#so of course I immediately sought out fic to fill the hole in my heart

[minuiko]

So @jekacatrina wrote a phenomenal Pacific Rim AU that has me in an emotional stranglehold... everyone please give it some love:

Nobody else (Can take me higher) - Jeka - 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia [Archive of Our Own

[fatefulfaerie]

Guilt

Fic-art trade with @rebuildingkonohaonceagain !! You sent two pictures so here is 2,000 words. I hope you like it!

Trigger Warning: mention of death

The whirring of guardians always made Zelda feel at ease, the way their inner-workings clicked, the way their mechanisms whistled. It was something Zelda felt she understood, and something that gave her great hope in their prospects of victory.

Her pride in the prowess of ancient Sheikah technology could be seen in the way she looked at them now, smiling at their apparent perfection. 

The blush on her cheeks, however, came from the knowledge of who was standing behind her, pensive in his duty and yet ever-vigilant of danger. He saw no danger in these skulltula-like machines, and thus allowed Zelda to run excitedly to peer at them with no word of caution passing his lips. Zelda loved looking down from the bridge of her study and seeing the Sheikah’s progress with the Guardians. Although she often felt Hyrule doomed with her sealing power still locked deep inside her, her hope returned when she saw the Guardians or the Divine Beasts.

“Amazing,” she remarked. “We’re at a point now where we can actually control them.”

Zelda turned around to face Link with a smile.

“At this rate, we’ll be well-positioned to defend ourselves, should Calamity Ganon return.”

Link’s expression moved slightly out of its neutrality, betraying Zelda’s expectations of her knight, and yet she welcomed the tease of emotion with open ears.

“Are you sure about that?” Link asked.

Zelda felt something grip her heart, like the cold hand of an Icy Moblin.

“Of…of course I’m sure,” Zelda said. “What…”

“I mean who are you kidding?” Link asked rhetorically, with an edge to his voice Zelda had never heard before. “We all know we’re missing a pretty big piece of the puzzle. Everything else is in line except you. Do you not care about the kingdom?”

Zelda’s eyes stung with betrayal and the cold hand seem to pull her heart down, farther and farther into unknown caverns below the castle.

“Of course I care, Link, what…” Zelda said trying to find her breath. She backed away in fear, her hand meeting the cement ridges of the bridge. “What has gotten into you?”

“I’ve trained all my life,” Link continued, his brow furrowing in his rising anger, “tired myself to constantly better for Hyrule to what? Serve a Princess who sees the Calamity as a joke? Who frolics around and pretends to pray to goddess statues? It’s time to wake up, Your Highness. Own up to your failures and we might even get out of this alive.”

“Link, I…” Zelda said, shaking her head. “You know better than anyone how hard I…”

The ground suddenly shook violently beneath them, Zelda looking down with wide, green eyes to see the bridge under her feet crack.

“Come on,” she heard Link say as he grabbed her hand and started to run towards the innards of the castle, towards perhaps more stable ground.

Yet the floor buckled beneath him at his next step, Link slipping off the bridge, hanging by the hand that connected him to Zelda’s.

They both looked down to what Link was hanging over and Zelda didn’t quite understand what she saw.

It was a large hole, with Calamity Ganon swirling in his own malice like a fish in a small pond of blood.

Link looked back at Zelda, whose gaze was panicked as she started to lose her grip on Link’s hand. She gritted her teeth trying to get a better hold, but it was no use.

Link’s gaze, in contrast, was rather settled for someone whose life was in danger, as if he weren’t surprised in the slightest.

“This is your fault,” he said before Zelda accidentally lost her grip.

“No!” Zelda exclaimed, reaching down with tears in her eyes as Link fell, lost to the darkness of the calamity.

Zelda stood up quickly onto what remained of the bridge, Calamity Ganon’s burning yellow eyes and pig-like snout rising to face her, it’s wispy red and black emanations trailing behind him.

Zelda, with panting, heavy breaths and cheeks endlessly replenished with her tears, held out her hand palm-first towards Calamity Ganon, wishing with all her might that luck would grant her the sealing power she sought, if not the endless years of prayers to cold and unyielding goddess statues.

Yet no power came, even on repeat attempts extending her arm.

Calamity Ganon gave a growling chuckle, smiling insidiously at such a failure.

“Finally,” he said in his groveling voice before surging forward with an open mouth. Zelda crouched in defense, her last resort before darkness succumbed her as well.

She didn’t know where she was falling from or to, nor how long she had been falling or long she had until she met the ground. She had no idea how she was changed from her royal blue dress to her white prayer dress, or what to do about it as the wind whipped through her long, blonde hair, almost tugging at it.

She felt almost dead, like she could fall, float, drift, drop for a hundred years until time became eternity.

She felt herself torn apart, like the Ritos, who pluck the feathers off their deceased before offering the body to the goddess Hylia.

She felt herself chocking on rocks and dirt, like the Gorons, who bury their deceased in the rich grounds of Death Mountain.

She felt herself rocked by unforgiving waves, like the Zora, who dispatch their deceased on a small boat lined with violets.

She felt herself dissipate, like the Gerudo, who burn their deceased to ashes and make them one with the sands.

“Zelda,” She heard a voice echo, surprised she could hear it, surprised someone could still know her, remember her.

“Zelda!” She heard again, louder.

“Zelda!!”

Zelda jolted awake to Link shaking her, Zelda grasping her hands on his arms as she gasped for air.

Her green eyes were absolutely panicked, looking everywhere but at Link, her head twitching like a shaking leaf.

“Zelda,” Link insisted. “Zelda, look at me!”

Link placed his warm hands on either of her cheeks, suddenly aligning her gaze with his with a soft gasp. Her shaky breathing calmed as her eyes filled with recognition, as her ears heard the cracking of a nearby campfire, as her skin felt a blanket fall from her shoulder to her lap.

As soon as Zelda distinguished the line between nightmare and reality, she hurriedly embraced Link, diving her head into the crook of his neck.

“It’s okay,” Link said, clutching the back of her head, her blonde hair entangled in his calloused and yet gentle fingers. “You’re okay.”

He held her and he rocked her as she cried into his tunic, whispering over and over into her ear soothing words that assured her safety, and his safety, and their safety, and their victory, their final long-awaited victory after a hundred years of insurmountable loss.

Link ended up leaning against a nearby tree as he held her in his arms, neither caring at all that their proximity would once, a long time ago, have been scandalous. Their titles were something they were glad to throw away.

Zelda drew circles on Link’s chest as he stared at the campfire, his head leaning on hers.

“Was it like your nightmare last night?” He finally asked, after probably hours of Zelda being awake. Zelda had observed that Link was good at knowing exactly what to say and when to say it.

Zelda nodded against his shoulder, her green eyes sad and frankly haunted, despondent as she lamented her nightmare.

“How do you feel now?” Link asked, looking down at her with a soft, blue gaze.

“Better,” Zelda answered quietly, as if she could barely manage to find her voice. “Safer.”

Link kissed the top of her head before leaning his own head on it again.

“Good,” he said.

A distant cicada started to chirp, Zelda immediately sitting up, ears penned and alerted.

“It’s okay,” Link said as he softly rubbed her arm with the backs of his fingers. “It’s just a bug.”

Zelda’s shoulder deflated from their tense state as she took a calm exhale. She nodded and yet didn’t return back into Link’s hold.

“I don’t think I can do this,” she said.

Link’s gaze moved downward.

“I suspected you might say that,” Link said. “The good thing is that Dorephan doesn’t know we’re coming, and neither does Sidon, turning back is an option. We can always visit Zora’s Domain later.”

The fire crackled as Zelda considered Link’s words, and yet her mind veered off in another direction.

“Do you feel as I do?” Zelda said, turning her head to her shoulder. “This…guilt?”

Link nodded, sitting up.

“I do,” Link responded. “But then I remember what we were able to do because we survived.” 

Zelda turned around to face Link, who was distracted by her beauty in the light of the fire until he saw in deep pain in her green eyes.

“Do you ever think I should have died instead of them?” Zelda asked. “Do you think it’s what I deserve? For failing them?”

“No,” Link said with sunken blue eyes and a shaking head. “No. Zelda, we all did the best we could. You know better than anyone how hard it was to unlock your sealing power. Everything was in place. We just ran out of time.”

“So…” Zelda started. “You don’t…blame me?”

“Of course not,” Link answered. “Why would I blame you?”

Zelda lowered her gaze.

“I’ve ran through it all a hundred different ways in my head, over a hundred years and, the loss is always my fault. A hundred different ways it could have gone, a hundred things I could have done different and…it’s always me.”

Zelda looked up at Link, who was shaking his head. He even graced a small smile.

“See, that’s where you are wrong.”

“Am I?”

Link chuckled, bowing his head before he raised it again.

“Who possessed the Guardians?” Link asked. “Was it you?”

“No,” Zelda said matter-of-factly. “That was Calamity Ganon.”

“And the Divine Beasts? Who possessed those?”

“Calamity Ganon,” Zelda answered, not sure what the trick was, what sort of test this was.

“Who came completely unannounced from beneath the castle and started attacking Hyrule by summoning all sorts of monsters?”

“Calamity Ganon,” Zelda answered again. “Link, what are you even getting at? Of course he--”

“Oh,” Zelda, realizing what Link was doing.

“Who saved my life by awakening her sealing power?”

Zelda sighed.

“Me.”

“And who, may I ask kept Calamity Ganon trapped inside the castle for hundreds of years, thus allowing Hyrule to flourish and grow because they were protected.”

Zelda was starting to blush.

“Me, again.” She said.

“And who finally sealed him away once and for all, bringing Hyrule to peace?”

Zelda rolled her eyes, shaking her head.

“Me.”

“Nope,” Link said jokingly.  “That was all me.”

Zelda scoffed and hit him playfully, them both giggling and laughing.

“All right, I get your point,” she said with a smile. “How do you always know what to say?

Link shrugged.

“Maybe it’s part of being the chosen hero,” Link said, Zelda glaring at him in disbelief with a tipped head. “Hey, you never know.”

Zelda laughed and her heart felt full as she looked into Link’s eyes, that were just as joyful and warm as hers.

They both smiled at the unspoken invitation between them before mutually leaning into each other, meeting their lips in an indulgent kiss that expressed their love.

Link cupped Zelda’s cheeks as they rescinded with a smile borne straight from pure happiness, admiring her for a lingering second before he spoke.

“It’s your choice,” Link said. “Whether we continue our journey to Zora’s Domain. It doesn’t make you weak to wait until you are ready.”

“I know,” Zelda replied, placing her hand where Link’s was on his cheek. “But I’ll have to face Mipha’s father and brother eventually. I would have trepidations no matter what…I think I just need to work through this.”

“Then I’ll do anything I can to help you.”