#There were some truly grotesque things afoot this night

[not-a-rogue]

Here stands an incredibly happy halfling. Not only did she gain the most wonderful of gifts this evening -- The Halflingkin Keg Knife (Halfling sized dagger with an ornate handle that has been hollowed out to contain alcohol. The handle, if emptied, will magically refill at the beginning of each day with the finest of halfling wine) -- but she can once more lie and whisper.

The curse has been lifted.

Best. Yulemas. Ever.

[pastelsandpining]

Song: "The Panic In Me" by Elton John

Pairing: post-calamity zelink

Congrats on 200!! You deserve more you lovely goddess!!

here you go! a serving of angsty fluff

The Panic in Me

words: 2349

warnings: death mention, panic attacks, nightmares, survivor's guilt if you squint

Masterlist | Song Fics

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In a perfect world, they could leave their past behind them. They could move on with their lives, never once interrupted by the ghosts of an era that played out so long ago, neither of them should be alive to remember it. But this was not a perfect world, and too often, memories of the past taunted and pulled them so taught, it was hard to believe they hadn’t broken yet. Link did not know if it was easier to have a full memory, or if he was the lucky one out of the pair. Most of the time, he just felt lost. Where something should be, there was a blurry and vague image that made no sense to him. Gaping holes in the memory of his past life lead to many sleepless nights, and this was just another one of them.

In that life that was lost to the hands of time, he’d been a knight in service of the princess. A hero, destined to bring about the Calamity. That’s the kind way to put it, he thought. Harbinger of doom was a more fitting term, even a century later when it was done and over. It was a cruel trick that, by the time he was able to sink the sacred blade into the grotesque body of the beast, he could not remember much about those he was fighting for.

There was a collection of memories, sure. A few flickers of a face here, a voice there, a group of skilled warriors that’d come together for the sake of Hyrule--and what good did skill do them in the end? Remembering meant nothing when they weren’t around to remind him of who they were. They felt too far away for him to have any sort of connection to them, and it hurt. He felt… traitorous.

“Link?”

The hero lifted his head, tearing his gaze from the water flowing quietly beneath the bridge, and turned to look at the fallen princess he’d rescued a handful of weeks ago. She was creeping towards him from the house, hugging her arms. It was too late in the night, or early in the morning, for her to be awake. He pulled his legs from over the water and stood up to meet her, the wood cold beneath his bare feet. It reminded him that the weather was growing colder, and she must be freezing. He removed the cloak from around his shoulders and draped it around hers instead, but she caught his hands before he could withdraw.

“Are you alright?” she asked. Three simple words and the answer was anything but. He didn’t think there was a set of words he could string together that would make sense of his thoughts.

“Couldn’t sleep,” he answered instead, giving her hands a gentle squeeze in assurance that he was fine. In moments like these, he wondered if time was a blessing. A century ago, he’d have never dared to touch her in such a casual, insignificant way.

“How long have you been out here?” she asked. It was unnatural, surely enough to be a crime, how her eyes could glow even in the darkest hours of night--even when she was tired beyond belief. He thought briefly of saying not long, but he didn’t want to lie to her.

“I don’t know,” he decided instead. It was an alarmingly honest answer. He couldn’t keep track of time when he was in his head, thinking too much about things he could do nothing about.

“Do you want to come back inside?” she offered--an implication that they shared the house on the cliffside. He supposed, in a way, they did.

“It’s cold,” he answered with a nod towards the building. She’d come out barefoot as well, and he didn’t want her getting sick when she was just starting to regain her health. “Come on.”

The house was not much warmer than the air outside, but at least there was no breeze to sink the chill further into them. Zelda discarded the cloak and Link shuddered as he fetched a spare blanket from storage. He offered it to her, then wasn't entirely sure how it came to be wrapped around both of them.

“Link,” she tried again, fishing for his hand as she started towards the stairs. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

He thought about nodding, assuring her he was fine and telling her to go back to sleep, but she was too smart for that. Maybe it was a gift she had, to know when he wasn’t okay, or maybe she just knew him that well even decades later.

“I was thinking,” he admitted at last, taking a seat on the bed when she pulled him down beside her.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked, holding his hand between both of hers, stroking it gently with her thumb. Link never realized how fleeting physical touch was, or how badly he craved it, until he wrapped her in a hug the very day she returned. Maybe it was selfish, how he didn’t want to let her go. Some small part of him still thought that if he did, she would dissolve right in front of him the same way everyone else from his past had.

“I died,” he said simply. “Didn’t I?”

It struck a chord with her too, because she tensed and averted her gaze. He was sure it wasn’t a pleasant memory for her. He’d gotten the best of it, after all--the only thing he could see or feel was her.

“Yes,” she replied quietly. It was no louder than a whisper, but it was deafening. There was no new knowledge to be learned, but hearing the confirmation from other people was so much worse than just knowing it himself.

It was panic that filled him, thinking back on it. Panic that it wasn’t actually over at all, and that he’d find himself waking up alone with no one to touch all over again. He couldn’t speak the words aloud, so he simply sat there, letting Zelda lay him in her lap. Her hands in his hair, her quiet humming, carried him through the staggered breathing and flashes of a burning world. By the time he came around again, dawn was breaking over the horizon and he didn’t have the energy to move. It was a miracle Zelda’s fingers hadn’t put him to sleep already.

“You’re here,” she whispered, far closer to his ear than he remembered her being. It made him shiver. “We’re here. I won’t let you be alone.”

No, she wouldn’t, because she was too good for that. She was too good to have suffered the way she did. Where he was responsible for bloodshed, she was devoted and loyal. Link still couldn’t understand why the Goddess and her powers ignored her for so long.

“Zelda,” he said in return, lifting his gaze to her at last. It was all that could be said.

He didn’t remember being moved to the pillows, but her head was next to his now and he was certain their legs were tangled together under the sheets. He was holding onto her nightshirt far too tightly, so he uncurled his fingers to take her hands instead.

“Link,” she replied, giving his hands a squeeze, and the ridiculousness of the idea that he couldn’t even form a thank you caused him to laugh. It started weak and hardly more than a chuckle, but Zelda giggled softly beside him, and it grew until he was gasping for breath.

He wasn’t entirely sure what was so funny. Maybe nothing was, and his laughter was simply a result of the unbridled joy she brought him. He would never truly know the answer to that question.

~~~

Zelda did not go without her fair share of torment. Nightmares were common, but her waking up with a blood curdling screaming in the middle of the day was not. She didn’t remember falling asleep. Her hands grasped at something, anything, but all she found was the now crumpled pages of her journal and the wooden desk that bestowed upon her hands a new splinter. She could feel her heart slamming against the inside of her ribs, trying to break free from the prison its sole job was to keep alive. She just barely registered the words coming from her mouth: “no, no, no.”

The door flew open. Footsteps pounded up the wooden stairs and she flinched when he entered her periferal.

“Zelda?” he asked as he knelt by her side. She slowly looked his way, her entire body trembling, and she wanted to cry.

“Link,” she whispered back, broken and watery. “Gods, I-”

“What happened?” he demanded, taking one of her hands. She winced. It was the hand with the splinter. He flipped it to her palm. She didn’t know how he could be so precise and smooth, but the intrusive piece of wood was gone before she could think of digging it out herself.

“I had a dream,” she explained, “the night before… before the Calamity. It made no sense but it felt… foreboding, like a promise—and I think I just had another.”

“Okay,” Link answered with a nod. She watched him shift, kneel in a more comfortable position--a sign he wasn’t going anywhere until she finished speaking. Zelda gripped his hands tighter. She recalled the whispered cries for help, the mangled corpse with glowing, familiar eyes, the feeling of falling down, down, down with him being the last thing she saw. She was shaking again, on the verge of tears, because she didn’t want to lose him again. They had only just started to learn how to love each other in a way that wasn’t dependent on who they were a century ago. She didn’t think she could do it again.

“It doesn’t feel like just a dream, does it?” he asked. Always so considerate, always so understanding.

“There’s been records of prophetic dreams,” she admitted quietly. She wished that if she didn’t speak it loud enough, then it wouldn’t be real.

“Do you think it’s prophetic?”

“I don’t know.”

She didn’t want it to be. The idea that this might not be over after all was terrifying. But Link gave her hands a gentle squeeze and pulled her forwards until she was on his lap, curled up into his arms where nothing could get to her. He was there, just as he always was. He was there when she visited the supposed grave of her father, and he was there when she took her first pilgrimage to Gerudo Town without the company of Urbosa, and he was there when the expectations of the past on her shoulders felt too heavy for her to keep afoot. What had she done to deserve his good graces?

“It’s okay,” he assured, even though she didn’t feel like it. His fingers came up to thread through her hair and she held onto him a little tighter. There were still the remnants of what it felt like to be falling, and the disgust and trepidation that came after seeing the dried out remains of someone who looked too familiar to be of any comfort.

“What if it’s real?” she asked in a whisper, trying to search his blue eyes for any indication that he was lying.

“There’s no way to know that for sure, but if it is, then I won’t let you face it alone.”

He looked so sincere. There wasn’t the slightest waver behind his eyes, or any uncertainty in his voice. He was so steady, so kind, and she almost believed him. She wanted more than anything to believe him. But she didn’t like the implications of her drop into the dark chasm, or the look on his face when she fell.

“I don’t want to do it again,” she said and lowered her head. “I’m tired. I’m so tired. Haven’t we done enough?”

He didn’t answer. He probably didn’t have anything to say, because the same questions must’ve been running through his mind. He had perished to the hands of the Calamity, and now at the slightest whisper of a return, what were they supposed to do?

“Zelda,” he said softly. She always liked how her name sounded in his voice, with no titles or such attached to it. “Look at me.”

She did. He took her chin in his hand, and she could melt at how gently he touched her. In this new age, outside of the eyes of Hyrule, she’d only seen him this serious on a few occasions.

“Yes?” she managed.

“I won’t let anything happen to you if I can help it.”

But he couldn’t always help it, and expecting it of him wasn’t fair. He was still learning how to deal with that knowledge--accepting that he couldn’t always stop what was to come. Even so, it made her feel better. It filled her with warmth to know he was still so determined to stay by her side.

Zelda managed a small smile, then assured them further with a feathersoft kiss. It wasn’t the first they’d shared, and it wouldn’t be the last, but it was a comfort she indulged in whenever she could. There was no reason to be ashamed of it or want to hide it anymore. All those who might’ve cared were dead, and that, while by no means preferable, was perhaps the best part to come out of a fallen kingdom.

“You calm the panic in me too well,” she commented with a weak chuckle.

“I’m just returning the favor,” he replied with a shrug.

It took a few minutes more for them to untangle themselves and stand from the hardwood floor, but by the time they did, the nightmare that interrupted her nap was nothing more than an uneasy feeling in the back of her mind. She trusted in Link, in the bond that they’d not only repaired but regrew and strengthened from almost nothing, and if something wanted to tear them apart again, well, it would have to go through her.

[earth-ambassador-jim]

The Changeling Masquerade

Happy Halloween!

Here is a oneshot that takes place in the same universe as Changeling Loyalties. (Can be read as a standalone though)

AO3 - Fanfiction

~~~~

The wind howled though the dark streets of Arcadia; blowing dry leaves in swirling eddies. Grinning Jack-O-Lanterns glowed outside every home like silent sentinels. They would be gone before the first light of morning touched the rooftops. The final groups of trick-or-treaters scurried home under the baleful light of the full moon.

A lone cloaked figure made his way down the sidewalk. His short stature suggested he was a child but none of the parents approached him. Only fools approached a lone stranger on All Hollow’s Eve in Arcadia; children in colorful costumes where not the only thing afoot tonight.

The figure stopped beside a bare twisted oak tree. He pulled a single marigold out of his cloak and waited; several groups of people passed by, skirting around him without any sign of acknowledgement. Finally, when the streets were completely empty, a long black carriage came and stopped before him. The door opened on its own and the figure entered. There were three other beings, all taller than him, already inside. All wore similar cloaks and had their own marigold.

After a long silent ride the carriage pulled to a halt in front of an old mansion.

Despite its worn and collapsing appearance, the building was lit up and decorated. The bushes surrounding it, overgrown in some parts and half bare in others, had been shaped into strange figures. Blue lights darted around in their depths. Jack-O-Lanterns carved with grotesque faces lined the circular drive. Two skulls, one human, one something other, sat facing outwards and away from each other on either side of the stairs leading up into the mansion. Candles lit them from inside.

The door of the carriage opened. The moment all its occupants exited, it rolled swiftly away. They climbed the steps, passing between the skulls, and came to a stop in front of the door.

Something that resembled a woman wearing the clothes of a butler opened it. Her face was obscured by a golden mask shaped like a raven’s head. There were no visible eyeholes; the two emeralds in the place of its eyes seemed to glow with a light of their own. She held out Her hand and one by one each of the guests placed their marigold in it. She stepped to the side and allowed them to pass.  

Once inside they removed their cloaks. The smallest one wore a rather tacky looking paper-mache mask shaped like a lion trimmed in frayed orange yarn.

The lion followed the other three down the entry hall into a large ball room. It must been truly grand at some point but now it was falling into disrepair. The patterned wall paper peeled off in lazy curls and grass grew through the tiles. Most arrestingly of all a large portion of the roof had broken free. Candles sat in holders made out of the broken beams.

Through that large hole in the ceiling the moon shined down on a crowd of dancers. They all wore masks of different animals, some natural and some fantastical. They were made from everything. They ranged from simple paper to exquisite creations of silver or carved wood. Some were even inlaid with gems.

The lion stood at the edge of the room shifting from foot to foot. After a moment he moved toward a table on the side where drinks and hors d’oeuvres were being offered in sparkling crystal ware. A person in a suit wearing a hawk mask was watching the table closely.

The lion got a bowl of punch and moved to stand among a shifting crowd that was eating and drinking while watching the dancers.

A tall woman in a purple silk dress with a fox mask passed by, moving with a strange birdlike gait. She beckoned another woman who was wearing a wolf mask, suit, and thick fur cape to dance with her.  The wolf bowed and the fox curtsied and they swirled away together.

“Quite the festivities?” Someone with a soft British accent remarked.

The lion glanced to his left and saw a man wearing an eagle mask standing beside him. A pair of long antelope-like horns jutted out of his greying hair. He was wearing an expensive looking three piece suit and a cape shaped like closed wings. There collar of real feathers around his neck.

“Yes,” The lion said, slightly tense.

The eagle chuckled.

“Do try to enjoy the party. There are few quite like it.” He took a sip of dark crimson wine from his glass. “Our Lady delights in our merriment.”

He patted the lion’s shoulder and wandered away into the crowd.

The lion finished the punch and stood there shifting from foot to foot glass tightly in his hands. There was a tug at his pant leg and he looked down to see a flat green face staring up at him. The goblin pointed at his empty glass and held out its hand. He passed it over and the small creature scurried away with it.

“Care for a dance?”

The lion jolted slightly. A person wearing a midnight blue dress had approached him… Or rather the skirt of the dress was midnight blue, the bodice was covered in green scales that slowly faded out the farther down they went. The woman was wearing a green snake mask with blue feathered accents.

He hesitated for a moment longer before bowing and accepting her hand.

The lion moved hesitantly so the snake did the leading, flowing across the grassy tile in smooth measured steps. After a few turns she passed him off to a hyena and began dancing with an owl. After that it all flowed together: music and moonlight and candlelight and swirling clothes and beings in masks: some seemingly human, others distinctly not…

Until finally a bell rang out and the dancers stopped.

…The creature wearing the golden raven mask moved into the center of the dancers. She held a large bouquet of marigolds in Her hands. They parted for Her silently and a hungry silence filled the air.

“Welcome all,” She spoke in a voice that seemed to echo itself. The raven mask flickered like fire and shadow beneath the light of the moon. “It is midnight and our time draws to a close. I hope you have enjoyed yourselves, My Children.”

There were murmurs of agreement from the surrounding creatures. She raised Her hand to silence them.

“It shall soon be time to go, but first I believe we have an unwanted guest. I wish you all a good night and a merry Hunt.”

And with that she turned away.

All the masked figures turned to each other, murmuring in quiet excitement. There was a soft cry like a hawk and the crowd turned as one to see a slight man in a nondescript black suit and a dog mask trying to edge away toward the hallway exiting the mansion. For one frozen moment they stared at each other, and then the dog fled.

An excited cry went up and The Hunt was on.

~~~~

The lion slipped quietly through the woods and into the backyard of a rather nondescript house at the end of a cul-de-sac. With shaking hands he pulled off his mask.

Toby stared at the lion’s face for a long moment before retrieving the lighter he had hidden in his pocket. He lit the mask on fire and watched it burn before entering the dark house to try to sleep.

~~~~

~~~~

Notes:

The Jack-O-Lanterns disappear before sunrise because the trolls eat them.

The person in the hawk mask is making sure no one poisons the food or drink.

This takes place prior to the events of Changeling Loyalties.

Thanks to @elizabethemerald who gave me the idea for this.