#honestly i might fuckin just. copy paste some shit lmaooo

[moonrabbitisgay]

Fuck it, 12:06 a.m. more like time to WRITE

___

Somehow, when Ganon rises, Urbosa isn’t surprised.

It’s just all too cosmically perfect - that the world’s most primordial evil has the perfect timing, to awaken from a slumber of thousands of years at the precise hour at which their hope is lowest. Almost as if it knows.

Almost as if it knows.

That thought nags at her the whole time - as she rides a borrowed steed toward Gerudo Canyon, as she jogs (!) all the way from the stable to Kara Kara Bazaar, as she takes a sand seal the last leg to Gerudo Town, as she boards Vah Naboris. Almost as if it knows - as if it had not, in fact, been as dormant as they had thought, but somehow, had been watching. Planning.

When she activates the terminal and is met with orange light and swirling darkness, she still isn’t surprised. 

The beast is fast, but she is faster. It wields lightning, but hers is stronger.

The fight is a blur, at first. She strikes it down, again and again, dark liquid dripping from her blade, but every time it gets back up, seemingly unaffected. It swings its axe, and it should be as easy to dodge as it was the first ten times but she is beginning to tire and it slams into her shield and there is a horrible crunching sound and Daybreaker cracks, right down the middle. She roars and moves in to strike, abandoning her usual finesse for sheer rage, and the blade sinks in so deep that she nearly loses her grip on it. Then she yanks it out, and the beast screams and it draws back, darkness pouring from the wound like blood. She moves to strike again, but before she can, it retreats inward on itself, a radiant blue glow encompassing its form as it shrinks down into a sphere the size of her fist and flies out of sight.

For one brief, glorious second, she thinks it might be over.

No such luck - she turns around and there it is, hanging in the air, lightning crackling around it - not the lightning she knows and loves, but a sickly green kind, sour and corrupt as the beast itself. Metal stakes appear out of thin air and embed themselves into the platforms and the floor. She almost laughs. It’s too easy. 

As it screeches and raises its arm and the metal stakes begin to spark, she runs. She leaps up the nearest ramp, up until she’s by the terminal again, and she pulls one of the stakes out of the ground. It’s lighter than she expects. She hefts it over her shoulder and throws.

It hits its mark. The beast falls. She snaps her fingers and the lightning answers her call. The beast does not scream again, for it is dead.

The adrenaline wears off, and she collapses.

Burn marks stain her arms. There is blood running down her side. When she tries to stand up, putting weight on her right leg, it protests but does not give out. She grabs at the edge of the terminal and pulls herself upright. Her fingers dance over the stone, and the angry orange fades to a gentle blue.

She makes her way outside, to the control panel situated atop its head. It isn’t until she’s set Naboris’s sights on the castle that she looks up, and her stomach drops.

Ribbons of darkness, streaked through with a deep, purply red, wrap around Hyrule Castle. Beyond, perched on the side of Death Mountain, Vah Rudania is surrounded by the same. 

She looks to her right, towards Zora’s Domain. Vah Ruta is shrouded as well. To her left. Vah Medoh too, although underneath the darkness she can see the brighter red of its shields. As she watches, the red flickers, and then dies.

She doesn’t know how, but in her gut lies a horrible certainty that her fellow Champions have fallen.

Then, she will have to be strong enough for the four of them. She screams, and Vah Naboris fires.

___

It’s not enough.

Days pass. Ganon rages, but leaves Gerudo Town and the surrounding area alone. Zelda visits, wearing the same expression that she had at her mother’s funeral. She tells Urbosa that the Guardians and the other three Divine Beasts are all under Ganon’s control, that her father is dead, that Link is dead, that Purah and Robbie are taking him to the Shrine of Resurrection, that her powers had awakened only once it was far, far too late. She tells her that she is going back to the castle, to try and contain Ganon until Link awakens and regains his strength. Then she cries, and Urbosa wants nothing more than to hold her close and tell her that she loves her and that she has done her mother proud, but the words don’t come, so she just hugs her little bird as tightly as she possibly can and prays that it is enough.

That night, she dreams of a woman made of stone, whose smile is impossibly sad and whose words are impossibly cryptic. She says that she will give Urbosa one more gift - the gift of time. The rest, she will have to do on her own.

Over the next 100 years, Urbosa only cries twice.

___

She hates being old. Some days, she hates it so much that she wishes she too had succumbed to the scourge set upon her Divine Beast a century ago. She hates being bedridden, hates how the simple act of sitting up makes her back ache in twenty different places and gives her a headache to boot. But more than that, she hates how people treat her. She used to command respect. Now all she gets is reverence. People look at her and they see not a person, but a story. 

Some people are still good to her, though. She corresponds with the Sheikah elder, Impa. Riju, the young chieftain, speaks to her regularly, and her determination and maturity well beyond her years reminds Urbosa of her little bird. She almost forgets why she is allowed to remain alive in the first place.

Then Riju tells her of a mysterious tower, with a heart of orange light, that had suddenly risen near the highlands, and of others like it across the land. Two days later, she receives a letter from Impa.

Link has awoken. I have advised him to find his way to you as soon as he is able. His time in the Shrine of Resurrection robbed him of his memories and his strength, but he seems to be regaining the latter quite rapidly. I have done what I can with respect to the former, but you knew him far better than I ever did. I can only hope that seeing you again will help him remember more of his past. I am sure that this is an unnecessary request, but I beseech you to help him in any way you possibly can.

-Impa

Riju tells the guards to allow a Hylian voe by the name of Link to enter, should he come asking for the Lady Urbosa. No such voe arrives, but they do welcome in a Hylian vai who makes a beeline first to the arrow shop and then to the palace. “She” looks exactly as Urbosa remembers.

“You look as lovely as ever, Link,” she tells him, and he blushes. He stands in the doorway, awkward and hesitant, and she beckons him closer.

“You don’t remember me.” It is a statement, not a question, and he nods.

“I remember bits and pieces,” he signs. “You helped me sneak in. Zelda liked you. She spoke to you as if she’d known you her whole life.” 

She nods slowly. “What else do you remember? Of everything.”

“Very little,” he responds. “Voices. I remember voices, but not who they belong to. And...” He rummages in his bag and pulls out a small, familiar assemblage of wood and cloth. “I remember this...a gift. From Revali.”

It is something of a gift, she decides, that he remembers so little. A painful gift, to be sure, but if he remembered everything...even he would crumble under the weight of all that loss, revealed so suddenly, and in such dire circumstances. She tells him what she thinks necessary for him to know - the names of the Champions, where their Divine Beasts are, that the Zora may still remember him but he will be a stranger to the Goron and the Rito. 

She does not tell him about how Mipha would heal his wounds after every battle and gently scold him for his recklessness. She does not tell him about how Daruk would laugh heartily and slap him on the back with a hand almost as tall as he was. She does not tell him about how Revali would braid his hair each night until he leaned back into the Rito’s chest and fell asleep. Those are not her memories to share.

She tells him to visit, sometimes, and he nods uncertainly before leaving. She raises a hand in farewell, then drops it back down to her side, exhausted.

Urbosa knows the line between hope and belief is a thin one. But deep in her heart, she believes that this time, things will turn out differently.