke. His throbbing head is at odds with the gnawing pangs of his stomach. He feels as though he has been wandering the deserted passages for hours, days. Sense of time degraded and fractured beyond recognition. If he could see what his state of mind looked like, he imagines it would be like the stone lines on the wall. Twisting, sinuous, ever moving forwards but slowly, painfully. Doubling back or circling around before continuing on. None of them connected. Fragmented. His breathing is getting heavy, and they can tell they’re moving slower than before, their movements less coordinated. If he stops walking now, the floor will swallow him whole. Returned to the void.

He walks on.

The dragging of footsteps is joined at last in its lone refrain, accompanied at last by the soft sound of a wayward breeze.

Blue eyes raise once more toward the outlet of the passage, confusion registering with the recognition of an inky chasm past the walls. Startled, their mind summons once more an image of cramped rooms and overbearing machinery waiting beyond, wandering forever; before the solution snaps them back to sentience.

Oh.

It’s nighttime.

Footsteps quicken and they stumble the last few steps toward the exit, relinquishing his grip on the wall as he rushes down the corridor. Frantic. Wind whipping through the tangle of long hair at their back and rushing through their ears, deafening. The slapping of feet on stone is replaced at once with the dry rustling of grass, and he falls to his knees as the world opens up before him at last; vast forest rising up around him as he emerges from the cavernous hole in the ground, long overgrown with flowering vines that herald the changing of an era.

Link feels as though they kneel before the precipice of a dreamscape.

Thick forest, the vast swath of trees forming columns under a vaulted ceiling of branches, starlight pooling off the leaves and filling the cool night air with energy. An infinite expanse of world surrounding. The ethereal made manifest amid the verdant sanctum of possibility.

Freedom.

And survival.

[beemovieerotica]

[solarwreathe]

designing totk ocs for a fic, it's about a gerudo woman and a yiga footsoldier travelling hyrule to learn about the power of friendship and crime. i don't have many plot points mapped out other than they mug penn at some point

i went back and reused this design because i liked it so much

[lily-alphonse]

Sometimes Link dreams of flying.

But he isn't the one flying. His head is resting in crimson feathers and he feels like a child cradled by the wind and sky. He is safe.

Against his chest beats the large heart of his beloved loftwing. Against his back beats the sun.

It's a delightful dream that he rarely has, interspersed with nightmares and blackness.

He barely remembers the dream when he wakes, but the day is always more pleasant after that.

And then one day Revali has him climb on his back for battle, and the feeling of feathers on his skin shocks something warm in him he can't place. He puts his face against him and closes his eyes. He can't focus, getting an ear-full from the arrogant Rito champion.

100 years later he has wisps of the memories in his dreams and nothing else.

Teba has him climb on his back to inspect the divine beast and the feathers on his skin shock something warm in him he can't place. He puts his face against him and closes his eyes.

This time tears slip into Teba's feathers, and he doesn't know why.

[gintrinsic-writing]

A Flicker in a Distant Timeline

CW: references to violence, loss of a limb, blood.

--

Like this, the King of Evil didn’t look like much—sweating through his robes, hair in disarray, panting through pain and exhaustion alike. He was too weakened to transform, and his baser form—his simple Gerudo body, absent of Demise’s visibly corroding influence—lacked the same petrifying, untouchable presence. Link figured he should tell him so. 

“You reek.”

Ganondorf’s glare was half-ruined by the tears rolling down his face; courtesy of some well-aimed dirt, Link thought smugly. “And you,” Ganondorf managed between breaths, “sound like a dying frog.”

Link barely had enough energy to muster up the indignation that deserved, but he managed. “A frog? That’s the worst you could come up with?” He scoffed, ignoring how much it stung to do so. “Were you even trying?”

“Croak, croak, croak,” Ganondorf griped, waving a hand back and forth. The Triforce of Power shimmered like a kaleidoscope against the back of his hand. “Annoying little wheezes.”

“Oh, forgive me. Some asshole punched me in the throat.”

“Only after another asshole pulled my hair!”

“So what?” Link croaked—ah, dammit, Ganondorf was right. What a miserable day.

“So, hair’s off-limits.”

“Off…” Link paused to stare. He blinked several times for good measure. Only a little blood managed to dribble into his eyes. “It was a fight! To the death!”

“Fated by the deities themselves,” Ganondorf agreed darkly. 

“And you think hair is off-limits?”

“Well, yes.” Ganondorf sneered at Link as if the hero was particularly dense. “We’re not animals.”

“You literally are, you dumb pig,” Link groaned. 

Ganondorf made some weird growling sound, then coughed. “Just you wait,” he grumbled. “As soon as I catch my breath, I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” Link mocked. “You’ll kill me? With what weapon? You couldn’t summon a speck of dust right now.”

Ganondorf curled his lip disdainfully. “As if you’re one to talk. You can’t even get up, can you?”

Link chose that moment to finally admit to himself that he’d been managing his half of the conversation while lying prone on the ground. He was sure the Master Sword was within grasp if he needed it. Probably. “I can move,” he answered loftily, only croaking a little, “whenever I want to.” 

“Sure,” Ganondorf agreed.

“I can.”

“Like I said, sure.”

Link groaned again. Dirt stuck to his lips in a very unheroic way. 

Seconds passed, then Ganondorf heaved another breath. It sounded more significant than the previous ones in some strange and foreboding way. He pushed off his knees with both hands and stood up straight. His spine popped immediately. “Damn the goddesses,” Ganondorf spat, bracing a clawed hand against the small of his back as he resumed his slouch. Link couldn’t help but nod in tired agreement. “And damn Demise!”

That sounded particularly vicious. Link nodded again for solidarity. “Is Demise the reason you’re so fucked up?”

“Yes,” Ganondorf hissed.

“Ah.” What was he supposed to say to that? Something meaningful, probably. “Sucks.”

“Indeed.” 

Something wet fell on Link’s face. Then it happened again. Rain, he thought bitterly. Maybe he’d be lucky enough to drown. “I don’t suppose you’re dying? Spare me the trouble of having to finish this?”

“Unfortunately, no,” Ganondorf grumbled. “You?”

“Also unfortunately no.”

Ganondorf eyed him skeptically. “I thought you’d bleed more when I cut off your hand.”

Ah yeah, that. His right wrist really hurt. “To be honest, me too.” A wave of dizziness washed over Link, which he promptly ignored like he had the last four times. “How did you survive that light magic bomb?”

Ganondorf shook his head. “No fucking idea. Luck, perhaps. I felt my heart stop for a moment.”

“Really? Cool.”

Ganondorf shrugged. 

“So… now what?” Link asked quietly, licking at the raindrops gathering on his upper lip. They tasted like dirt. “You gonna kill me?” Because in all honesty, he couldn’t get up. Trying left his pulse racing and his limbs trembling. He was pretty much useless. 

“I should,” Ganondorf answered just as quietly. 

When nothing else was said, Link grunted. “But…?”

“I’m tired.” Simple, honest, absolute. 

“Yeah,” Link muttered. “Me too.”

With a pained little oof, Ganondorf sat down beside Link, crossing his legs at the ankles and keeping his weight off of his left hip. He fiddled with his many bracelets. Link struggled to read his expression. “Perhaps I’ll feel up to it in a minute,” the King of Evil finally said. 

There was something awkward about that. Something sad. Link decided to do what he did best and make a nuisance of himself. “Did you have to sit so close? I wasn’t lying earlier. You stink. Does deodorant not apply to demon kings?”

“Shut up, worm.” Ganondorf flicked a pebble at him. Somehow, it landed right between Link’s eyes. 

“Ow! Fuck you.”

“In your dreams.”

Link gagged, loudly. The effect was ruined when it started to rain in earnest. Before he could think of the best way to complain, Ganondorf threw out a hand, and tendrils of dark magic formed a barrier above them. 

“Oh,” Link said lamely. “Guess you’re not out of juice after all.”

Ganondorf frowned up at the barrier. “It’ll last a minute if we’re lucky.”

“Then what?”

“Then we’ll get wet. Maybe you’ll be able to walk by then, assuming you don’t bleed out in the meantime.”

A pretty bold assumption, all things considered, but Link wasn’t going to say so. He’d take what he could get. “And then?” he pressed. 

Ganondorf clearly held back the first answer that came to mind. He pursed his lips before saying, “Your choice. I got us this far.”

Link couldn’t help it—he laughed. It sounded pretty terrible. “Yeah,” he wheezed after several seconds. “Yeah, I guess so. Okay.”

Ganondorf shook his head in apparent resignation. The barrier began to flicker. 

[crazylittlejester]

this one’s for my HW Zelink shippers. i dont ship em, but this one’s for you guys 🫶✨

whumptober day 23: forced choice

summary: Link knows he doesn't have much time left. He's dying, and there's nothing he can do about it except try his best to end the war so his friends and loved ones don't have to keep suffering after he's gone. Zelda had forbidden him long ago from doing the ONE thing they both knew could end this mess immediately, but when Link finds himself captured by Cia's forces, he's not really given a choice: Marry Cia, or watch everyone he loves die.

[fourthcupofrice]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Linked Universe - Fandom Rating: General Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Sky & Wild (Linked Universe), Four & Sky (Linked Universe), Four & Sky & Wind (Linked Universe), Sky & Wind (Linked Universe), Legend & Sky (Linked Universe), Legend & Wind (Linked Universe), Link & Tetra (Legend of Zelda), Tetra (Legend of Zelda) & Wind (Linked Universe) Characters: Wind (Linked Universe), Sky (Linked Universe), Legend (Linked Universe), Four (Linked Universe), Tetra (Legend of Zelda), Tetra's Crew (Legend of Zelda), Time (Linked Universe), Warriors (Linked Universe), Twilight (Linked Universe), Wild (Linked Universe) Additional Tags: I tagged the guys with speaking roles, sorry Rulie, Wind (Linked Universe)-centric, Sky (Linked Universe)-centric, Chain meets Wind, meeting Wind, Wind Waker Gameplay Mentions, Master Sword (Legend of Zelda), Tetra is a Pirate, and that's why i gave her a flintlock, Scottish Wind, just cause, Minor Angst, just a lil, Not Beta Read

  Summary:

Wind meets the gang fic. :) I wrote my first lu fic! I wanted to get back into the rhythm of writing for zelda again, and figured this would be a fun way to do it! 

[only-by-the-stars]

Chapters: 40/46 Fandom: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom, The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Link/Mipha (Legend of Zelda), Mipha & Prince Sidon Characters: Mipha (Legend of Zelda), Link (Legend of Zelda), Zelda (Legend of Zelda), King Rhoam Bosphoramus Hyrule, King Dorephan, Prince Sidon, Impa (Legend of Zelda), Purah (Legend of Zelda), Robbie (Legend of Zelda), Kass (Legend of Zelda), Hestu (Legend of Zelda), Teba (Legend of Zelda), Yunobo (Legend of Zelda), Riju (Legend of Zelda), Revali (Legend of Zelda), Daruk (Legend of Zelda), Urbosa (Legend of Zelda), Paya (Legend of Zelda), Jerrin (Legend of Zelda) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Retelling, Amnesia, protagonist mipha rights, i'm gonna be taking some liberties here, with various things, this is a story about mipha saving the world and making a lot of friends along the way, Idiots in Love, Angst with a Happy Ending, Happy Ending Series: Part 2 of Mipha's Ballad Summary:

One hundred years after the Great Calamity ravaged Hyrule, a Zora awakens on the Great Plateau. Bereft of her memories, she finds herself adrift in a strange land that needs her help, and soon discovers that she is its only hope. Plagued by questions and doubts, she nevertheless commits herself to a role she was never meant to have. [Inspired by/based on the "Mipha's Grace" playable Mipha mod.]

---

Chapter 40, in which Mipha and Riju defeat Thunderblight Ganon! That’s all four Blights down! :D WE ARE IN THE HOME STRETCH

[skyward-floored]

Link raises his sword, glaring at Cia.

“There’s nothing you have to say that I want to hear.”

“On the contrary, I think you’ll be quite interested. It has to do with your parentage... your real parentage,” Cia says as she leans on her staff, and Link’s eyes narrow, even as his heart jumps. It’s true he’s interested in where he came from, but learning it from Cia of all people... why would she offer him that? She must have an agenda of some kind.

“...What do you know about my parents?” he asks in a low voice, keeping his sword raised.

Cia laughs.

“A lot of things,” she smiles, so coyly it makes Link’s stomach roll. “In fact... I have it on good authority that the dragon knight Volga is your father, Link.”

Her words are like a slap to the face.

Of all the things he’d expected to come out of the sorceress’s mouth, that had not been it.

Shock roots Link in place, air in his lungs suddenly nonexistent. He can’t catch his breath, Cia’s words ringing through his head no matter how he tries to get them to stop, and Link can’t breathe.

It couldn’t be true. It was completely ridiculous, how could it even be possible?

Volga... my father?

“You’re lying,” he says in a voice not nearly as sharp as he’d like, and Cia laughs again, the sound like the tinkling of bells.

“Oh dearest, I’m not lying. Surely you must have noticed how hard it is for you to get burned? How you get your energy from the heat rather than have it sapped away?” she says mildly. “Your first encounter with your father didn’t even leave you singed.”

“How do you know that,” Link growls, and Cia drew closer to him, making the hairs on his neck rise.

“I’ve been watching you, Link. I saw how good Death Mountain was for you, I’ve never seen you that energetic!” she smiles, and meets his eyes. “You know what I speak of is the truth. You are the dragon knight Volga’s son.”

Link takes a step back, mind still whirling.

It was a trap, it must be a trap, made to disarm him, distract him, take him off guard so... so she...

His stomach lurches and he almost thinks he’s going to be sick, refusing to believe the sorceress’s words but knowing somehow, deep in his heart, that what she spoke of was the truth.

Volga was his father.

[marimbles]

Forgot to post my piece for Residents of the Wild, a zine focused on NPCs from BotW! This is basically my silly version of the sand boots side quest from BotW. (Shoutout to @botwdialogue for documenting all the dialogue for the entire quest—that was such a helpful reference! X)

Word count: 2k

These Boots Are Made for Jogging (in the Sand)

What’s the best way for a strapping single guy to show off his lady-catching sand boots?

Jog around on the sand. Duh.

So that’s what Bozai did, day after day, circling Gerudo Town like a fashionable, sporty hawk. Sure, it was exhausting. And sweet Hylia, it was hot—even when he downed chilly elixirs around the clock. But eventually, it would all be worth it, when he caught the eye of the perfect woman.

… Right?

Bozai slowed to a stop by the southern entrance of the town, where a pair of gorgeous yet imposing Gerudo guards flanked the doorway.

“Hey,” he panted. “Nice day, isn’t it, ladies?”

The guards glared down at him.

“Move along, voe,” one of them said gruffly. “If you loiter, we’ll assume ill intent.”

Bozai laughed. “Hey, I’m not trying to sneak in—I promise! I just want to chat. Care to join me on a jog?”

“We have no interest in chatting,” the other guard said, voice cold. “We must remain at our post. Besides, we would easily outpace you. Your legs are short and stumpy.”

“Come on, ladies, that’s not very—”

But then two sharp spears were pointed right at his chest, so he had no choice but to drop it.

Bozai sighed and jogged away, trying to ignore how sore he was. He had to keep jogging. His dream girl was waiting for him! (Probably.)

He rounded the corner, and someone nearly ran into him. Someone a full head shorter than him, with long, blonde hair and big, blue eyes, and—

“Oh.” Bozai blinked. “It’s just a guy.”

A Hylian guy, with a weirdly pretty face and a slew of weapons strapped to his back. He gazed silently up at Bozai, expressionless.

“Saw me running around, huh?” Bozai shifted his backpack. “See, I heard Gerudo women liked a guy in sand boots …”

(Of course, it was the shoe salesman who told him that, but that guy had a hot wife, so Bozai would have to be an idiot not to take his advice about women.)

The stranger looked down at Bozai’s feet. “Sand boots?”

“Yeah! They let you walk normally on sand,” Bozai said proudly. “What do you think? Jealous, right?”

Blondie’s face stayed blank, like he wasn’t even impressed with Bozai’s amazing, manly, one-of-a-kind sand boots. Did he somehow miss what Bozai said? Or was he just stupid?

“Gimme those boots,” the stranger demanded.

Bozai took a step back. Okay, apparently he impressed this weirdo too much.

“Not cool!” Bozai said. “Look, these are super rare. Mayyybe I’d consider giving them to you if you were a girl, but a guy? NO.”

Blondie did not look at all deterred by Bozai’s devastating rejection. In fact, he looked kind of determined. Or maybe … amused? It was hard to tell, with that weird, stoic face of his. He was starting to creep Bozai out.

Bozai cleared his throat. “I’m busy here. Get lost!”

He pushed past the guy and resumed his jog. Man, why did he have to run into a weirdo like that? Why was it never a cute girl waiting for him around the corner?

Bozai’s eyes locked on the approaching corner of the city wall. Maybe there would be a cute girl waiting for him. What would he say to her? He should plan it out, just in case.

’Sup, girl? Name’s Bozai. But you can just call me Dream Guy. Heh.

At that point, he would run his fingers through his dark, silky locks (which were not that silky, to be honest, since his bangs were perpetually plastered to his forehead).

Ugh. That wouldn’t work. He couldn’t be suave and sexy when he was all sweaty. But where was a guy supposed to take a bath in the middle of the desert?

Bozai turned the corner and stumbled to a stop. A figure stood in his path.

A female figure.

There was no mistaking it this time. She was Hylian, but she wore the delicate silk of the Gerudo, her stomach and shoulders bare. Even with a veil covering her lower face, Bozai could tell she was beautiful.

“Sa-sa-sa … sa’votta!” he stammered. (Was that the right word? Or should it have been sav’saaba?)

The girl did not reply. She just watched him over her veil, her eyes bright and piercing. Bozai’s heart did a strange little flip.

“The name’s Bozai,” he said quickly. “I’m thirty-five, single, and I love jogging. Especially on sand.”

Not the best intro in the world, but not bad either. It was nothing that couldn’t be saved by the power of The Boots. Bozai shuffled his feet for good measure, so the beautiful stranger would be sure to look down at them.

“Nice sand-jogging!” she said.

Gotcha.

“Ah, you noticed these old things?” Bozai attempted to sweep his bangs back in a cool, carefree way, but they just clumped together awkwardly instead. He launched into a description of The Boots before the girl could decide he was lame and walk away.

“So, anyway, if you want to check them out, we could grab a quiet corner and—”

“Gimme those boots,” the girl ordered.

Bozai blinked. He must have had sand in his ears, because for a moment, she sounded almost like that weirdo from before.

The girl stared him down. She even sort of looked like him now, with those intense blue eyes and that golden-blonde hair. But Bozai was surely coming down with some sort of heat sickness—because surely this desert goddess had nothing in common with that sulky creep! (Not to mention, she was a girl.)

Bozai squinted at her against the sunlight.

“Um … well … here’s the thing …” he began.

Wait. This is a golden chance to woo her!

“I mean—sure!” he said hastily. “I’d love to give them to you, you hungry little boot monster!”

It was a cute nickname, right? Maybe that’s what he’d call her when they were married, holding hands while they jogged across all kinds of surfaces—sand, snow, grass, rock. Maybe they’d even jog over water together. Or lava! That would be extra romantic. Someone had to invent lava boots, right?

Focus, Bozai!

He straightened, standing as tall as he could in his sand boots (which, unfortunately, was not very tall. The guards were right about his legs being short and stumpy).

“But first, a favor.” He paused for dramatic effect. “Ever heard of the legend of the eighth heroine?”

Immediately, the girl was captivated.

Gotcha again, Bozai thought.

A few minutes later, he’d handed over his trusty snow boots—which he hated to do, really, but it was all in the name of love. The girl would be back in a few days, anyway, because even in snow boots, the Gerudo Highlands were treacherous. No sane person would actually scale those cliffs and hike through all that snow just to see an old statue no one was sure even existed. Pretty soon, she’d realize that she’d much rather hang out with the handsome guy in the sand boots than freeze to death.

Bozai settled under the shade of the tent at the front of the town to wait.

“See you soon, Goldie,” he whispered to himself, and then he drifted off to sleep, dreaming of blue eyes and lava boots.

Goldie was not back in a few days.

A whole week went by, and there was no sign of her. Bozai fretted and frowned and fussed, and the nerves made him even sweatier than usual. But there was nothing he could do. Had Goldie fallen off a cliff? Or turned into a beautiful, tragic ice sculpture?

Or maybe she’d just taken his boots and run off, laughing at how stupid he was for thinking he ever had a chance with her. (That one made him so depressed that he tried flirting with the guards again, if only to give him a different rejection to brood over for an hour.)

Just when he’d almost lost hope completely, a familiar pair of eyes was blinking up at him.

Bozai gasped. “Oh, thank goodness! You made it back safely!”

He was so relieved that he couldn’t even think about acting cool. Instead, he found himself confessing the lie of the eighth heroine, apologizing, blabbing about his feelings—basically, rambling like an idiot. He was on the verge of getting on his knees and swearing his allegiance as her eternal protector when she held up a hand.

“Found it.”

She was trying to make him feel better. Which was sweet, but Bozai didn’t deserve that. He tried to tell her so, but she shoved a small, rectangular something in his face.

“Look at this!”

Bozai stared. There, on the rectangle, was an impossibly realistic image of what could only be the real eighth heroine.

“That—that’s amazing!” he spluttered. And then he was rambling again, nerding out about archaeology (his secret passion, other than boots). He had almost managed to bring the subject around to the subject of eternal love—in a subtle way, of course—but Goldie had a remarkably one-track mind.

“Sand boots, please!”

Bozai’s heart sank. But he was nothing if not a man of his word, so he dutifully took off the boots and relinquished them into her waiting hands.

“Could you be a lamb and return my snow boots?” he asked. “Otherwise ol’ Bozai’s going to be barefoot!”

She looked equally reluctant to hand them over, but she did, watching wistfully as he slipped them on. Or maybe that sad look was her way of telling him that she didn’t want to say goodbye either. Well, Bozai could take that hint.

“I’m pretty tired from my jogging regimen,” he said casually. “I think I’ll take five under the tent at the front of town. Care to join me?”

She didn’t. Bozai jogged dejectedly back to the shade, feet heavy in the wrong kind of boots.

The rest of the day crawled by. Bozai didn’t feel like jogging anymore. Not when he had to do it in snow boots, which were even clunkier in the sand than regular boots. Instead, he watched for Goldie under his tent. She had to come back, right? They were practically soulmates! (Or sole-mates. Heh.)

But alas, she was nowhere to be seen. The only golden hair he spotted belonged to the blank-faced weirdo—this time, practically shirtless, with a stupid-looking ponytail on top of his head. Bozai scoffed. What kind of outfit was that? Was he trying to invent some kind of Gerudo men’s wear? As if that was gonna get him into town. Idiot.

Blondie jogged toward a stray sand seal. It darted away before he could get close.

He jogged toward another one. He looked strangely light on his feet, like the sand wasn’t slowing him down at all. Almost like …

Bozai’s eyes widened. Blondie was wearing The Boots—the amazing, manly, one-of-a-kind sand boots he had just gifted to his true love.

Bozai jumped to his feet. “Hey! You!”

Blondie froze, panic on his normally stony face. Behind him, another seal dove beneath the sand.

“Those are my boots!” Bozai shouted, trudging clumsily toward him. “Or, I mean, they were! Where did you get them?”

Quickly, Blondie pulled something out of his pocket.

And then he started glowing.

Bozai stopped short, gaping. Blondie was glowing like a blue nightshade at midnight. And soon he was also floating, the toes of his stolen boots dangling above the sand. His body dissolved away in gleaming ribbons of light. And then he was gone.

Bozai stared at the spot where Blondie had disappeared, footprints still fresh in the sand.

“Did you see that too?” he asked a nearby sand seal.

“Arf!” said the seal.

Bozai shook his head. There was only one thing to do when your almost-girlfriend was robbed by a dead-eyed, weapon-loving freak who was apparently some kind of sorcerer.

He marched back to his tent and took a nap.

[mysticchaossoul]

Hey guys! The next chapter of Wild Tears is out if anyone is interested.

Fic Summary:

When the chain goes through a new portal, they didn't know what they were expecting to find. Definitely not their missing brother and his Zelda exploring some kind of tunnel system under Hyrule Castle. So when they go along with the pair, they are only left with more questions. Who was that corpse? Why is it under Hyrule Castle? How did they get up in the sky? What's up with Zelda gaining new powers? Where is Wild? A classic "Wild reunites with the Chain" fic, but with a twist. What if the Chain showed up a few minutes before the opening of totk? And what if Wild was the one sent to the past instead of Zelda?

[ivecomeforsouls]

Five Years Back Home

This is about what the Heros would do if they were all sent home for five years in the middle of their quest. Wind at the war of ages, Time with kids, and Wild's second adventure. Comment about what you think they should do, please. Cause I don't have ideas for all of them.

The Hero of Legend

The Hero of Hyrule

The Hero of Time

The Hero of the Wild

The Hero of the Sky

The Hero of the Minish

The Hero of Twilight

The Hero of Warriors

The Hero of the Wind

Back on the Trail

Back to Master Post

[beemovieerotica]

so i've already introduced transphobic bisexual ganon in this fic, but since there's time travel involved and they all go back in time to kill baby ganondorf kill the original ganondorf that got locked under hyrule castle until the events of botw, i now have to distinguish the two ganon(dorf)s, and this is how i've chosen to do so:

[sciencelings-writes]

Forever Changed

AO3 Link

WC: 8318

Ganondorf was gone, obliterated into ash that fluttered down on Hyrule Field, Zelda was back, a feat they had been convinced wasn’t possible, but that didn’t mean it was over. Or that life would ever be anywhere close to normal ever again. 

Though it was a surprise that the princess could come back at all, it wasn’t much of a shock to Link when she returned with nothing between her skin and the open air. They had seen how she had transformed, even through the bright light radiating from her chest, how her form stretched and morphed into something new. Her dress and jewelry left hopelessly torn to pieces at the altar in which she sacrificed her life. 

It wasn’t a graceful transition, the hero could still hear how she screamed, though out of pain or terror, they weren’t quite sure. How that scream turned into the roar of a massive beast that echoed through the walls of the temple and sent ripples through the clouds. The last drops of humanity left falling through tears to the world below. 

By now Link was used to falling, diving through the air as it ripped through their clothes and hair, They were familiar with how to cut through it like a zora through water. Reaching their plummeting partner was a task they determined they would never fail at again. 

Their teeth clenched as their arm reached for her, they forgot how charred it had been from Ganondorf’s first attack. Rauru’s arm wasn’t there to protect them from the injury any longer. The pain that arced through it over a simple stretch made their breath stutter from how overwhelming it was. It was hardly bearable, but Link had been through far worse and such pain had never been the thing to stop them before. Especially when they were this close to getting her back. 

With an arm that quivered in agony and reluctantly moved like it was made of stone, they took Zelda’s limply outstretched hand. She was desperately pulled into their arms without a moment's hesitation. Link braided their legs together to protect hers from flailing behind them and held her securely against them as they dropped. 

It was too much to try to think of a way to save them, on top of the blinding pain and the pure unfiltered relief that she was back in their arms. Safe and with a heart audibly beating against the artery their ear had pressed against as they buried their head in the crook of her neck. Not even the vicious wind could reach where their tears met her skin. 

Link didn’t see the ground fast approaching, if they were really plummeting to their deaths, they preferred to enjoy the few moments left. After all this time all they had wanted was to get her back, at the very least they had that again. 

The shrieking of the air around them crescendoed to an all-encompassing crash before a wave of silence surrounded them. As well as the sudden rush of cool water into every crevice. It seemed as though the goddess would grant them a single mercy by not allowing them to be killed on impact. 

For a moment, they were knocked around and it quickly became difficult to tell what direction up was, even when Link opened their eyes, the movement of the water scattered light in all directions. It was only when their feet met the rocky floor of the pond that they were able to figure that they had completely flipped orientation in the chaos of the water. 

They readjusted their grip on Zelda, holding her across their chest with most of her weight falling on their good arm. They thanked Hylia for the low gravity effect of the lake, it would’ve been nearly impossible to do in normal circumstances with how the pain in their arm was only growing. 

Link kicked off the ground with enough force that it didn’t take too much more swimming to get to the surface. Thankfully the edge of the pond was nearby and the hero was able to stumble out of it before they could collapse in exhaustion. Though they weren’t that injured from the fight, the agony that shot through their arm at every slight movement sapped the little energy they had left from battlefield adrenaline.

Their knees hit the grass as soon as it transitioned out from a bed of sharp gravel. Their corrupted arm gave out the moment the tremor from nearly falling to the ground reached it. Link’s breath hitched and stuttered as the torturous feeling electrified their nerves until there was nothing left of them. 

Catching their breath gave them a moment to notice that they weren’t the only one left irreparably changed. 

Iridescent white scales lingered in patches around the princess's body, curling from under her breasts and trailing up her back to her shoulders in an imitation of armor. They led down her waist and hips, down to the side of her thighs, and got bigger the closer they got to her major joints. Beginning at her forearms and calves were black scales that covered her limbs like elegant gloves and stockings, leaving bright opalescent nails that were shaped more like talons, though were still flat. 

Horns protruded from her hairline, wrapping around her nearly luminous golden locks like waving branches from a tree. Her hair was mildly tangled in her new wild crown that shifted between the blue of a tropical sea and rich cold violet that would be rare to find amongst the most beautiful of flowers. 

Link felt the large golden scales going along her spine, intermittently being disrupted by a segmented crystalline spike, the shape of which mirrored thin flower petals and flattened when pressed down on, like a cluster of sparkling hedgehog quills set in a mosaic of shining metal.  

She had yet to awaken, yet the hero had a feeling her eyes would flutter open any second now. They braced themselves with an inhale before forcing their charred arm to move once more, controlling the movement as much as they could with their upper arm in an attempt to mitigate the potential agony that was sure to return with vigor.

They managed to unhook the Purah Pad from their belt and gently tap on an icon in their inventory. A folden piece of cloth appeared at their side, though it was meant for a paraglider, it would also work as the easiest way to prevent Zelda from waking up completely naked. It acted as a large cloak that she could wrap herself in, at least temporarily. They were pretty sure she wouldn’t love waking up from an eon’s long coma without a single shred of cloth to cover her. Even if Link was the only one that saw, and even if they had seen it before. 

The fabric had barely covered the princess's shoulders when the strain made Link’s vision white out for a moment, and leave them lightheaded. They begged for the sensation to pass as they squeezed their eyes shut. It was impossible to focus on anything but the flaring agony but they tried anyway. They tried to count their own heartbeat that rapidly pulsed in their ears or feel the cool wind against their wet skin but it was no use. 

Just a little longer, they just had to hold out a little longer. It took more effort than it should’ve, but they managed to force their eyes open again. 

At least the fight was over this time, the world wouldn’t be doomed if they keeled over. If they lost the battle against their own consciousness or their grip against the pulling force of death was weakened and crumbling, ultimately it wouldn’t matter. Zelda was back, and the dark evil was dispelled. 

Perhaps that was how it was meant to end, it certainly sounded enticing. Link knew firsthand what a relief death could be. When all they knew was agony, death had been a temporary blessing. A comforting darkness where no physical pain could follow, where terror faded and all the pressures of life released into the ever-growing nothingness. 

Death sounded pretty nice, but Link kind of wanted to survive this. They had just gotten Zelda back after so long and it might be a selfish thought, but all they wanted to do was enjoy their princess's return. They wanted so desperately to hear her voice and see her smile again after letting her fall from their grasp and losing her to more than just the pit of shadows. 

“Link? How did- Are you-” Their eyes flicked up to her face from where they had landed while they had tried to focus on not collapsing. 

They thought they had identified all the changes that had been made but one more grabbed their interest. Her irises, once a solid lush green were separated into two rings. The inner ring was that familiar emerald but the outer one reminded them of their own eye color, a seaside blue that nearly dipped into a ghostly aqua. They had a feeling most people would be disturbed by the princess's new appearance, but Link couldn’t help but simply find her even more beautiful than before. 

“It’s okay, we did it,” Their voice was quiet and strained, like their throat was being squeezed by a large ghostly hand that refused to let them go. 

“It’s really over?” she asked, sounding somewhere between hopeful and desperate. She didn’t break eye contact as she shifted to sit herself up, as if she wasn’t believing what was in front of her eyes. Link knew the feeling. 

“You’re back home now,” they avoided the question, they had a feeling they wouldn’t come out of this completely unscathed. 

In a moment, Zelda had sprung up and thrown herself into their arms, well, arm. They couldn’t bear to move the right one anymore. Her makeshift blanket dropped uselessly to the ground. Despite having forgone her mortal form for countless thousands of years, she was far more sure of her movements than Link was. 

“Oh thank Hylia, I was so sure that I’d never see you again!” Her relieved laugh was near hysterical, the way her breath hitched hinted at the emergence of a sob. 

Her arms were so tight around them, they had never felt so safe and secure in their life than when she embraced them. It was the same pair of arms that engulfed them after nightmares, forcing the residual effects away and replacing them with something far kinder. It was her arms that squeezed them so excitedly when she had been freed from the calamity and wrapped loosely atop their shoulders when joyful music found a reason to be played. 

Maybe that’s why Link let go. There was no more reason to cling so desperately to life when they were already so sure that they were safe. It wouldn’t matter if they fell because there was already someone there to catch them. 

Link couldn’t hear how her voice turned worried or how she frantically checked their pulse and seemed afraid to even touch their arm, like it could crumble to ashy pieces if she so much as felt it. She called their name, but the darkness had won its battle yet again. Once more, Link trusted their last remaining moments of life to her. Perhaps one day she will forgive them for it. 

***

No one seemed to know what to do with themselves once Link had departed to fight the so-called ‘Demon King’, it hadn’t been officially announced but Purah had made sure that everyone was aware of what was going on in Lookout Landing. They were the closest crumb of civilization to where the mummy guy had chosen to hide himself away and if it was anything like last time, they were right in the middle of its warpath. 

Many chose to hide in the royal family's emergency shelter, it was already set up to be a sturdy bunker and it was the safest place to be if something decided to emerge from the crater that once held most of the castle. 

The brave were still above ground, anxiously waiting, not daring to try and occupy their time in any significant way. Many of the warrior types had convinced themselves that they could be of use, in case any creepy creatures came crawling out of the castle's crevice, but really, they were hoping to catch a glance of something legendary. 

Time passed so slowly when there was a potential apocalypse on the horizon, but no one wanted to waste the time they had left working some meaningless job if they were all about to be decimated. It seemed like weeks had passed before anything seemed to happen. 

The whole time Purah had been glued to her telescope, pointing directly at the hole Link and the Sages had disappeared into. At some point, she had convinced herself that the sight of the telescope was too limited so she climbed up into the mechanisms that kept the damn thing stable and freed the massive scope from its prison. At least now it could point at more than just the castle, with enough additional strength of course. 

She wasn’t used to the settlement being so quiet. It wasn’t a populous place by any means but the last few hours had muffled its background chatter into an uneasy silence. She fidgeted with her recorder for a moment before jamming her face right back into the glass. Her eyes burned from refusing to blink, just in case she missed a single thing. 

Sometimes she could swear that she heard the ground rumble, like there were massive beasts deep within the depths that had decided that they wanted out. But even in the quietness, she could never be sure. Her mind could just as easily be playing tricks on her, convincing her that something was happening, making up an imaginative story to fill the empty space. 

At some point, she couldn’t blame her own delusion, the vibrations sent through the ground caused the lanterns lighting her guard tower to tremble, the wood making up the whole structure to creak and groan like it too was afraid of the coming minutes. 

Purah didn’t let the tremors break her focus, not even when her parasol dropped from the tower and bounced off of the roof. Dust from the castle was starting to crumble into the scarlet chasm. Dust and pebbles became chunks and boulders, grumbling rock became something far more akin to an unearthly roar. It was only getting louder. 

The scientist only whipped her head away from the lens when all she could see was a blur of dark smoke and blood-red fur. It was as if the whole settlement had all gasped as one, a chorus of horror rippled throughout the few that remained to see the spectacle, some voices were louder than others.

She didn’t let the shock stop her from furiously turning the telescope skyward, she needed to know what in demises name that thing was. She cursed when she could finally find its face. 

“By the shadows, Link’s in its mouth!” She exclaimed loud enough to be heard over the fading dragon cry. She could barely see them struggling to escape its mighty maw before the sky thundered once more. Not from the demon that was nearly eating their hero, but from the other side of the sea of thick clouds.

Her Highness erupted from the fluffy barrier that stood between her and what was left of the demon king. The light dragon had always been so docile, floating around at the edge of Purah’s vision at all times, but not now. Now, she was a great divine guardian sent to protect the one thing she refused to lose again. 

It was then that she knew for certain that there was still a little bit of Zelda in there, even after thousands of years in a form that destroyed all sense of who she was, she was still alive, fighting. Returning when Link needed her most. Catching them as they tumbled from the mouth of the demon who released him only to let out another terrifying roar. 

There were a few moments when the battling serpents were still low enough to see, though they had passed the limits of Purah’s telescope, why couldn’t they have the epic fight a little closer? It felt like such a wasted opportunity, she had to remind herself that her friends were up there fighting for their lives, this wasn’t some form of entertainment meant to amuse the royal court. However, she still thought it would be useful for future generations if the moments were documented in some capacity. 

Her friends… it hadn’t been just Link and Zelda who had gone to confront the demon king. Link may have gotten an expedited exit with the dark dragon but that meant that the Sages were still stuck down there. Any one of them could be injured or dying with no way to get back up to the surface, and just because she wasn’t in the front lines herself, didn’t mean she wouldn’t be of use. 

“Alright! No more slacking off! We need a rescue team headed down that hole pronto!” Purah shoved herself away from her scope and hollered down to the crowd below her. She had to remind herself that she was the leader of this outpost and she couldn’t just laze around. She blew a shrill two-toned alarm from her recorder, part of a communication code she had developed for the lookout landing project. She didn’t carry that thing around everywhere to play a jaunty little tune whenever she felt like it. 

“Let’s go people! Half of this kingdom's leaders are down there and they’re counting on us to get them out!” She slid down each ladder leading up to her tower, not bothering to use the steps. Her heels slammed against the wooden floor and she immediately sprung into action, untying the balloons they took to traverse the depths and most importantly, get out of them. She also had to make sure Josha did not sneak onto one of them, because even though it was highly likely that Link cleared out all the monsters in the way of Ganondorf’s little hidey-hole, there were still sure to be oceans of gloom in the way. It wasn’t exactly the peak environment for a child, even if she was a prodigy. 

Buliara was the first to join the search team, she wasn’t shy about being protective of the young gerudo chief. A handful of warriors of all races followed her without question, one of Purah’s scientific colleagues got to work preparing the balloon for flight and everyone seemed to understand the gravity of the situation. 

Purah’s gaze kept being drawn towards the sky, though she couldn’t see the dragons anymore. Even the smaller spyglass she snatched from Muzu did little to help. She just had to hope that Link hadn’t dropped the master sword or anything. 

The rescue team departed in record time and as many precautions as she could spare were available. A group of Rito were sent to keep an eye on the dragon battle at a safe distance, though even they couldn’t fly that high. She had made sure that there were medics ready for anyone to arrive in critical condition, they prepared medicines out of sundelions and the strongest healing elixirs they had the ability to make. 

Time seemed to resume the moment she found work to do, while she was ultimately still just waiting for the battle to be over, this time she was running around making sure that everyone knew the plan for the worst-case scenario. Which was to get into the emergency shelter as fast as possible, or really any safe little corner. 

That plan nearly came into play when the sky turned a vibrant gorey red. The air around them became heavy with gloom like when the blood moon reached its peak. It burned her eyes but she knew that rubbing them would make the sensation worse, not everyone had that same foresight. 

“Baracade the entrances! We don’t want any monsters paying us a visit!” Purah ordered after a short urgent melody on her whistle. She ran to the eastern wall before she pulled out the little telescope. 

The dark dragon seemed agitated but she still couldn’t determine if this sudden atmospheric change was a good thing or a bad thing. She hoped it was the demon serpent putting everything into its final attack before plummeting to the ground. She wondered if she could get some samples of the scales it would leave behind or if she would have the rare opportunity to find out what dragon meat tasted like. 

Of course, it could also be the demon king rallying his monstrous forces upon the land he promised to rule in eternal darkness, but that wasn’t a very fun option. She didn’t like it nearly as much as the first one. 

A speck of golden light caught her eye, a flash of yellow among the sea of smoldering scarlet. It seemed to originate from the great beast's head, or at least she was pretty sure it was his head, if the gnarled thorns that surrounded the sight were his horns.

At first, it had started out as a brief flash, but it quickly grew into a bright star. The serpent seemed to writhe while the glow overtook its entire face. Purah would swear that she saw the shadow of a humanoid figure, thrusting their mighty sword into its forehead. But it could’ve been her imagination or her hope for some epic conclusion convincing her that any tiny difference in colors was something consequential. 

The distant dot disappeared into the sky, the light dragon swooping in where it potentially could’ve landed. The dark dragon fled straight up into the clouds, no longer caring about its fated foes, who kept their distance from it. 

Beams of white light broke free from the beast's long body, like it was being struck by a hundred sequential arrows. It seemed to let out one last scream before it erupted in a bright blast. Purah was sure she wasn’t the only one who was forced to cover her eyes when it happened. 

It was only as the bloody sky began to fade into a soft rosy pink that they were hit with the impact of the explosion. She was barely able to grab a nearby pillar to keep herself from hitting the ground from the shockwave. The ray of beautiful light only shrank in size, never getting any dimmer until it was just suddenly gone. 

Purah raised her telescope to the sky once more to search for the surviving dragon and her passenger. She ignored the triumphant cheers from all around her, relieved laughter, and the many who were nearly, or completely, brought to tears. But she didn’t join in. Not yet. 

The other dragon, Zelda, the princess was just… gone. There were no clouds to hide behind, though it seemed hard for a creature that size to even be able to hide. In the midst of the light show that was the decimation of the demon king, her friends had disappeared. She had gotten them far enough away from the blast… right? 

Everyone was too busy celebrating to notice how the leader of their little settlement wove between them to get back to her tower, maybe if she was higher, she’d be able to see something, anything proving that the light dragon and her rider had not been vaporized. Her ears rang, from the explosion or from the shock of her friend's second disappearance, she couldn’t quite pinpoint. 

Purah was deaf to the joy of the people around her as she searched the skies over and over and over again. There had to be something she was missing, a dragon couldn’t just… vanish into nothingness. She just witnessed what it took for one to be destroyed and it was not a quiet affair. So… where could Zelda have gone? 

Thankfully, she wouldn’t have to wait longer than a few minutes to get her answer, though it didn’t turn out to be the one she had been expecting. She had continued to scour the clouds, almost mistaking some distant floating island for the dark talons of the light dragon. 

“Director Purah,” A voice broke her concentration and suddenly her view through the telescope lens was a fuzzy dark gray. She pulled away from her scouting in mild annoyance until she saw who was speaking to her. 

“Get crowing Harth, I hope you have some good news for me, other than that we survived another almost-pocalyspe.” She delicately shortened the spyglass before folding her arms as authoritatively as she could. 

“Something was seen falling into the lake to the east, right under the battle. No other debris has been spotted and we have reason to believe that it was Link.” The black rito informed her with a curt nod. Perhaps she would’ve noticed a splash if she hadn’t been so focused on the sky, she nearly cursed herself for it. 

“I need you to take me there, we have no idea what condition they’re in,” She tried not to make it sound like an order, the worry in her voice seemingly helped with that. Harth landed on her lookout tower and knelt down before her wordlessly. She wasted no time climbing onto his back and with a quick flap of his mighty wings, they were in the air. 

With a rapid set of subsequent snaps, her telescope was back into its extended form and scanning the green hills that surrounded the nearest lake. A couple of tiny monster camps here, some ruins there, but it was a white figure that caught her eye. 

At first, Purah thought it was some sort of deity, there was an inhumanness about it. She was decorated in colors that shimmered in every shift of the light and seemed to glow golden and vivid blue at the same time, like a yellow sunset through Lurelin's clear waters. As they grew closer and the image became more clear, she was able to see the truth. 

It was Zelda. Bare as the day she was born, her nakedness was only covered by the hero she had cradled in her arms, who also seemed to have slightly more skin showing than usual. Thought she was sure that Link wasn’t unfamiliar with walking right up to their princess in reasonably revealing clothing. She was sure that if her grand-niece were here, she would be blushing hard enough to pass out. 

More concerning than the princess's odd new appearance, Link was obviously not doing well. Their arm was barely recognizable, stiffly tucked into their chest, its coloring dark and ashy like they had dipped it into lava, or something worse. Their head was resting on Zelda’s collarbone and even from high in the sky Purah could tell that they were completely unconscious. They were so unnaturally still and pale in the princess’s arms that she immediately began to fear for the worst. 

Purah lept to the ground several seconds before they had even landed. She nearly stumbled over her own shoes in the grass in her frantic sprint to get to her friends. She knew the moment Zelda spotted her, the godly stoic demeanor she wore faded into something far more human. She was afraid, her eyes were wide as she jogged to Purah, she looked to be on the very edge of bursting into tears. 

“I don’t know what happened, they just… collapsed-” The princess's panicked words stumbled from her mouth breathlessly. 

“We have medics on standby at Lookout Landing, all we have to do is get them there,” Purah promised, “We’re so close, you’ll see once we get up the hill.” The scientist wrapped her arm around her friend’s back, between spikes along her spine that she was just noticing. She hoped that the gesture came off as comforting and steadying in the midst of the intense emotions that the princess had to be feeling, Purah knew her abrasive personality could come off as offputting, she could never really tell how much was too much. Though Zelda had leaned into her supportive half-hug so perhaps there was no reason to overthink it. 

“I can’t- goddess it’s happening again isn’t it…” Zelda whimpered as Purah led them away from the pond. 

“We aren’t going to lose them, this is different.” She replied firmly, “We’re prepared, help is only a few minutes of speedwalking away.” 

She turned to Harth, who had a dark wing politely covering his eyes.

“Hey feathers, I need you to make sure they’re ready for an urgent arrival. I don’t know how safe it would be for you to fly them ahead of us, now I’m not a medical doctor but I have a pretty good understanding of hylian physiology and I’m almost certain it would be a bad idea to jostle our beloved hero around while they’re in such a sensitive state.” Purah reasoned, partially to herself as she did have the thought of sending Link earlier than them but decided to put a bit of consideration into it before making a decision like that.

“I’ll see to it.” The Rito didn’t hesitate to take off back into the sky, the flaps of his wings seemed a lot more rapid on his return trip. 

“I was wondering what that zonai arm was hiding…” Purah muttered as they made their way towards the settlement. At a closer glance at Link’s arm, it was easy to see why it had to be ‘replaced’ in the first place. The burns were deep and dark and outlined in an unnaturally vivid scarlet. She had the feeling that if she touched it, what was left of the skin would either flake off like pieces of used-up firewood, or it would feel like cold solid stone. The sight worried her greatly, Would there be anything they could do to fix it? Had it been a lost cause from the very beginning?

“Zonai arm?” Zelda asked, with each step, she seemed to be more steady on her feet, and more able to walk at a swifter pace. 

“Yeah, they said some ghost gave it to them, something about how theirs was too damaged to be healed. I couldn’t really tell if it was like some kind of glowing magic prosthetic or nifty bandaid, just covering up what was wrong without being able to do much about it.” They had managed a few dozen rapid steps more before Purah drew her arm back to check Link’s pulse. There was still a bit of color to their skin but it was hard to see if they were even breathing on top of the movements created from their purposeful jog. Their speed slowed just for the moment it took for her fingers to meet the hero's throat.

Purah let out a relieved sigh, it wasn’t strong, it wasn’t even at a steady pace, but it was there. Immediately noticeable and persistent in continuing to beat. She only needed to give Zelda a quick nod before they were back to rushing through Hyrule Field. 

The eastern gates of Lookout Landing opened as they approached, a couple of knights in training carried a stretcher between them, meeting the trio halfway. Zelda clearly didn’t want to let Link go, her iridescent claws nearly dug into their skin before she accepted that she had to release them from her grasp. 

Purah’s long outer robe found its way around the princess's shoulders while she stood frozen in place outside of the settlement's walls. The coat’s owner pulled it carefully around her body, where usually it was balanced on the edge of her shoulders, It was wrapped more snuggly around the princess, for the sake of modesty. With the way Zelda’s cheeks turned pink, Purah made the educated guess that she had only just now realized the state her body was brought back in. 

The medical team rushed to the fallen hero’s side before they had even been carried through the gate. The most qualified doctor they had on-site, and realistically one of the best in Hyrule, instantly went to examine Link’s charred arm. She was a gerudo physician with extensive experience in battlefield injuries and had been overseeing the effects of gloom-infected wounds. She knew better than anyone how to deal with the stuff and she didn’t look terribly hopeful when she lifted the hero’s alarmingly stiff arm.

“Come on, let’s give them a moment to sort everything out, and get you into something more comfortable,” Purah led the princess toward her own dwelling, she seemed reluctant to leave Link but there was a reason a patient's relatives were usually not allowed in the surgery room. The scientist pulled out the tablet she named after herself and trusted it to the princess's trembling fingers. 

“I can guarantee that they have a better assortment of clothes than I do, I know that there’s at least a backless dress in there that could work with your spine spikes, last I checked it was dyed a real pretty purple,” Purah filled the silence as she entered her quarters. It was still covered in loose papers, though even if it had been perfectly tidy at the beginning of the day, it still would’ve ended up a mess after the recent earthquakes that had nothing to do with shifting tectonic plates. Neither of them even attempted to step around the chaos, messing up piles of papers just didn’t seem very much of a worry at the moment. 

Instead of her quite logical suggestion, Zelda chose the outfit Link first appeared from the sky in, a tunic made of loosely wrapped cloth in a rather ancient style. With a little bit of readjustment, it seemed to work just fine for the returned princess. She still looked like some kind of timeless god of the wild but now she was a little less focused on hiding her skin. 

Purah was untangling Zelda’s hair from her horns when one of the medics knocked on her door, she hoped that because they didn’t barge in frantically, Link was likely not dying or something. Or perhaps she was just being too hopeful. 

“Princess? Director Purah?” The voice was muffled by the solid wooden door. Zelda sprung up instantly, nearly sending her friend flying. 

“Yes, yes, come in, tell us everything!” Purah whipped open the door and motioned for the young man to enter, though she couldn’t recall his name she remembered that he had become determined to become a doctor after one of his parents succumbed to gloom sickness before anyone even knew much about it. 

“Good news, their vitals are stable and we were able to stop the infection from spreading, at least, temporarily. Bad news… the damage sustained to their arm was too severe, Dr, Nanoa said that the best thing to do is amputate. Even the greatest Zora healer wouldn’t be able to revive a dead limb.” He explained quickly, sensing the urgency of his message. 

“That gives me an idea! They have healers at the domain, how long are you guys able to keep him stable?” Purah glanced at the large map hanging behind her. 

“Not long enough for a road trip…” the medics assistant muttered. 

“The Purah Pad can transport multiple people at once,” Zelda uttered after being unable to speak since entering the settlement. “I can take Link and the doctor with me, will that leave enough qualified medical staff here?”

“I believe so, they’re definitely our top priority right now,” With Purah's acceptance, Zelda was renewed with a new wave of determination. Her back straightened and no one could stop her from heading out the door. 

The Director wanted to go with her friend, of course she did, but she was the leader of Lookout Landing, and just like Link and Zelda’s battle hadn’t ended with Ganondorf’s defeat, neither did hers. The sages were still being recovered from the depths, and Purah was determined to meet them the moment they arrived at the surface. She knew she could trust Link’s life in Zelda’s hands, they were safe and accounted for, but she needed to focus on the Hyrulians who weren’t. 

Yet. 

***

The skies glowed a serene soft champagne yellow, the air carried a chill like she was at the top of a grand mountain, but the long golden grasses around her seemed to generate their own gentle warmth. She couldn’t help but want to sink into the rippling strands and bask in the quiet melancholy that this world seemed to be filled with. 

“Link?” The princess called out into the lonely field, they should be here somewhere, this was their dream after all. 

Getting to this point had been a blur, she had used the Purah Pad to transport the unconscious hero and the Gerudo doctor to the shrine beneath Zora’s domain and had ignored the reaction to floating to the main structure of the Zora city without a passing glance to the ladders that seemed far less convenient. 

With Link cradled in her arms and a set destination in mind, she made her way to the infirmary, Nanoa scrambling behind, she didn’t have the luxury of taking a shortcut directly through the air. Her vision swam with fuzzy splotches of blue as she refused to even perceive the civilization around her. Most of the people in her way managed to dodge her firm path, but she did end up bumping into a few less fortunate Zora. 

She could barely hear Lady (Queen?) Yona’s worried voice over her own slightly distracting internal screaming. Thankfully by that point, Nanoa had caught up and willingly explained the situation to the domain's lead healer. Since the moment she arrived, Zelda was a single solitary stone in a stream of moving parts that she could barely keep up with. The only thing that stood still with her was the unconscious swordsman in her arms, their grievously injured arm bandaged in warm yellow salves and sundelion petals laid in a way that mirrored her own scales.

At some point, they were swept up in the storm and she found herself laying her protector's limp form on a stone bed and standing near their head. She vaguely registered that the healers worried that Link would wake during the procedure, as they weren’t awake to be given an oral anesthetic. 

Zelda didn’t know how she knew how to do it, just like she didn’t realize she could float above the ground when she just followed instinct to get Link where they had to be. Without much thought, she placed her pointer and middle fingers on the hero's temples. She was well acquainted with projecting her voice and her memories into their mind, there was a door that she sent things through, but never thought to enter herself.

Somehow she knew that with her unexplored connection to their mind, she could keep them asleep for as long as they needed it.

Now she woke up in a heavenly pastel world that failed to resemble a single place she had ever been, though somehow, it still felt oddly familiar

She was about to call out their name once more when she noticed a discrepancy in the long grasses. A slight smudge of darkness as if something had bent the stalks to hide there. She wove through the soft grass until she found what she was looking for.  

“So that’s what Purah was talking about when she said Zonai arm…” Zelda sat next to the dazed figure mostly hidden by the lush golden meadow. They didn’t look fully awake, they were making the face they usually made when their princess woke them up too early on a day she was teaching and they just wanted to sleep until noon. Their eyes were a little unfocused and took a moment to really see her.

She took their strange hand in hers and immediately recognized it as Rauru’s. The deep gray flesh beneath the strange metal and turquoise ornamentation was soft like velvet or the dense short fur of some kind of semi-aquatic mammal. The fur thinned out near the palm of their hand and the underside of their fingers, leaving coal-black callused skin and long dark nails that grew to a point. 

“Are you real? Is this a dream?” Link rested their head on her shoulder, reluctant to escape from their state of semi-consciousness. 

“Both can be true, I’m here to keep you company for a little while,” She was reluctant to fully divulge their condition, she knew she would have to warn them before they woke up from the surgery but no version of her bringing it up seemed tactful enough. How does one tell someone that their dominant limb had to be cut off? How does one tell a swordsman that they would never be able to wield a sword comfortably again?

“That bad?” the hero asked, Zelda did her best to not react, both to Link’s acceptance of their fate and the stinging smell of medical alcohol reaching her nose from the waking world.  

“Yeah… our first encounter with the demon king had some… long-term effects. We-we had to… to make a difficult call to… um-” Her voice stuttered and if she had been more than an extension of her consciousness projected into her knight’s mind she would be sweating right through the clothes she had borrowed from them. 

“It can’t be saved… can it,” Link moved their borrowed arm, flexing their fingers and squeezing her hand while they still could. By then, the metallic smell of blood had started to seep through into the dream, pungent and inescapable. Thankfully her protector didn’t seem to notice, but they did have a particularly well-practiced poker face. 

“No… it can’t,” Zelda sighed, “Even if we could reverse the damage caused by the pure gloom, your body has already stopped providing blood to the area and shut off all the nerve endings. Two-thirds of the arm is already dead, you’d just be carrying around a zombie limb which carries its own set of dangers from my understanding.” 

“I-I get it,” They muttered, “When I first woke up in the sky, Rauru told me my arm was too damaged to be saved, so I’ve thought about what would happen once he took his arm back, if there would be anything left of it.” 

“I’m sorry. if it makes you feel better, I can work with Purah and Robbie to make you a prosthetic, I think they were experimenting with incorporating sheikah technology into Hyrulian-controlled automaton, obviously, we’re hesitant to make them fully independent…”

“I’ll think about it, it feels like a bit of a waste to spend our first conversation since we lost each other on my stupid arm though,” Link’s voice came out weary, like they were falling asleep. Zelda remembered that their consciousness could only exist in one place at a time, and if they fell asleep now, they would wake up in the Zora’s Domain in the middle of getting their arm cut off. Which was not good. 

“I wanted to get it out of the way, it seemed a little important,” She knocked their head off of her shoulder as she began to stand. Without letting their hand go, she rose from the pale golden grasses. They didn’t seem too enthused to be involuntarily pulled to their feet, their vivid blue eyes wandered lazily across the bright landscape but ultimately lingered on her. 

“Do you recognize this place?” the hero prompted, it sounded too hopeful to be just a simple question. 

“I’m not sure, it feels like I’ve been here before but only in a dream. It’s so peaceful,” Zelda replied after breathing in the crisp mountain air. 

“I came up here a lot once I figured out what happened to you,” Link admitted, “Every time I saw the light dragon floating in the sky, I couldn’t help but find the most efficient way to launch myself up to visit,” Zelda’s eyes widened as the unusualness of the world around her began to make sense. 

The long soft tufts of grasses weren’t foliage at all, but thick blond hair that floated through the wind without the burden of gravity. Though it had no physical effect, she could still detect the lightness of the air, higher than any floating island she had visited before swallowing that cursed stone. Even the thin atmosphere carried a profound quiet sorrow. She couldn’t tell which one of them the feeling had originated from. 

“I missed you too, that’s why I did it you know… any price was worth paying to get back to you.” She smiled.

“Even if there was no guarantee you’d ever be yourself again?” 

“I’ll always be myself, the state of self is always prone to change. Even if that change comes in the form of an eternally living dragon who can’t speak and whose consciousness is debatable. I don’t think I was ever really lost, just… asleep.” Zelda swung Link's hand in hers, like they were taking a casual walk through a flowering meadow or strolling through the autumnal forests of Akkala. 

Link seemed to have other plans however, they pulled her into their arms a little frantically, and though it wasn’t the first time they had embraced since her return from the mindless dragon form, it was the first where they were both awake for it. Perhaps she should’ve started their real reunion with something like this…

The dense ball of mind-numbing fear that had made a home in her chest ever since the hero went limp in her arms was finally beginning to lose its grip. She had done her best to ignore how much agony she had been in, it was no use paying any attention to it while Link was dying and her world was falling apart. But now they were in her arms, in a glowing sky that was proof that they were still alive. 

“We’re going to be okay,” Zelda vowed through a whisper in Link’s ear after a moment of silence that could’ve lasted anywhere between a few minutes to a few eons. 

Time passed and they refused to let each other go. As the air around them seemed to turn red with the smell of blood which eventually thinned out and stopped altogether. It didn’t matter how long it took, she never got tired of hugging him. She should’ve gotten bored of the stillness and the lack of conversation but it was perfect just knowing that they were there, that the worst was likely over. The silence that should drive her insane by now was surprisingly more of a comfort than she had expected. 

It was tranquility, there was still a long road ahead, one that wouldn’t be easy and Zelda was surprised to have so willingly accepted that. Even if she had a choice in the matter. In swallowing that stone, she had prepared for an ending, but it was nothing of the sort. Life continued on, and it would always bring new challenges. 

It scared her, that everything was so prone to dramatic change, but she knew that she was never alone for it. She would always have Link as an anchor, a goal to rush toward in crashing tides, to hold her in the dark nights when her memories taunted her like vengeful ghosts. The world would go on and even if they were apart, she was never left alone. Maybe that was why it was so easy to make peace with it. 

Eventually, they would return to the world outside of Link's mind, they would see what remained of their arm. As much of it that could be saved, was. Nearly black gloom-scarred skin surrounded the newer incision, though enough Zora healing power had been poured into it that there wasn’t much left behind other than a thin line. 

Link would want to go home, but that wouldn’t be wise, and they would be too weak to fight the unamused glares of two queens and one Gerudo warrior. Their friends would arrive after hearing about the hero's condition, even though they sported their own wounds. Save for Mineru, who was still a robot and couldn’t really bleed. She would refuse repairs, as there would be no need to have a working body with her purpose finally complete. 

After several slow days of recovery, the sages would make one last journey together. The final Zonai that remained in the land of the living would leave behind one last gift. A final piece of her people, into the outstretched hand of the hero. The sage of spirit would live on, and with the fall of the old kingdom, a new one was destined to rise, just as it has many times before. 

Finally then, it would be time for them to go home, a swordsman unable to wield a sword like they used to and a Hylian queen who could barely be considered hylian anymore. To the mushroom and fashion-obsessed village, across a natural bridge, to the cottage they shared at the edge of civilization. Everything was just how they left it.

Their lives didn’t end with the calamity, or when Link’s life literally temporarily ended, they didn’t end when Zelda was irrecoverably stuck in the past or when she sacrificed herself to become a dragon with no expectation to return, and they wouldn’t end now. 

It hadn’t been an ending or even a new beginning. Life continued on, just like it always did. It would be difficult, and it would be different, but what a pleasure it was to experience it at all. 

[minijenn]

NOT ME BACK ON MY BULLSHIT BOUTTA WRITE A TOTK FIC

EXCEPT I AM AHAHAHAHA

Ok lemme reel it back and explain. So in the... eventual future I plan on writing a totk au fic entitled To Lose Oneself. Basic gist of the plot is if Link wasn't saved by Rauru's arm at the start, and instead, his arm is all corrupted or whatever by gloom and it just keeps on gettin worse and worse. Add that onto the rest of the game's already dramatic plot and you get: Ganondorf being a fucking bastard man, Fake Zelda being a creep, the sages being Link's concerned found family, Purah being the tired team mom, and MiniJen writing yet another fic where she slowly but surely corrupts a boy. Ya know, for fun.

Coming to an AO3 near you... sooner or later idk