#day keese au

[arolesbianism]

HAVE TO ACT LIKE IT DOESN’T BOTHER ME

[powdermelonkeg]

Assorted Post-TotK Spirit Tracks AU thoughts:

The main technology you use is the Robbie Rucksack—mirroring the Purah Pad, Purah did most of the designing, but Robbie got to name it. Turnabout is fair play.

It gets upgraded as you go with more and more features, like a grappling hook, paraglider wings, a dowsing rod, etc.

Its most important feature, though, is the ability to switch tracks (hence locking Link into a specific rail until Zelda joins his side).

Link is piloting the first ever engine in the modern day, the Sheikah Engine. The tutorial segment is him driving it to Lookout Landing Station, so Zelda can name him Hyrule’s first official engineer.

The cannon you get later is actually a guardian laser.

The Railway Tower is the central hub for the rails that spread across Hyrule initially. Purah runs it.

Beneath it, in the Depths, Josha (now 16, eagerly talks about taking a trip to Mt. Lanayru on her birthday) has excavated what looks to be some kind of seal. Onlooker in the ZST crowd seems unusually interested and lavishes Link with an absurd amount of praise.

Shortly after the ceremony, Josha rushes in and says there’s an emergency. Right then, something BURSTS out of the ground beneath the tower, shattering it to smithereens—Purah barely escapes. The stone tower dwarfs the other rail towers around Hyrule in size, reaching from the Depths all the way up to the Sky. Link has to use it to switch his train between map layers.

Calling it the Spirit Spire. It’s full of Phantoms and poes.

Zelda gets her body stolen (expected)

Link gets the Master Sword stolen (NOT expected; snuck up on by Byrne a la Ganondorf vs Sonia). After all, a king revived deserves a fitting weapon.

At the bottom of the Spirit Spire, in the Depths, Link gets the Phantom Flute. Various functions of the tower are enabled by flute song.

Zelda’s spirit can be seen by the Sages, Impa, and Link—nobody else. But she accompanies you and comments on a LOT

Phantom Zel is scared of Keese (same way ST Phantom Zel is scared of rats, reference TotK first battle)

Phantom Zel can go anywhere in the Depths, but she loses her armor in the light.

Spirit form Zel can also take control of certain mechanisms, unlock things for you, phase through walls, etc.

Bringing Zelda to a bargainer statue has the statue reject her soul. It would disrupt the balance of the afterlife to take a soul while the body still breathes.

Tracks in the sky due to Spirit Spire

Remlit sanctuary > Rabbit sanctuary

References to other Zelda games like DLC outfits/items are accessed by playing those games’ songs. Stone walls have the song notes, you’re not taught them outright.

Opening scene is Link in his Tarrey Town house, getting woken up by Zelda who’s excited to see him drive.

Working title: Rails of the Realm

[ladyhoneydee]

SWEET TALK

zelink | BotW college AU | 1.8k

For the Zelinktines23 event, day 12: Sugar!

Zelda takes an impromptu late-night study break to investigate a suspicious noise out in the kitchen, and her chaotic boyfriend Link takes the opportunity to convert her into a lover of conversation heart candies. Or...attempt to, at any rate. Much humor and fluff!

Read it on AO3, FFN, or under the cut!

There’s something crinkling out in the kitchen.

It’s been doing that for over a minute now. A whole minute of Zelda squinting harder at her textbook in the gloom of her desk lamp, grinding her earbuds deeper into her ears, and turning up the volume of her lo-fi study playlist—all to no avail. The crinkling wins out.

She sighs and drops the earbuds to rest atop the open page of her book, then pushes herself up into a standing position. Her head spins a bit when she’s fully upright, vision darkening to a star-swirled violet, and she wonders just how long she’d been studying. Her brain feels like it’s been pumped full of a dense, narcotic fog of physics equations and mechanical diagrams. 

A glance at the clock beside her bed reveals that it’s 2:17 in the morning. Too long, apparently, is the answer to her question. It’s tragic that she only hyper-focuses on schoolwork like this, rather than any of the handicrafts she’s attempted over the years. 

The crinkling has yet to cease. Zelda slaps her palms against her cheeks lightly in an attempt to wake herself up a bit, and then sets off towards the kitchen to see what on earth has the gall to disrupt her studying. 

As she walks, she considers the options. It could be one of Paya’s hamsters on another ill-begotten midnight escape (Zelda really hopes Paya will never learn that her precious Orbie is actually Orbie II, a clandestine replacement after the original literally died of fright when Yunobo tried to move the fridge it was hiding behind). It could be Yunobo himself, stepping on some random trash while sleepwalking through the house, as Zelda has caught him doing a few times before. It could be, Hylia forbid, a raccoon or opossum that has broken in through the bathroom window that Link keeps saying he’ll repair. Or it could be…

She comes around the half-wall separating their apartment’s little dining room from their cramped kitchen, and is met with a sight more terrifying than any of the possibilities she had previously considered.

Feral animal? No. Feral Link . Her roommate and boyfriend—whose outfit alone is chaotic, with his hair thrown up in the least gravity-defying bun she’s ever seen, and a bathrobe she suspects is stolen from a day spa hanging open around his Castleton U Fencing t-shirt and keese-patterned pajama pants—is perched on the countertop next to the fridge, with a huge bag of conversation hearts clutched in both hands. She watches in horror as he throws an entire handful of the candies back like he’s taking a shot. The gleeful crunch that follows could rival a rockslide in its volume and lethality.

“Link, w-what on Hylia’s green earth are you doing?” she blurts out. 

Link’s head snaps towards her. He bears a striking resemblance to a startled chipmunk, with those full cheeks and wide eyes. 

“This isn’t what it looks like!” 

Zelda can hardly understand him through the mouthful of half-chewed hearts. She levels him with a deadpan stare. 

“...it’s exactly what it looks like,” he admits. 

“Real bokoblin hours.” 

Link nods enthusiastically. Then he reaches back into the bag for another handful, the familiar crinkling giving away the gesture. 

“You know, I’ve heard of people eating whole cakes in the middle of the night. Even shredded cheese right out of the bag. But you’re eating chalk? ”

Link swallows his bite in a manner she can only describe as indignant . “They’re good!”

“You’ve eaten rocks before.”

“Those were good too. And as if I was gonna say no to Yunobo’s uncle when he offered me dinner!”

“Fair,” Zelda sighs. She wouldn’t want to disappoint Daruk either. For a man afraid of dogs, he does a fantastic sad-puppy impersonation. 

“Anyway, they’re not chalk. They’re sweet,” Link sniffs. He takes another crunching bite. 

“I’m sure it would be possible to make sweet chalk.” Zelda considers the bag. “Maybe I should experiment with using those on my chalkboard.” She certainly gets enough use out of the little board in her room for all the physics equations to make it worthwhile. 

Link clutches the bag to his chest protectively, and he’s never looked more like a bokoblin than he does in this moment. “You can have some if you’re going to eat them, but no way can you use them for your chalkboard.” That pouty scowl shifts into something a bit more shit-eating, and a thundercloud of foreboding builds in Zelda’s stomach. “That would be so… heartless of you.”

There it is. Zelda groans wordlessly at the pun. Link grins like he’s won a trophy.

“I’m still not sure those things are even edible,” she says eventually, deciding not to give the pun any more space than she already has. “I swear the last time I tried one I almost broke my teeth on it.”

“When was that, elementary school?” 

Zelda considers, then nods. 

Link holds out the bag towards her. “It’s been over a decade, Zel. They’ve improved upon the recipe.” He shakes the bag to punctuate his point, although she can’t say the sound of sweet chalk bombs rattling against crinkly plastic is particularly appetizing. “These ones have all been the perfect texture.”

“I really doubt that.”

“Party pooper.” Link sticks out his tongue at her. 

She shakes her head staunchly. No way is she eating such dubious food. 

“C’mon, Zel, just try one?” he wheedles. “What if I say that you—” he pulls a green one out of the package and reads it “— MELT MY ♡ ?”

“Nope.”

He tosses it in his mouth and crunches down. Those short, cute fingers slither back into the bag to retrieve a whole handful. The packaging almost doesn’t crinkle this time.

Link waves a purple one in front of her face, and she goes cross-eyed to look at it. Unfortunately, he’s got the message facing away from her. “What if I say that UR A QT?”

She wrinkles her nose. “Try again.”

Link gamely snaps it up instead, and dips his hand back into the bag. “Zelda…” he starts, his tone dramatic, and she plays along by raising an eyebrow and tilting her head inquisitively as he holds out the blue heart like one might a ring box. “When I’m with you, I know I’ve GOT LOVE.”

She laughs despite herself, but pushes it back towards him. “You sap.”

Link sends her a grin so bright she swears she can see sparkles in his eyes. Then he goes back to rifling through the conversation hearts. 

“Give up yet?” she asks. 

“Never. BAE?”

“No.”

“DREAM?”

“No. Is that supposed to be romantic? It’s just a noun.”

“Maybe you’ll like this one better, then. COOL CAT?”

“Why are they animal themed?”

Link laughs. “LUV U?”

“Love you too, but nope.”

“XOXO?”

“No.”

“DIG ME?” 

“What the—surely that doesn’t actually say that.” Link flashes her the face of the heart, and Zelda is slightly horrified to see that the heart is in fact that cringy. Her face of revulsion makes Link laugh, and he pops the orange candy into his mouth.

“Hmm. How about…YAAAS?” 

Zelda bursts into a loud cackle at the way he pronounces the word, then stifles it so as not to bother poor Paya and Yunobo too much. “You’re kidding me!”

“I didn’t hear a no to that one~” Link singsongs. He holds it against her lips.

“No way! ” She bats the yellow menace away. 

“How about…” Link looks down. There’s one last heart in his hand, a pink that matches the flush in her cheeks from laughing so hard. “KISS ME?”

Zelda looks into his eyes, and can’t help but let a large grin overtake her features. “Well, since you asked so nicely.”

She steps forward until she’s situated in the space between his dangling legs. His thighs give a brief squeeze to either side of her hips, welcoming her warmth, as she leans forward until they’re nose-to-nose. They’re so, so close now, enough that she can feel his sugar-sweet breath on her lips, and the heat of his cheeks against her own, and the tickle of his bangs on her forehead as they mix in with her own. 

And then she waits. 

As the tension builds, Link’s breath comes more and more shallowly where his chest presses against hers. It’s hard to make out all his features clearly with him so near—everything is just slightly out of focus, like a dreamy old film—but she doesn’t need to have 20-20 vision to see the way his pupils dilate as his gaze flickers down to her lips again and again.

Finally, he breaks. “Goddesses, Zel, just kiss me, please—” 

She does. 

He tastes of cloying banana from that last conversation heart, but she can’t find it in herself to care when his hands are winding into her hair and massaging the back of her neck like that, and his lips feel so plush under her own, and the slant of his hungry mouth against hers make her want to study nothing but every possible angle their kisses can take instead of her actual coursework. It’s warm and a little wet and so good that one kiss becomes two becomes five, until he pulls away with a gasp. He never was as good at holding his breath as her.

As they catch their breath, she admires those lips swollen from her kisses, and the deep pink tinging his cheeks and ears. She tucks a stray hair back behind one rosy lobe with a gentle hand. 

“You’re so beautiful,” she whispers. Her lips press lightly against his own with every syllable.

“That’s my line,” he whispers back. His eyes search her face, taking in the pride and desire and utter adoration she’s sure is projected by her every feature. She’s always had a very honest face.

“Link?”

“Yeah?” 

“Feed me that conversation heart before I change my mind.”

His laugh makes his lips brush against hers like the wings of a smotherwing butterfly. “I’m on it.” The pink heart replaces his mouth, and she mourns its loss even as she accepts the candy from his fingers.

It’s…very chalky, no matter what Link says. Sweet dust coats the surface of her tongue instantly. She bites down cautiously with the set of molars she trusts the most.

CRUNCH. 

They both jolt back at once; Link out of surprise at the sudden loudness, and Zelda with the shock and fear of did she just break a tooth? They stare at one another with matching wide eyes. And then—

“LINK! YOU SAID THEY WOULDN’T BREAK MY TEETH!”

“That must’ve just been a bad one, I swear—”

“I’M NEVER JOINING YOU FOR BOKOBLIN HOURS AGAIN!”

“Just try another! I’m telling you, none of them have been like that—” 

He can’t even finish his sentence before he’s scrambling up onto the countertops away from her wrathful hands. She ends up chasing him all around the kitchen, his nimbleness counterbalanced by her cleverness, until they’re both guffawing breathlessly against the fridge, the forgotten bag of conversation hearts crinkling underfoot. 

“GOT CHA,” Zelda wheezes, her hands fisting into Link’s ridiculous bathrobe.

“ONLY YOU,” he replies, and pulls her in for another kiss.

[zeldaseyebrows]

The first chapter of my new fic In the Blood is out now! 

It’s a zelink zombie apocalypse AU (rated E, so please use your discretion) because I really wanted to read one. Is the timing of releasing a zombie fic right before American Thanksgiving great? No. But I hope you all enjoy!!

Synopsis: When a mysterious plague sweeps through Castletown and the dead rise, Link and Zelda must race against fate and time to find a cure that will save both Hyrule and each other.

Snippet:

When it starts, it starts quietly. It starts on an early fall day with a merchant returning from the desert, feverish and coughing blood.

He’s been sick for his journey, ranting to everyone who will listen to stay away and run as far as they can. But they dismiss it as the ravings of a sick man suffering from heatstroke or some other affliction brought on by his travels.

When Link investigates later on, he finds conflicting accounts of how it all truly originated. Some say an infected keese had bitten the merchant in the dead of night. Some say he ate something he shouldn’t have, used an old herb that only grew in the lost, dark corners of Hyrule. And some say that he’d gone exploring in a deep pit even the Gerudo didn’t have any knowledge of and came out unable to speak of what he’d seen in the dark, travelling as fast as he could away from the desert.

But no matter the cause, the outcome is the same. Soon, symptoms start cropping up in Castletown in others who had contact with him. Hylian, Gerudo, Rito, Zora, it doesn’t matter. A cough, weakness, fever. Always blood. The plague starts the same.

And the plague ends the same.

[puella-peanut]

A Man for All Seasons

Written for the @allvalley100 Word Drabble Challenge. This time it was “Nice."

This is my second fill

…

Daniel once thought that John Keese and the word "nice" could never be used in the same sentence together, but that was before he'd found this bookshop—and its shocking contents.

All he'd wanted was a calendar for '86, but somehow he'd ended up with 12 months worth of Kreese—shirtless, brawny, buff—Kreese. Sexy Sensei Edition. Or so the title advertised.

(And the pictures certainly proved.)

Dear god. 

He knew Kreese had lost everything after the tournament fiasco—but if those desperate times called for these desperate measures, well—

Daniel groaned, and pulled out his wallet. 

Fuck his life.

...

Brought to you by all those sexy gifs of Martin Kove from back in the day that have popped up as of late. Ya'll out here doing the Lord's work.

Anyway, in some alternate universe of this au, Daniel has his own calendar, something something Twink for All Seasons. All his ex-karate rivals show up for the midnight release, and it tops the New York Times Best Seller List.

[batrogers]

DUNGEON DOLL % RUN

I need motivation to plan this one, as it’s both more and less fun than the others: more fun, because more variety of options, but less because I hate decisions like this.

So why don’t Y'all decide for me?

I’m gonna run day-long polls for a few days, just to help me stay motivated and stop freezing up over arbitrary decisions. My deepest thanks to all y'all who are voting!

You didn’t miss Room #1, I’ve already decided that. Room #2 poll was here [Floor Tiles] Room #3 poll was here [No door] Replies and comments on it still welcome!

Sometimes an option will have a pre-determined Doll-use assigned to it, but I am happy to be convinced of your favourites if you have one in mind or want to make a request! My anon asks are on.

Also don’t assume just because something feels small I won’t use it to kill a character. We’ve all had embarrassing deaths, and I’m not above using them here LOL.

Reminder this is a Linked Universe fanfic project, so that is the characters in question…. Although if you *wanted* to advocate for another AU I won’t turn down those ideas either LOL. Just no promises!

[quillandink333]

Courage

BotW Link X Zelda ~ Vampire!Link AU

Rating: M

Word Count: 3.2k

WARNINGS: blood and gore, near-death experiences, nudity

Summary: In defiance of his creator, Link risks his life over and over as he fights to protect Zelda’s, but then watches his world crumble as she does the same for him.

Masterlist

“Highness!”

An electric arrow flew at her from above. I deflected it in the nick of time, skidding against the rainforest’s damp soil.

The scaly eyes of the monster who’d fired lased into me, just like those of all the rest as they emerged and made themselves known. I hissed, outwitted. We were surrounded, having just walked into the clearing before the Spring of Courage, but we hadn’t been expecting company. And now, there was nowhere to take cover.

One of the unholy creatures leapt out at us from behind. We would’ve been done for if I hadn’t heard its approach in time. I drew my blade and dealt with it swiftly, but this battle was far from won.

The lizalfi were cunning, more so than they appeared. They’d blended in with their surroundings, only revealing themselves when we’d walked straight into the heart of their trap. They were nine, ten...twelve in number, half of them foot soldiers and the rest archers.

“Link...?”

“It’s alright,” I asserted, though I had to admit the validity of my statement was questionable at best. “Just stay close.”

My sword and shield clattered as they hit the ground. “Wait,” she stammered, “what are you—?”

I crouched down and closed my eyes. The image of my enemy’s blackening corpse strewn across the ground beneath me devoured my thoughts and claimed my focus.

Soon enough, my arms turned thin and leathery, my legs melted away, and the corners of my vision were blurred and bloody.

With my new wings, I soared high above the stone pillar.

The monster at its vertex jerked its head up.

I dove down. My body changed shape, and I landed feet-first on top of my victim, causing it to plummet to its doom.

I leapt to the ground, retrieving the sword and finishing it off with one final blow.

“Link—ahh!”

I turned. Time froze when I saw the princess backed up against a tree with two lizalfi closing in on her.

One grabbed her wrist between its claws. My throat clenched in anger.

Thinking quickly, I picked up the bow of the fallen archer and shot an electric arrow right into the nape of her attacker’s neck. It spasmed a few times, letting go of her before collapsing to the ground at her feet, dead.

The other turned its head. In response, I shot a second arrow through its eye socket and into its skull.

But when I reached for another arrow, my hand was seized, and I was pinned to the ground.

The princess screamed out my name as I wrestled with the enemy, but it had me immobilized. I could hear the pitter-patter of the others’ footsteps fast approaching, and saw countless shock arrows wizzing overhead. No matter how hard I struggled, I couldn’t get the damned thing off me.

So I closed my eyes again.

The creature that had been holding me down squawked in confusion. I fluttered out of its grasp with ease. If I still had my face, I would’ve been smirking in triumph.

The archers were still firing away at me, but their aim was off by a mile as always. It was even harder to hit me now that I presented a much smaller and faster target.

Assessing the battle field, I counted three on foot and five ranged remaining. I spotted one try to pick up the sword, jumping back when its hand began to sizzle. I took this chance to shift back and reclaim my weapon.

It didn’t take me long from there to eliminate the three left on the ground. All the while, I was careful to keep Her Highness in my line of sight.

Until one of the archers shifted its aim from me to her.

I raced to her side at once. The arrow flew, and I blocked it with no more than half a second to spare.

Then one of them rushed at us, catching me off-guard.

I swung my sword out, and it leapt back.

I could’ve sworn I’d taken care of all the ones on foot. Could one of the archers have abandoned its post?

“Are you alright?”

The question caught me even more off-guard. “Yes, Princess,” I stuttered, trying to focus on fighting off my opponents. “Get to the spring.”

She nodded and made a break for the stone serpent’s mouth.

Then I heard a low grunt. Her footsteps halted.

Rising to its feet in front of her was none other than a towering, third-class moblin.

Another bolt just barely missed my ankle. It purged me of my paralysis, and I dodged it. I looked back just in time to see the brute raising its club above her.

“Zelda!”

She screamed and darted out of the way. I thanked Ganon for making these boorish behemoths as slow as they were.

“Keep running!” I ordered, blocking another lightning-fast attack. “Don’t look back!”

She was terrified. I heard it in the way she gasped for air as she fled. I should’ve known better than to give way to overconfidence. Now my grip was shaky, my movements frenzied, and I was starting to panic.

I advanced, but the spineless freak just kept leaping back miles out of reach. The three left with bows were still firing away at me. I shouted out in futile aggravation. I’d lost my shield some time ago while transforming, leaving my left side wide open. I could no longer see the princess, though I still heard her frantic footsteps, as well as her pursuer’s.

I had to get back up on my feet somehow, or else her blood truly would be on my hands this time.

I sprinted over to where a bow and quiver full of shock arrows were lying deserted. My opponent, after a moment of standing there in confusion, chased after me.

I turned and thrusted the tip of my blade through its open palm.

It screeched dramatically. This gave me an opening. I grasped it and slashed the creature’s throat open once and for all.

The loud rustling of palm leaves caught the attention of one of the archers.

Standing to the left of the spring’s entrance was the princess, frozen in fear. The black moblin was sluggishly approaching her from behind.

The lizalfos took aim. She gasped and turned around, but then came face-to-face with the pig-snouted giant.

Then she took even me by surprise and ducked between its legs.

The moblin stumbled. Then before it’d had the chance to recover, the archer let loose its arrow, which hit the beast right in its thigh. Lightning surged throughout its lanky form before it collapsed on its front.

I held my breath.

But it got back up again like nothing had happened. Of course that wouldn’t have been enough to kill it, as I had hoped. Soon, it turned back around and continued its dreaded hunt.

I’d missed my chance. “Damn it...” Now it was impossible for me to hit it with the projectiles at my feet, and I had the attention of all three archers back on me.

I picked up the bow and arrows and ran. There had to be some position that was ideal for shooting down the last of these fiends.

I maneuvered across the battlefield until all three of them were in view. They were farther away than I would’ve liked, but this would have to do. Besides, this way I was far enough that they wouldn’t be able to hit me with their inferior aim whilst I pierced their throats one after another.

Finally, the last one fell from its post and into the water below, vanquished.

“Ough!”

I spotted Her Highness, sprawled out on the staircase at the spring’s entrance. She must have tripped on her way down.

Time stopped, yet again, as the monster emerged from the shadows, poised to strike.

The defenceless princess didn’t so much as scream, merely watching her fate unfold in complete, mortal terror.

The beast swung its mace.

I nearly tripped myself as I leapt in front of her, parrying the death blow, but just barely.

The enemy staggered back. I charged forward.

My aim was true.

The blade cleaved clean through its torso, exiting out through its backside. Its thick, black ichor sprayed all over my arm when I took it out. The beast fell to the ancient pavement slowly and heavily, shaking the earth as it landed.

My chest was heaving violently. By the time I looked down, the gore staining the sword had already burned away. Arms shaking in exhaustion, I returned it to its sheath, wiping the sweat from my brow.

“Link...”

I swivelled when the princess’ frail voice called me. She hadn’t moved from her position on the steps, twisting at the waist to look up and face me. She seemed just as drained as I felt, if not more so. Other than that, though, she hadn’t sustained any serious injuries from what I could see. All she had were a few small scrapes and bruises here and there.

Then it hit me. The front of her white dress was sopping wet, and I’d been staring at her for well over a minute. I immediately averted my gaze, feeling a wave of embarrassment crawl beneath my skin.

“What?” she worried. “What’s the matter?”

Without looking, I cleared my throat suggestively. When that evidently hadn’t gotten the message across, I muttered, “You’re drenched.”

“Ah...” She looked down, noticing the exposed state she was in. “I just...fell into the spring a couple of times,” she blushed. “You don’t have to look away, though. I-I trust you.”

There was that phrase again. That utterly ridiculous phrase that she’d been using with me for the past month or so.

Taking a deep breath, I reached out my hand to help her to her feet.

The few drops of sacred spring water left on her palm hissed softly as they made contact with my skin. I winced. The pain was small, but excruciating.

“Oh my Goddess,” she gasped, loosening her grasp on my hand and poring over it. A few small cracks had formed in my palm, from which a few wisps of smoke had risen. “I’m so sorry,” she deliberated. “Are you alright? Do you need—”

“I’m fine, Your Highness,” I interrupted, gripping her fingers gently in demonstration. She looked up at me, uncertainty lingering in her expression, then back at my hand.

My own gaze landed on her wrist. Through the intricate metalwork of her wristband, an array of three puncture wounds, each secreting thin threads of dark red, could be seen. The memory of the monster’s filthy talons penetrating her precious, delicate skin flashed through my mind’s eye.

I cursed quietly. Once again, my infernal hate had taken hold of me and obstructed my ability to fulfill my sworn duty to her. I’d tried to fight it, but it was inescapable. I bit my lip, swallowing back a sigh. The worst part of it all was how I now found myself struggling to tear my eyes away from the blood seeping out of her wounds, further proving that I was no different from the monsters from which I was trying my hardest to protect her.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” she asked again, tone tender and brimming with warmth. I nodded; it was all I could bring myself to do.

It was not my place to listen in on her prayer. However it was difficult not to when she was such a short distance away. Tuning her out was quite the challenge, as soft-spoken as she tended to be during these rituals of hers. Besides, I couldn’t help but be intrigued.

The things she spoke to the Goddess about were shocking to me. I hadn’t the slightest clue about how formal or intimate one was expected to be when speaking with Her, but the princess seemed to have no qualms with confiding in Her just about anything. Once, during one of these pilgrimages, she’d even confessed to Her that I was in fact a day keese. It was likely that She’d already known this about me, but even so, if I’d ever been so obscenely foolhardy as to confess my betrayal of Lord Ganon to His own face, I would’ve been stricken down on the spot.

After a while, it became apparent to me that the princess had gone quiet. This was more than a little unsettling. I kept my back turned respectfully, but kept my ears trained just the same.

Splosh

My heart sank. I turned around, just in time to see her hand fall below the surface of the water.

I didn’t think twice before diving in after her.

The water penetrated my clothes the instant I stepped in. It went up to my knees. I couldn’t withhold my wail of blinding agony. My legs were like sandcastles, and the spring, a riptide.

It took every sliver of strength left in my body to reach the princess. By the time I had her safe in my arms, I could no longer feel my feet. There was no way I could get her back to dry land by carrying her. The one choice I had left was to hurl her unmoving form as far as I could and hope for the best. So, with a silent apology, that’s just what I did.

I was forced to crawl my way back to dry land; I no longer had the physical capacity to remain standing. To my immense relief, she was there on the concrete, safe and breathing.

Until now, I hadn’t had the chance to truly feel the searing pain consuming what remained of my body. My flesh was cracked and crumbling, and the water had soaked through each little crevice deep into my brittle constitution. If I wasn’t careful, my body would’ve lost any resemblance to a Hylian it had left.

When it had become strenuous to continue drawing breath, I realized I wasn’t long for this world. And yet, as I gazed upon the princess’ unmoving form whilst my surroundings faded to black, I smiled. At long last, I could bid farewell to this dastardly life of mine.

I awoke with a slight weight on my chest and a warm, bitter-sweet taste in my mouth. A series of coughs wracked my already broken body as the familiar liquid ran slowly down my throat. I opened my eyes.

“Link...?”

The face that greeted me was veiled in heavenly, golden light. I squinted. For a moment, I was certain I was looking straight into the eyes of an angel. Then my vision adjusted. Of course, I realized, no angel would ever shine half as brightly as she.

Her hand, planted firmly at the back of my head, encouraged it forward, until my lips sealed shakily around the weeping slit in her neck once again. As I drank obediently, I began wondering if she’d made the incision herself. Something about it felt sickeningly wrong. Even so, I was too numb, too fatigued, and too delirious to do anything about it.

I regained consciousness gradually, becoming more and more aware of our situation as she slid down my throat one swallow at a time. Her blood was like finely aged wine, pleasantly burning my insides as it went down. All the while, I could feel my body recovering its structure. The cracks and chips littering my skin dissolved one by one, and before long, my legs had pieced themselves back together. Now I could feel the cool mists of Faron, as well as the warmth of her bare flesh, clinging to my own.

It was around that time that I finally came to my senses. My tongue traced over the smooth edges of the lesion, making her tense up against me. I jerked back.

For the first time since waking, I was able to get a good look at her neck. The cut was fairly small, but the way it gaped and pulsed—staring back at me and perceiving each and every one of my innermost thoughts like the all-seeing eyes of our Father—forced me to look away. I could hear His petrifying voice even then.

I let my fearful gaze meander, coming across her and my clothes, which were still damp with spring water from the looks of it. Then my eyes landed on my sword, lying unsheathed on the pavement a few feet away. A corner of its blade was stained with crimson.

I shed a silent tear. “Why...?”

“‘Why?’” she rowed, teeth clenched, clearly in pain. “You wouldn’t have made it if I hadn’t done this! And yet...you’re still asking me why?”

I opened my mouth, but found myself speechless. No matter how much I wanted to just look her in the eyes and tell her everything that weighed on my mind, I couldn’t. What good would it do to resent her for this? It was already too late.

“How could you throw your life away like that?” she stabbed. “You knew your body couldn’t take it, surely.”

I risked another glance at her neck, watching as it gushed out rivers of blood with no sign of stopping. “I could ask the same of you.”

“Because I love you, Link!”

My eyes widened. I looked up at her, desperately clinging to the possibility that this was some kind of joke. “What...?”

“I love you.”

So I had heard her correctly. “No...” I muttered, gently shaking my head. “N-no, take it back.” My fingers clamped around her arm. “Please...”

“But it’s true,” she cried, voice breaking. “I think about you every moment I live and breathe, and I can’t bare the thought of losing you.” Her tone made it clear that this was no joke. “I would rather die.”

I’d thought I had felt the most pain I ever would’ve felt when I’d thrown myself into the spring moments ago. But the crushing anguish brought on by those words was so unfathomable that I never could’ve imagined it until now.

“Link...” She cupped my cheeks in her delicate palms. The way she looked at me, eyes glistening behind a watery film and voice barely above a whisper, was just another twist of the knife. “Why won’t you say anything?”

I choked, giving way to an unstoppable wave of tears and hysterical sobbing. “Because,” I whimpered pathetically, “I don’t deserve...‘love.’” I was crying into my hands as she lay across my bare front, shaking almost imperceptibly. “H-how could—how could someone such as I ever love you back...?”

As she began weeping freely into my shoulder, I felt another even greater surge of tears swell up and out of me. All I ever did was hurt her. It was made worse when I thought about how, even if I hadn’t been born the demon that I was, I still wouldn’t have had the chance to be with her. In the end, Lord Ganon would kill us all either way. Why had I even been created in the first place? What was the point in letting me learn what happiness was before forcefully tearing it out of my grasp?

I clutched onto her with all my might for no reason other than that she was there. She held me tighter.

[chisatowo]

Decided to try designing another bird au person, and damn did this end up being way more experimental that I meant for it to fmdbdmdby

[stupidzeldaaus]

Tameable chuchus. On a related note: tameable spinuts, wolfos, keese, octoroks, and every other monster that isn't a blin, hinox, or wizzrobe.

.

[hubbleablubble]

Vaati: Link, I’ve been coming here every day for four months.

@patchworkcrows IM SORRY I READ YOUR TAGS AND I LOVED THE IMAGERY SO ITS CANON NOW

[arolesbianism]

Some au antag doodles

[stayinurlaneboi]

Fic Recs

Pics Text Masterlists Gifs Videos Audio CGs

last updated: April 14, 2022

ＢＲＥＡＴＨ ＯＦ ＴＨＥ ＷＩＬＤ

Link

feral gremlin boy

hes touch starved

dating hc with a hylian s/o

Revali

training accidents

shy s/o

he secretly likes his champion scarf hes just tsundere abt it

with a hylian s/o

Link/Sidon

what they would do with their s/o during bad weather

short s/o

Revali/Link/Sidon

they’re drunk an now their s/o has to deal with them

first time living with their s/o

comforting a terrified s/o

having a nightmare where their s/o dies in their arms

Revali/Mipha/Urbosa/Link/Sidon

trying to confess to an oblivious s/o

Linked Universe AU

wild sick fic

linked universe au where link can jump on command

wild accidentally grabs twilights pinecone in his sleep

Misc.

link gives sidon a chance to see his sister again

zelda watching link be feral post ganon

give her a keese

ＧＥＮＳＨＩＮ ＩＭＰＡＣＴ

Zhongli

dating hc

relationship hc ver2

extremely affectionate s/o ver2

pining hc

cuddling hc

him with an s/o as dumb as he is

ink and legacy

half dragon!zhongli hc

they say the first snow is precious

in bed fluff

“i’d feel better if you kissed me”

cheering him up

under the stars

Xiao

relationship hcs

cuddle hc ver2

affection hcs ver2

reader with a cold

short s/o

wishing upon a lantern

lantern rite date gone wrong

protect

sleepy!reader ver2

bein jealous of how his s/o interacts with childe

reader gets sick

nobody knows how you got so close to him

picking flowers and making crowns

dating hcs

a date to the lantern rite goes wrong

xiao’s 3 steps to making ur s/o feel better

s/o goes mia hc

fluffy hc

touchy s/o

sappy s/o

kiss me (mafia au)

welcome back ver2

you can be human too (if only temporarily)

long hair xiao long hair xiao long hair xiao

c’mon fuck me emo boy

admiring his muscles cuz they nice ver2

pining!xiao protecting you from a distance

“you said that these were your favourite right?”

heat of the moment

nightmares

perhaps an adventure wouldnt be so bad

he got fangs

you dont have to if it causes you pain

“where are you going?”

relationship hcs

please not again

Diluc

kisses hc ver2

boyfriend hc

just a moment longer

come back soon

secret kisses

relationship hc (horny at the end, minors look away)

dandelion dreams

bringing drunk diluc home

soft!diluc hc

the heater in you apartment breaks, good thing ur bf is a furnace

caught in the rain

dandelions and sunshine

hearing that his s/o was kia

clingy diluc who likes to be held

lazy mornings

diluc getting a fat goodbye smooch

s/o going mia

relationship hc writer deactivated

Kaeya

dating hc

cuddling hc

domestic mornings

4 times he wants to kiss you and the 1 time he does

brushing their hair

kissing him to sleep

flowers

Childe

about his ring comic

waking up with him

s/o comforting him

s/o goes mia

jealousy drabble

early mornings with him

hes so out classed in liyue its not even funny

dating hc

limerence

ex-boyfie things

the best part of his week includes fighting the traveller and picnics

Albedo

opposites attract

waking up together

sleepy bedo asking you to do his hair

general hc

boyfriend hc

horimiya au

Aether

he smells heavenly to literally everyone

Razor

meeting his pack

Chongyun

his condition starts to act up

Liyue boys

how they'd confess

Duos

relationship hcs ver2

drunk hcs

protective hc

kiss hcs

cuddles

with an s/o that self isolates themselves

confessions

having a bad day and wanting to cuddle

wallet!childe an broke!zhongli comic

waking up with them

hugs

extremely touch starved s/o an head pats

cuddling hc

jealousy hc

comforting s/o after a bad day

clingy s/o

reader who loves the rain

physically affectionate s/o

playing with their s/os hair

lonely without you

comforting reader

do they change around their s/o?

opposites attract

getting kidnapped by the fatui

trying to confess to an oblivious s/o

coming home from a commission injured

gentle kisses

being a whole simp for them

belate birthdays

gentle touches

multis

sweet scenarios

holding hands

baker s/o

tickle fights

when your cold

asking you to sleep over

you fall asleep on them 

you go missing

falling asleep in their arms

you go missing

with an s/o that sleeps everywhere but is insanely strong

comparing hands

with a crush thats very touchy feely

coming home after a long journey

s/o falls asleep on them

booping noses

bad day comforts 

falling asleep in their arms 

home early

reader gets badly hurt

hug hc

how they smooch

how they hug

soulmate aus

you get injured

when you call them by a cute nickname

asking for a hug

what their kisses are like

they snap at you an how they’d apologize

can i wear your clothes?

what they like about you

how they kiss

how they treat you when your sick

whos the father?

making excuses to touch you 

they’re drunk and s/o has to take care of them

with a small s/o

what they do when your cold

saying ily for the first time

first kisses

valentines day

jealousy hc

when someone flirts with their s/o

this is my “i love you”

he falls asleep on your shoulder

as your knight in shining armour 

how they love you

its the little things

how do they kiss you

s/o baking for them

you fall asleep on their chest 1 2

love languages 1

they confess to you 1 2

affections 1 2

memento mori the fic the backstory

yours truly sincerely

Misc.

lumine is v pretty for an absolute gremlin

lumi chops off venti's hair lol

poly!venti/xiao + reader is the chosen one

xiao and traveler have much in common

xiao x lumi hcs

zhongli x lumi + realizing that they like eachother

scaramouche and childe comic

agressive cupid

diluc reacting to windtrace

zhongli hoarding his friends

if genshin was a dating sim

[belladxne]

i will see you where the shadow ends | chapter 6

[see notes for ao3 and ff links]

part of the put your faith in the light that you cannot see series AU: Breath of the Wild pairing: KiriBaku word count: 5,304

chapter 6: it’s getting late, and i cannot seem to find my way home tonight

Paragliding is absolutely exhilarating. Eijiro would be whooping in delight if he weren’t almost immediately breathless from the thrill of it, his blood pumping loudly in his ears.

In the brief moment of freefall after he’d hopped off the plateau, his heart had lodged itself somewhere in his throat, and then when he’d snapped the paraglider taut his stomach had gone plummeting out of his body. But like, in a good way, unlike when the tower had rocketed up into the air and launched him with it. Even with the slight strain in his arms from holding onto the glider, this is the most fun he’s ever had in his life.

Oh, he can’t wait to just start leaping off of things—of anything. This feels awesome. This feels right.

He encounters his first moblin directly east of the plateau. He recognizes the towering, monstrous creature about ten or so seconds before he plants his boots directly on its face. They crash to the ground one after the other, but Eijiro’s smaller and it makes him more agile, and he rolls to his feet with his sword out in under a second.

It’s probably just the adrenaline rush leftover from his flight down, but Eijiro grins, bright and feral. He’s lucky enough, or the moblin’s disoriented enough, that the fight’s over in seconds and Eijiro’s blood is singing with the accomplishment.

The rest of the night’s trek doesn’t go so easy. Traveling at night is worse, it’s always worse, and he knew that when he stuffed as many supplies as he could into his new bag and leapt off the plateau, but there’s no way he could have managed to stay still tonight. But, hey, he doesn’t have to now, because as soon as the sun dips below the horizon, stalkoblins are popping up from the ground to harry him. And not once, but twice as he tries to follow the road through the ruins he gets swarmed by two separate clouds of keese.

If he almost blows himself up throwing a bomb at the second cloud as they’re swooping for his head, well, at least there’s no one to witness it.

By the time he’s reached the bridge down the road from the plateau, it’s been well over an hour and Eijiro is tired, and achy, and frustrated. There had been two more moblins in the mix of monsters inhabiting the ruins that dotted the roads, and Eijiro had been confronted once again with the fact that things are not as they should be. That he is not as he should be.

It’s like he knows exactly what to do, what all their weak points are, how they’re going to come at him, but his body can’t keep up with his knowledge. It feels like he’s done this a million times, only this time he’s just a little slower than he’s always been, or he somehow misses the place he was swinging for with his sword, or, worse, he gets the timing correct and the aim right and he just doesn’t hit as hard as he should.

He gets what Inko was saying about him not having fully recovered from his slumber, and he hates the feeling of weakness even more than the bumps and bruises that form because of it.

When the shrine just to the right of his side of the bridge starts peeking out, Eijiro almost groans. He thinks he’s spent around an hour and a half just getting this far—and it’s not far at all, it’s really not; he can still see the Great Plateau over the tops of the ruins he’s just fought through—and the thought of using his brain to puzzle his way through another exhaustive trial is not at all appealing.

But he doesn’t know when he’ll be back here next, if he’ll be back again at all, so he sighs and treks up to the shrine.

It’s well and truly dark out by the time Eijiro emerges from the shrine, more than a little put out to not at least have gotten a new rune for his trouble. It’s late but not that late, and he entertains the thought, briefly, of setting up camp in the nook that surrounds the elevator into the shrine.

It would be sheltered on three sides, both from the wind and from the sight of any more monsters that stray near, so it wouldn’t be the worst place to set up. Eijiro considers it for maybe fifteen seconds, but—but even bruised and frustrated, Eijiro wants to keep going. He’s weary after two very full days back to back but he isn’t tired, and he’s still impatient to get to Kakariko Village. He’s impatient to help Katsuki and Izuku already.

He adjusts his bag, double checks which of his weapons he needs to worry about breaking in the middle of a fight, and sets off across the bridge.

There’s a man on the bridge keeping vigil over a lifeless guardian in the near distance, openly terrified it’s going to spring back to life and start firing lasers everywhere—Eijiro can’t exactly fault him for that—who gives Eijiro directions to Kakariko and lectures him emphatically about staying as far from Hyrule Castle as possible. Eijiro doesn’t see the point in telling the guy he’s not gonna follow his advice, but the man seems just as desperate for real interactions with other people as Eijiro is, so Eijiro lingers as long as he can bring himself to, making small talk with him before he carries on.

There’s another tower of Sheikah make, like the one on the Great Plateau, that stands right at the foot of the Dueling Peaks. It’s absolutely dwarfed by their size, and he feels like placing it right next to such massive formations almost defeats the purpose of making a tower at all. He wishes he could say he reaches it at a better pace than he reached the bridge, but by the time he disposes of all the monsters—living and skeletal—that try to bar his path, swims across the river, and scales his way up the Sheikah tower, it’s been just as long.

He’s genuinely tired now, and almost any way he moves has his body complaining in a multitude of ways, but he doesn’t want to stop. He just—he just wants to finally feel like he’s making real progress, and for the three hours he’s spent traveling, he feels like he’s gotten nowhere.

Unfortunately, he’s all but swaying on his feet by the time he’s placing his Sheikah Slate into the tower’s pedestal and watching as the blue liquid drips onto the screen. Once again he’s gifted with a map of the entire region, a chunk two or three times the size of the Great Plateau just to the right of it. He can barely keep his eyes open as he examines the new information, plotting out his course to Kakariko.

Part of him wants to scream at the fact that he’s not even halfway there, even though it hasn’t even been five hours since he left the Great Plateau. That part of him demands he push onwards, make more progress, but…

In his state, it might not be long before he just passes out on the road, without finding somewhere safe to sleep. And that’s if a monster doesn’t take advantage of his exhaustion before he reaches that point. Ugh, he hates having a little bit of common sense and a faint sense of self preservation.

Before he finally caves to his internal debate on his need for sleep, the slate makes a new sound from its spot in the pedestal, and Eijiro blinks at a new icon that pops up—not on the map itself, but on the same tab as the map. Sheikah Sensor, it reads, and a message on the screen appears that informs him that the slate will now beep at him when he’s near to a shrine and facing towards it.

Honestly, that probably will be helpful—but not now. He plucks the Sheikah Slate from the pedestal, and finally admits to himself that he needs rest.

Eijiro drops down to the highest rest platform before the top area of the tower, so that at least he’s sheltered by the low walls on a few sides, pulls a blanket from Inko’s tiny cabin out of his bag, and does his best to curl up and get comfortable. It really says something that he falls asleep almost the moment his eyes are closed, despite the hard stone beneath him and the wind still whipping past.

Tomorrow, he’s gotta get serious. He needs to get to Kakariko Village, to figure out his next step.

Eijiro awakens stiff and cold, with several muscles protesting at the uncomfortable angle they’d spent the night in, but at least he feels more or less rested apart from that.

It’s early, and there’s nothing he longs for more than to be in a bed so he can pull the covers over his head and knock out for a few more hours, but unfortunately he is awake and he knows he’ll have the energy to keep going for a while. Packing up his makeshift resting spot quickly, Eijiro’s stomach gives an impressively thunderous rumble. He mentally rifles through all the food that he has in his bag but… but, fuck, dude.

He had to swim through a cold river, at night, to climb this tower and sleep in the wind and dark, and he’s stiff and chilly and doesn’t want to be awake and is it so much to ask for a warm, freshly-cooked breakfast? It’s not, of course, but the problem is he’s going to have to cook it himself. He passed a cooking pot about fifteen minutes back from the tower, across the river, but now he has to debate between his impatience for progress and his desire for a hot meal.

He only has to think of Inko’s frowning face after she worked so hard to teach him to cook so he’d be taken care of, and the desire for a hot meal wins.

Eijiro climbs back up to the top of the tower, just for that extra height when he launches himself off of it, paragliding back down towards the cooking pot. That never gets less awesome—this time he does whoop for joy, hoping no nearby monsters come to investigate the sound. The wind whipping his clothes around him and ruffling his hair somehow gives him a sense of both peace and gleefulness at the same time, like he was born to just jump off of things left and right.

He touches down on the other side of the river without ever having to touch the water this time, a relief as he’s still warming up from going to sleep damp from last night’s swim. It’s quicker to get back to the cooking pot than he remembers from the night before, which he mostly attributes to not having to fight stalkoblins every few steps but…

Well, he might have to concede he’s been slowing himself down by stopping to pick every edible or potentially useful plant just to see how much he can fit in his pack. (The answer: a lot, he’s discovered.)

He’s still eager to get moving and doesn’t want to waste a long time, so he throws together a hastily-cooked omelet with hylian mushrooms and hyrule herb. He considers adding a spicy pepper to help him recover from his cold night but—actually, he’s got blisters forming in his mouth from how spicy Inko had made the food yesterday, so he should probably lay off the peppers for a day or so.

He settles instead for eating the omelet fresh off of the pot, shoveling it down still hot, and he’s barely even started to chew the huge final bite he’d shoved in his mouth before he’s lurching to his feet. The Dueling Peaks, cleft down the middle, rise huge and imposing nearby, and he’s determined to make it through them with good time this morning.

He stares up at what he can see of the Dueling Peaks through the trees that crowd the road, and for some reason all he can think of is how it’s said that the peaks used to be one singular mountain, until a dragon split it into two to create an easier path to travel. Sure, there’s a river that cuts through the gap between the peaks that could be a less fantastic explanation, but Eijiro doesn’t think it makes sense for the river to be what actually cut the mountain in half. Maybe it could create a cave through it, fine, but the river couldn’t cut up a mountain, all the way to the top.

The way he thinks about it, it feels like it’s an argument he’s had countless times. He wishes he could remember the significance. He wishes he even knew who he’d be arguing it with.

He just wants to remember anything about his actual life, and it’s a longing he can’t shake as he enters the shadowed path between the two mountains. In this morning’s trek, things become easier, at least for a little bit. In the shadow between the Dueling Peaks, less things grow for him to get distracted gathering and shoving into his bag, and he makes quick progress down the path at first, with his new Sheikah Sensor chiming at him the whole way to let him know there’s a shrine ahead.

Of course, why would he expect anything to be easy, though, right? It goes smoothly right up until he finally sees the glowing orange of the shrine up ahead—on the other side of the river, on a cliff that stands maybe twenty-five or thirty feet up the inside of the other peak. His detour for a warm breakfast left him on the wrong side of the river.

He’s already made the swim before, it’s not that he can’t make it across, but the river was cold yesterday and he knows it will be cold now. And besides that—he can see a disturbance in the water, almost directly in between him and the shrine, betraying two creatures swimming very fast just under the surface.

Lizalfos, his mind supplies, without even having to see them to confirm. Monsters that are agile, intelligent, and very dangerous to fight at the best of times, but when there’s a water source, they won’t come out of the river to where he can fight them. It makes them at least twice as dangerous.

Just as he’s considering how he might be able to get across without swimming—he wants to avoid backtracking as much as possible, so waiting for the bridge much farther down the path is out of the question—and wondering if using his cryonis pillars would be colder or warmer than the swim itself, he hears a loud splash and the telltale sound of something whistling through the air.

Eijiro barely rolls out of the way before the rock spat at him by an octorok farther upstream smashes into the place he’d just been standing. The movement catches the eye of the nearest lizalfos, which then pops its head out of the water, rearing back to spit a concentrated stream of water at him he just knows is going to sting.

“Fuck it.”

He doesn’t have time to swim—the lizalfos will be much faster than him in the water, and he can’t fight the current and dodge the octorok’s stones—so he whips out the slate and makes a pillar directly below his feet in the shallows of the river. From there, it’s a mad scramble to make ice columns ahead to jump to, rushing to make the leaps in time to dodge projectiles and water blasts. It’s probably the least cool or competent he’s ever looked or felt, slipping around on the tops of the columns and narrowly avoiding getting knocked the fuck out by hurtling stones that are bigger than his head.

As soon as he’s across, he’s dragging himself up the interior of the peak, trying to reach the ledge the shrine rests on, and the lizalfos lose interest fast but he still almost gets his head taken off by the octorok. Why the hell are those things so persistent?

When he finally sprawls on the travel gate at the door to the shrine, panting and reaching awkwardly up to press his slate to the pedestal from where he lays, all Eijiro can think is, this shrine had better be worth it.

Disappointingly, like the last shrine, Ree Dahee Shrine doesn’t offer him another rune.

What it does have, however, is a hidden chest containing a bandana that, apparently, is enchanted to make its wearer scale cliffs faster. Thinking of the perilous climb just to get to this shrine while under fire, yeah, he’s glad to have it.

It’s almost an hour and a half later by the time he emerges from the shrine, and the lizalfos and octorok have thankfully all forgotten him by then. He’s beginning to get that distracting feeling buzzing under his skin again, now that two more monks from the last two shrines have gifted him their strength or whatever, and he hopes he won’t have to go all the way back to the Temple of Time just to alleviate that feeling once more.

If he does, it’s going to be a while before he’s willing to head back that way.

Gliding down from the shrine, Eijiro hurries forward, determined not to slow down any more than he has to.

It’s over half an hour before he emerges from the other side of the gap between the Dueling Peaks, the sunlight finally beating against his skin again. The side of the river with the well-worn path had been devoid of monsters for once, probably because regular travelers kept it that way—but the damn shrine had put him on the side without the path, and he’s got a few new scrapes and bruises and a much nicer sword for his troubles in dispatching what monsters had blocked his way.

Apart from the sunlight, Eijiro’s greeted by the most welcome sight of all—people. Not a lot of them, but—well, more than any he’s seen so far. There’s a stable set up at a fork in the road, with at least eight people milling around tending to the horses or their own pursuits, and a couple more people coming and going.

He’s only seen, like, three people since waking up—and one of them was a spirit, and another was just someone he saw at a distance, walking along the other side of the river. Now, he can see ten of them—men and women and children and—wow, okay, it’s so nice to see people.

He wants to shout and wave and maybe cry a little as he runs towards them like a man who’s been lost in the woods for months with no sign of civilization—well, close enough, right? A hundred years underground without seeing another person was surely grounds to act like that. He stays calm, though, apart from picking up his pace to an eager jog, to a point of entirely bypassing another shrine that sits on this side of the peaks, just across the path from the stable.

He can get to that later. He can talk to people now.

Altogether, if Eijiro’s being honest, he’s spent… too much time lingering here, especially after his determination not to waste time.

In his defense, the day had been young when he’d arrived—maybe only half an hour past noon? With the sun not even at its peak, it hadn’t seemed as pressing to hurry on his way immediately, not when he finally has a chance to talk to some other living, breathing people. He has the opportunity to try and get a sense of what the world—what life—is like now, in the wake of the Calamity, but more than that he can just get a sense of normalcy from being around actual civilization again.

Eijiro doesn’t have to have his memories to be acutely aware that he is, and will always be, a social creature. Just being around other people is a comfort. He soaks up the company and just the very existence of a remaining pocket of normalcy with eager relief, chatting with everyone he can and happily listening to the conversations of everyone around him.

He’s flagged down almost immediately by a stable worker offering directions, which he doesn’t really need but that doesn’t stop him from pressing for all the information he can get about Hateno to the east, Kakariko to the north, and even the wild horses that roam the area. With how much he doesn’t remember, with how much he doesn’t know about everything that’s changed, any information could be important.

After that, another man working the counter at the entrance to the stable gives Eijiro some tips about how to catch wild horses, and explains how registering horses at their network of stables across Hyrule works. He chats with a couple of little kids by the horses—well, mostly just sits and lets them chatter to him as they like.

A quiet, timid boy around his age—shit, what is his age?—with a massive, beetle-shaped backpack introduces himself as Koda and informs Eijiro that he’s a merchant who travels all around Hyrule to meet new and interesting bugs and creatures, so the odds of them seeing each other again are high. When Eijiro questions what he means by ‘meeting’ the creatures, he learns that Koda has magic that lets him talk with animals, and Eijiro wastes no time impressing upon him how cool that is. It would be kickass to be able to talk to, like, a wolf or a bear or something.

Koda takes the praise with a squeak and a furious blush, waving it off almost frantically, so Eijiro decides to spare the boy more embarrassment by letting it go—but really, it’s cool.

Letting Koda resume his conversation with his beetle collection, Eijiro introduces himself to a woman a few years older next, who tells him her name is Awata. She mentions making elixirs to him offhandedly, and looks concerned when he asks her about it—she seems to think it’s a miracle he’s made it to the stable in the first place without knowing about them. She gives him a quick verbal crash course, and Eijiro sees Koda shoot her a distressed look when she explains that most bugs and a few small critters can be boiled with monster parts to make them.

She also gives Eijiro a hasty elixir, which he takes with some mixture of suspicion and gratitude. He’s just not gonna think about what’s in there. If it helps him run faster, he doesn’t need to know if he’s drinking, like, boiled down keese eyeballs and slugs or something. He also makes a mental note never to make or drink an elixir in front of Koda. He’s not a monster.

It feels like he’s barely had time to blink before nearly thirty minutes have passed and all he’s done is hang around the stable chatting with anyone who’ll put up with him. The shrine just across the road from the stable still sits there, glowing orange in reminder that he really ought to get it done and get moving, but there’s just one more person at the stable who he wants to talk to before he forces himself to leave this bubble of normalcy.

There’s someone who’s pulled a stool up to a crate just left of the stable, and has notebooks littering the top of that crate like a desk. In front of them sits a telescope that’s gone untouched since Eijiro’s been here, but they still toss frequent glances skyward as they sit unmoving at their little makeshift study, consumed by thought.

“Uh… excuse me?” Eijiro prompts, to try and gain their attention. He can’t really tell if they’re a man or a woman, but it doesn’t really matter—to him, or in general.

They startle slightly, turning to blink up at him. “Oh—sorry, I was lost in thought. I didn’t notice you there. Did you need something?” With them actually facing him, he can make out more about their appearance—they’re around thirty, as best as he can guess, and despite their shortish, messy black hair falling into their face, he can see their eyes well enough to tell they’re a shade of brown so dark it’s almost black, though there are flecks of what look like a lighter blue catching the light. It kind of reminds him of a night sky.

“No, it’s cool, sorry for startling you,” Eijiro assures quickly, beaming to drive home that he didn’t feel ignored or anything. “I’m Kirishima Eijiro, and I was just curious—” He gestures towards the entirety of the space they’ve claimed. “—you’ve got a whole setup here. Mind if I ask what you’re working on?”

They smile, clearly not bothered by being interrupted. If anything, they look pleased by the interest. “No, I don’t mind at all. Nice to meet you, Kirishima—my name is Hirooki Anakuro. I’d love to explain a little! I’m mostly tracking the movement of different celestial bodies; I’ve figured out the patterns of movement of a few of the figures above us, but I’m primarily focused on the moon.”

A slightly closer look at Hirooki’s notebooks reveals a lot of quickly jotted notes, star charts, and a few other sketches that Eijiro mostly can’t make sense of at first glance. “The moon?” he asks, curiously. “Why the moon specifically?”

“With enough understanding of how most celestial bodies move, I think it’s actually possible to predict when the next blood moon is. Well—I know it is. It’s just a matter of spreading the information, so travelers don’t get caught unaware when it happens.”

“Blood moon?” Eijiro asks. The term isn’t familiar, and his brow furrows.

Hirooki blinks at him, their already large eyes growing wider. “You don’t know the blood moon? Surely you’ve seen it? When the moon unexpectedly rises full and red, and stains the entire sky the same grim, bloody color at exactly midnight?”

Eijiro stares. When the moon what now? “I… no?”

Seeming entirely taken aback by this, Hirooki leans back slightly in their seat. “It’s been happening every so often for one hundred years now. It poses a very real threat to travelers, because in that moment when the sky turns red, any monsters who have been defeated across all of Hyrule are revived right where they stood. Whenever a blood moon happens, areas that had been previously made safe become a hazard all over again.”

That shocks him—brings monsters back? But that’s… he’d fought so many just to get here, because he thought it would make the countryside safer for travelers. All the monsters he’d dispatched instead of avoiding in the ruins that led here—they’d just come back to endanger someone else? “They really come back to life?”

Hirooki nods gravely. “You’ve really never noticed this phenomenon?”

“I… guess I must have slept through them all,” he says, staring down at his feet. It’s the understatement of the century, he knows—seriously, because he’s been sleeping for all of the century that they’ve been happening. This… this explains a lot about the state Hyrule’s in, almost moreso than the destruction it faced one hundred years before.

Of course people are so sparse. Of course there are so many more monsters than there should be. People can’t spread out and retake any of the kingdom—not without the areas they’d retaken becoming infested again, as soon as another blood moon happens.

Hirooki doesn’t seem to think it’s an unrealistic explanation, at least, despite their surprise. “Well, I suppose if you’ve spent most of your life someplace safe, there probably wouldn’t be much reason to take note. But the question of why and how have been plaguing most travelers for decades now. I have my own theories about that, but I’m still much more focused on when. I think when could save lives. It doesn’t correlate to any particular phase of the moon, or happen every cycle, so most people don’t know when to prepare.”

Eijiro nods—he can see why that would be important. “Yeah, I can imagine. You said you have theories about why, though?”

“Yes, well. They’re mostly afterthoughts, since they’re not my area of specialty,” Hirooki explains. “So I haven’t put a lot of research into these theories, and they’re mostly a secondary line of thought. But monsters seem to be more powerful in the darkness—it’s why you see long-fallen monsters rising in their undead stal forms at night, but not any other time. Or, rarely, in areas that have no light even in the daytime.”

Leaning forward again, they tap at their knee in thought. “So my suspicion is that the blood moon isn’t what causes the dead monsters to rise—you see, the blood moon coincides with lunar eclipses, when the sun is blocked from reflecting light off of the moon. With the night darker than it normally gets, my thought is that something is taking advantage of that increased darkness, and using it to revive them. The Calamity itself, probably. Of course, I can’t be sure of any of the rest of this theory—but I am sure that the blood moon only occurs during lunar eclipses.”

That definitely does make sense, though—eclipses have always happened, Eijiro knows that much. Eclipses bringing monsters back from the dead, though, only started at the same time the Calamity had struck. “That’s… crazy. I mean, the whole blood moon thing is. But I think you’ve gotta be right.”

“I think it’s likely,” Hirooki agrees, glancing back over their notes. “If you’re not going to be taking a bed at the stable for the next few nights, Kirishima, I recommend you be very careful. I don’t have the exact pattern down yet, but if I’m right, the next blood moon will happen soon. So be smart on the road. It’s not something you want to catch you by surprise.”

Shuddering at the thought, Eijiro can’t agree more.

[princelee-chang]

BODYGUARD AU FOR CHAE YOON/TAE GU I WANNA SEE UR TAKE ON THIS!!! ALSO HIII HOW R UUUU I MISS U I HOPE U R WELL ILY *KEESES U* 💕💕💕💕

taking a page out of your book and answering vice versa stylez bec its too delicious to pass up on and also because i literally could NOT choose which was better i s2g djdkkd qlso @ohfruit i cant remember us ever talking abt this so id also like 2 kno ur two cents. just wanna say as well i love u both so much i thought of literally nothing else all day ever sincei got this ask dkfklfkf so [CRACKS KNUCKLES]

bodyguard au where chae yoons protecting tae gu would be a canon divergent au early on in TN where chae yoon and tae gu come up with a compromise somewhere in the middle of the movie where they talk after chae yoons kicked out of the control room and she actually manages to get to him and talk to him i  person and they continue their .............. ~negotiationg~ away from the eyes of both the nis/police force and he's under her protection where they travel somewhere Neutral and OFC that wont fly for gong and all those dusty ass prunes so OFC theyll be sending their dumbass swat team after them both and just [clenches fist] the aes of tae gu agreeing to meet chae yoon somewhere and going somewhere together (maybe (: even (: just (: the (: two (: of (: them(: alone (: oh u kno (: roadtrip stylez (:) and tae gu being Unarmed and chae yoon being the one to Guarantee his safety with her life and being on the run together, just fun romance things (: fyi don't imagine them somewhere in some motel eating take out or patching each other up or pining for each other and being Actually Aware about it but not being able to act on it bec of ~complicated situations~ (:

ALTERNATIVELY~~tae gu protecting chae yoon what comes to mind is maybe because shes someone important like maybe an Actual Official or a member of family of a politician or maybe even borrowing from SYJs movie the last princess and chae yoons the guarded and sheltered type both bec of her upbringing and the situation calling for it and maybe after several attempts on her life or whoever shes related too and going thru so many other bodyguards and usually they're all like..... so uncomfortable to be around just silent impersonable statues hovering and just doing their job and its all very cold and clinical UNTIL MIN TAE GU who at first checks all the boxes you know good at what he does etc etc (hot... but we dont talk abt that) (not yet at least) and like ?????????? she knew to an extent he wasn't ~normal~ but slowly """"""behind the scenes""""" his blazer comes off the ear piece comes off and the Bodyguard Persona comes off when work hours are up and he totally surprises her by sheer will of min tae gu and MAKES friends whether she likes it or not because hes so WARM and so different from everyone shes known employee or family combined and oh BOY not only does he do a good job of protecting her he actually makes her s m i l  e he makes her LAUGH he makes functions bearable they make fun of other  iMp oR tA n T pE o P L e together at galas and on her couch at home and WHOOO WEEE idk who catches feelings first but it most DEF is mutual pining you can count on THAT

[singingvio]

Four Swords Mask AU! (YES another AU, help me)

Each character has a different mask! They are all humans and basically, it’s a modern-ish apocalypse version of Hyrule, everyone has a mask that they have at all times, and if you kill someone you gain their mask, making you more powerful. Most masks are just plain, but the Legend Masks (AKA the masks from Majora’s Mask that actually have powers) are collectible, and if you gain all of them you basically become immortal, but only if you have all the masks. The Happy Mask Salesman is known for killing young children unlucky enough to have these masks and taking them for himself.

Someone can also willingly give you their mask out of trust, but if the mask breaks or if you lose the mask, the original owner with become gravely ill and then die if you can’t get it back within seven days.

Basically really sad stuff, so don’t lose your masks.

Masks the Happy Salesman doesn’t have yet:

Bunny Hood - Red Link (increases speed and agility)

Skull Mask - Blue Link (Prevents Keese attacks)

Mask of Truth - Vio Link (Allows communication with Gossip Stones/animals)

Stone Mask - Green Link (keeps most monsters from seeing you)

Gibdo Mask - Princess Zelda (prevents attacks from Gibdos)

Bremen Mask - Erune (Animals will follow the wearer)

Keaton Mask - Vaati (Summons Keatons when worn fully)

Majora’s Mask - Shadow Link (he has never worn it before in fear of it’s powers)

[chisatowo]

A very quick random card au Rokka concept drawing since they've been living in my head rent free