Chapter Text
Link left the cottage with one last strained smile and a promise to return for dinner again tomorrow. The tension in his shoulders and hands had traveled down to his legs, forcing him into a stiff but swift walk back through the village. He spent the entire short journey trying to name the discomfort in his chest, under his skin, pressing against his lungs; but he couldn’t think of anything past the choking heat around him, the humidity that plastered his tunic to his skin, the slick hair that clung to his nape. Link scratched at it with blunted nails and his fingers came away damp with sweat.
He arrived at his old tree house with little memory of the path to get there. He climbed the ladder, shoved through the stuck door, and dropped his pack to the floor with a heavy thump.
The darkness in his old home was still and absolute, and Link sucked in a single deep breath before lighting a lantern. Warm orange light illuminated a small pool that barely extended beyond Link’s arm, but his sharp vision defined the rest in cool silver. The shapes were familiar, even in the darkness, and it all remained exactly as he had left it. Tables free of clutter, shelves empty of books, chairs stacked neatly along the far wall; all patiently waiting to be set back into use again, either by him or whoever would inhabit the space afterwards—it was only the lack of dust or decay that proved the place hadn't been abandoned completely.
But Link saw none of it. He stood just inside his door, head tipped back to glare uselessly at the ceiling.
Restlessness thrummed through every part of him, but what was there for him to do in Ordon except to rest? He tried to picture it: waking well after sunrise for the first time in over half a decade, meandering around the village with nothing expected of him, idling while others made themselves useful.
He bent his neck to glare at the wooden floor instead, as if the worn planks had any wisdom for him. He raked a hand through his hair, clutching a fistful of his bangs against the crown of his head, his other hand tense on his hip.
Link was entirely still for half a moment before letting out an explosive, frustrated breath.
“Fucking hell.” He spun on his heel and, not bothering to scoop up his pack, left the way he came.
He didn’t bother with the ladder, but walked cleanly off the wooden ledge and landed on deft feet below. Some distant, gentler part of his mind knew that a long rest would quiet his tumbling mind, but his body revolted at the idea of stillness.
Link walked and walked and walked, past Ordon Spring, past the great chasm bridge, past the small meadows that marked the true beginning of Faron Province.
The air stayed thick and unmoving in the warren-like paths between the trees, only grudgingly moving to let Link pass through. It almost seemed to pull at him—like the massive hand of a beast around his chest, like an iron cuff around his wrist. Something close to panic rose in his chest then, shortened his breath and narrowed his vision.
It was the soft glow of Faron Spring that finally stopped him.
The sun had dropped into the treeline, throwing a fanfare of orange light into the water through bare branches and turning the entire spring to gold. It pulled a scattered collection of memories to the surface—of a tearful, relieved smile in Kakariko’s sanctuary; of a steady, pale blue gaze in the immediate aftermath of battle. Instinct pulled Link forward, towards the sweet smell of cool water and the promise of some relief after long labors, no matter how temporary.
His hand undid the front ties of his tunic and undershirt in two practiced tugs, while the opposite one reached between his shoulder blades to grab a fistful of fabric there. He pulled both shirts up and over his head in one smooth motion before he tossed the fabric aside in a heap just inside the entrance to the grove. His boots soon joined them, though not without a low string of curses as Link wrestled with the stubborn laces, along with his trousers and socks until he was bare down to his underthings before the spring.
Without stopping, Link splashed into the water, angled himself to the left and let himself fall entirely into the deep pool tucked away there. The water was calm and clear and blessedly cool, and enough to shock his restless anxiety into silence. He could hear his pulse in his ears, but little else.
Link stayed underwater for a handful of heartbeats, until his skin was cool and his lungs burned, before surfacing with an undignified sputter. His first few gasps of air sent his ears ringing and turned vision briefly black, but his senses returned in the next moment, along with the clarity that had slipped away in the heat of the day.
Because honestly, what had he expected? For the village to freeze, to pause in time at the exact moment that he left? Or that it would be so simple to replant himself in the same spot he had filled before, as if the invasion and years of solitude that followed hadn’t changed him? Something heavy settled at the bottom of his heart, but his attention was pulled to the entrance of the spring before he could dwell on it.
He heard footsteps, soft and light on the fallen leaves, far before the figure came into view, and he felt every nerve come alive—adrenaline burning away gloom as his body prepared for whatever came next. He surged to the edge of the pool, using the momentum to propel himself up to a crouch in the shallower waters.
Ilia turned the corner just a moment before Link could spring upright.
They froze, two forest creatures startled by an the unexpected presence of each other. Link wondered if there was something in his expression that startled her, because her smile looked almost nervous when she broke the silence.
“I thought I might find you here.” She kicked off her sandals as she entered the spring, stepping through the water with much less frenzy than Link had. Whatever reply she expected stayed lodged in his throat, caught between his thudding heartbeat and the deep breath he took to control it. His eyes flickered down to a cloth draped over her arm just as she gestured with it. “I saw you left your pack at your house, so I brought you a towel.”
“You were looking for me?” It came out like an accusation, and Link cringed almost immediately. For her part, Ilia didn’t look offended, but her lips drew down into a flat frown and her gaze stayed steady on his.
“You seemed upset earlier, at the ranch,” she began and offered him the towel. “And I wanted to make sure you were doing alright.”
“Thanks.” Link took it, frowned and shifted to kneel in on the soft sand—the spring came up to his waist and he hoped the water was enough to protect his modesty. He held the cloth just above the water and waited for her to turn. When she didn’t: “Do you mind?”
Ilia rolled her eyes and made a show of turning her back to him. That was new, too, and Link tucked the observation away to pick at later. He dried himself as he moved to his clothes, tugged sweat-damp clothes over spring-damp skin, and listened as Ilia spoke again.
“So are you? Doing alright?”
“As well as can be expected, I guess.”
“That’s not really an answer, Link. Why did you come all the way out to Faron spring?”
He fought down a frisson of annoyance, and took his time to towel off his hair as he searched for a response. Ilia was facing him when he looked up, her head tilted and an unfamiliar expression behind her eyes. Link sighed and flung the towel over his shoulder.
He wanted, so badly, to lay the truth at her feet—to spill his heart like they had when they were children, when their worries were only as dire as sick goats and swollen creeks, rather than kidnapped children and beasts with bloody mouths. But those softer days were a lifetime ago, and Link would rather bury the truth than remind her of those first few terrible days of the invasion.
“Like you said, I’m tired from my travels.” It was an easier thing to admit. “I figured that a swim in the spring would help.”
“And Ordon Spring didn’t suit your needs?”
Link remained silent, strained, and Ilia stepped forward softly, as if he would flee if she approached too quickly. She stopped just an inch closer than friendship.
“You just got here, Link.” Her voice was low, close in the humid air. “Forgive me for wanting to make sure I saw you for more than a handful of hours before you left again.”
The tension drained out of him in one long sigh, and guilt and exhaustion flooded in to take its place. He leaned away, studied the small waterfalls rather than meet her gaze.
“I’m sorry,” he said after a pause. “I wasn’t going to leave, I swear it. I just—I couldn’t sit still.”
“You know, most people take at least an afternoon to rest after traveling for years on end.” Her voice held the same teasing laughter he remembered, and Link knew he was forgiven. At least partially. “Not throw themselves into a spring a mile away from civilization.”
“I’m sure Coro wouldn’t like to hear that.”
Ilia huffed a laugh through her nose, but didn’t relent. “So what is it, then?”
It was a thousand things. It was the letters from Uli all but begging him to return, the fact that Beth would be taller than him soon, the knowledge that Colin and Talo were old enough to spar with now. It was the way the young goats pinned their ears back at the sight of him, the way Rusl had to assure him twice over that there were no threats lurking in the deep woods. It was all the little ways the village had changed, and how Link had missed the chance to change with it.
He ran a hand through his damp hair, brought it down to squeeze at the back of his neck. Ilia always had a talent for pulling his anxieties from his chest, despite any reluctance he had to voice them. He knew that deflection or misdirection were useless, and in their long friendship, Link had never successfully lied to her.
“I’m more worried about that fog out in the woods than I ought to be,” he said. “I can’t rest easy until it’s been taken care of.”
Ilia stared, her meadow-green eyes flicking between both of his, with the same searching expression she gave him when they left the ranch.
“Well, if that’s truly the case,” she said slowly before she turned and nodded her head to the path, “then I had better fill you in on the details.”
<><><>
Fog in pooling into Faron Swamp was normal—it collected there every fall, and likely done so well before Uli’s family had first explored the valley four hundred years ago. The poison was new, though, and looked to be the same that had cropped up just before the invasion.
It had been mostly traversable, Ilia explained, until very recently. A bright flame would keep it a fair distance away, if you walked slow.
The folks from the Southern Villages were used to the roundabout route to get into greater Hyrule, and when they came through the narrow hand-dug tunnels into the glade outside of the Forest Temple, they hooked lanterns on their wagons and were able to follow what was left of the bridge through the basin. Ordon Village had set up lantern posts along the route to help, and Coro had been thrilled with how much oil he was selling.
But the fog climbed higher and got thicker year over year, worse in spring and fall when the seasonal rains flooded the basin. The makeshift lantern path quickly became too difficult to maintain. Insects, mire, and muck ate through the wooden posts, and the oil would spill or leak too often to economically replace. By the time Jaggle thought of replacing the wooden posts with sturdy rock cairns, the fog was too dangerous to linger in for more than a few minutes, even with a lantern.
Numar had been the last person to make it through, and look at how well that turned out. He bought the last couple dredges of lantern oil from that strange bird out by the temple, and said that no one else in Lurelin or the other villages were willing to risk the trip anymore.
“Not that I can really blame them,” Ilia said.
They stood at the edge of the swamp, where the fog had swallowed the beginnings of the ruined bridge. It crept halfway up the shore to brush against their feet, lingering a few inches on the higher ground.
“I don’t like that the Southern Villages are completely cut off, but it’s not like either of us will starve,” she continued, “and the crown has been real understanding that we’ve been a few crates short of our full tribute, but I don’t want to push their goodwill much longer. All of that, and I’m worried that the fog will spill into the path to the village if the fall storms flood the basin like they did a last year.”
“Right.” The fog ebbed closer, pushed by some unseen force deeper in the basin. Link watched it bump against the toe of his boot, lost in thought until Ilia’s words fully registered. He looked up at her, frowning. “Is the yearly tribute truly that high? No one said anything about Ordon being short on supplies.”
“It’s not unreasonable,” Ilia assured him. “And the tribute collectors even offered to let us skip it the year after the invasion, but I’ve been sending it anyway. They’re our neighbors and I’d rather be on their good side.”
“You’ve been sending it?”
“Link, please focus. You wanted to see the swamp—here’s the swamp.” Ilia raised a brow and made a sweeping gesture, but Link recognized the playful teasing in her tone. “So what’s your plan, then? I’m all ears.”
“Does Fado still have those spare saddlebags? I want to haul out some supplies.”
“Don’t you dare bring Epona out here.” Ilia laughed incredulously. “I don’t want her getting sick from that fog.”
“What about me? I could get sick from the fog.”
Her expression shifted into something more appraising, head tilted and one finger on her chin as her eyes flicked critically from his face to his rumpled travel tunic, to the worn patch in the knee of his trousers. “You’ll be fine.”
Link rolled his eyes, and made sure that Ilia saw the exaggeration in it. He moved forward, watching as the fog rippled in his wake. It made slow, almost lazy eddies around his ankles, and looked oddly heavy despite being insubstantial.
He looked up and forward, stopping just before the ground fell away, out across a sea of deep, sickly purple. He could see through it in some places, and let his eyes unfocus to see if he could spot a pattern in the movement. In the dimming light Link found places where it slowly thinned and thickened, and thought he saw the densest part of if far to the north. The far edge of it was impossible to see from his vantage, but Link knew the wall was much higher on that side. The fog would flood Faron Spring far before it crept into Hyrule Field.
He had a sudden vision of the spring overtaken with miasma, its waters still and reeking, the Light Spirit feeble and diminished and trapped. He pictured the fairies choking on unbreathable air. He cursed himself for not returning sooner, and the swell of anxiety in him transformed to anger as Link remembered that someone else was called on for aid.
Ilia’s voice tore him from his thoughts.
“Watch your footing,” she called. “You can’t see the drop into the basin with how thick this all is.”
“I can see it,” Link called back, unable to keep the thread of annoyance out of his tone. “And I know the land well enough not to fall off the bridge. In fact, I’m sure I know it ten times better than whoever you’ve asked to look into this for you.”
“What are you talking about? Do you mean the mage they’re sending?” He could hear the frown in her voice. “If there’s a problem then tell me—it’s not like you to dance around like this.”
“Does this mage or whoever know anything about the swamp?” Link turned, his expression flat as he tried to keep his voice even. “I doubt whoever is sending them will be happy when they get lost and die out there.”
“The folks in the castle promised they’re sending the best among all of them.” She was more patient than he deserved, though Link could tell it was wearing thin. “We’re going to have to trust that they know what they’re doing.”
“You can’t tell me that I should just blindly trust this stranger,” he said and clenched his jaw around his temper. “Or that I should just sit on my hands without even trying to help.”
“I’m not.” Ilia’s tone was firm, her steps deliberate as she approached. “I’m telling you about our problems with this damn fog, and what we’re doing to try and fix it.”
The steel in her gaze shocked him, just as much as the steadiness of her temper. Memories of their infrequent spats flickered across his mind, when she would stomp her feet and he would glower and they would come back the next day like nothing happened. This felt wholly different, a once-familiar footpath choked with fallen branches and new growth.
He blinked down at her and suddenly Ilia was an entirely different person than the girl he had grown up with, and Link wondered when that had changed too. His heart twisted even as his ire rose.
“You can be as annoyed as you want that a mage is coming,” she continued when he didn’t respond, “but they are coming—maybe as soon as tomorrow.”
“And you never thought to ask me?” The question burst out before he could think to stop it, the frustration that built in him all day sharpening his voice and burning his chest. Ilia’s brows shot up at his temper, but she recovered before guilt had a chance to take root, her shoulders proud and eyes bright.
“You had been gone for years.” She didn’t shout, but her voice lost any of the gentle cadence he was used to. There was a tremor in it, the kind that grew from a quiet, long-held anger and suddenly, Link couldn’t hold her gaze. He stared hard at the forest wall. “And you never mentioned coming back until your last letter. Not once.”
“And none of your—no one’s letters mentioned the fog.” He looked back to her and dug a thumb into his wounded pride. “Did you think I wouldn’t have cared enough to return? I thought you and Bo and Rusl had more faith in me than that.”
“That’s not fair, Link.” Her voice was low, a sharp counter to his. Ilia’s gaze was steady, her meadow-green eyes wide but dry. “No one here has ever doubted your love or loyalty to Ordon. No one asked you to leave in the first place, either.”
The silence in the clearing was abrupt and absolute, outside of the sudden ringing in Link’s ears. For a few long moments, he was only aware of his heart pounding in his ears and the sick pool of guilt in his stomach. He was frozen, locked in place by the memory of their last, explosive argument, but his expression must have been tame enough because Ilia took another soft step forward.
“We were able to manage the fog. For a while, at least—up until now,” she said, her voice was almost a plea. “This mage was our last resort before we asked you to come home.”
Link just barely flinched at the word, his eyes tightening and brow dropping into a frown. He swallowed once, twice, but his voice was still heavy when he responded: “I still don’t like the idea of a stranger trying to take care of this—They could get hurt, or worse. Ordon shouldn’t have to deal with the fallout.”
“And you shouldn’t have to shoulder all our burdens. You’ve already done so much for the village.” Her voice was soft, the same one she used to soothe a scared animal. She took his hands between her own and squeezed.
Link was silent, his expression unchanged as Ilia’s eyes flickered between his own. Searching, again, and he wondered if she was looking for the boy from before the invasion. The thought drained all of his anger and replaced it with a familiar, bone-deep exhaustion. That boy had been dragged through a curtain of twilight on a peaceful summer morning, and never emerged.
Link slipped his hands from Ilia’s grip.
“I won’t be able to sleep easy knowing that this fog is out here, not when I can try and do something about it,” he said firmly. After a pause, Link offered a small, tired smile. “You know I would have come back in a heartbeat, right?”
“I know.” Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Do whatever calls to your heart—I can’t stop you.”
<><><>
Ilia had parted with a few more friendly words, though they sounded hollow and dull to his ears. Link knew that he had missed something vital in their conversation, that she had been asking something of him in that old, secret language of theirs, but it was lost on him. The thought nagged at him, stuck in his mind like a briar in his cloak.
But there would be time enough to untangle that later, when there was a less immediate problem before him.
She told him to “play nice” with the mage when they arrived.
He stood on the edge of the wooden bridge, as far as he dared to to go without the protection of a lantern, fists on his hips and mouth twisted in concentration. The fog swirled quietly before him, though that itself was odd with the lack of wind.
Play nice, she’d said. Link snorted, the familiar simmering irritation rising in his chest again. He rolled his shoulders to dispel it, pulled his attention back to where it was needed.
Though for all of his bluster to Ilia about wanting to solve this on his own, Link really had precious few ideas for what to actually do about it. But that had never stopped him before, even if it had infuriated Midna every time he agreed to something with no forethought. She would cross her arms and hunch to one side, left ear to left shoulder, glare and demand he explain precisely how he was going to keep whatever promise he made. His answers had never been good enough, and his laugh at the disgusted look she gave only made it funnier.
The memory lanced his heart, as it always did, and he brushed it aside.
He dropped into a crouch, sticking an impulsive hand into the fog. It was only slightly warmer than the air around him, though that meant little with how warm the day had been. He watched as it shifted around his arm, depressing an inch or so where he disturbed it before slowly smoothing back to its original height. It was almost viscous, though still felt insubstantial as Link wiggled his fingers.
He did not need to play nice with some stranger to his woods.
Link scowled. His woods, gods damn it all. This was a problem he could solve for Ordon, with little need for the aid of whatever sallow-skinned page-turner Ilia had called for. He just needed to come up with a solid plan.
Link held his hand in the fog for a moment longer, until he was satisfied that it didn’t sting or otherwise sap his energy, but it was as he pulled his hand back that he found its potency. A plume of fog followed his hasty movement—it brushed against his face and slipped into his mouth, encouraged by his sharp, surprised gasp.
It was immediately overwhelming, nauseating—a thick miasma of sulfur, decay, and unclean water that coated his tongue and clung to his nose. It overtook his senses entirely, and as it slipped further into his lungs it felt as if he were breathing through a swarm of gnats. Link’s eyes watered, and threatened to dim around the edges.
Some deeper instinct kept the panic at bay as Link launched himself to his feet, careful to keep his head far above the fog as he coughed and heaved. It was a long few moments before his breath came back to him, after he hacked and spat a thick, purple-specked glob of phlegm onto the forest floor. Link grimaced and scuffed at it with his boot.
His head cleared with every breath, though each one sent needles of pain through his chest. The full danger of this fog sank into his stomach, heavy and cold, adding to the tangled mass of guilt that had rooted there since he left all those years ago. Questions swirled, as they always did. How could it have gotten this bad? How many others had succumbed that the villagers didn’t know about? How could he have let himself go wandering for years without asking if all was well?
Link scrubbed a rough hand over his face before he lost himself, tipped his head back and glared at the canopy far above. Still, bare branches striped across a dim orange sky as the day faded fully into twilight. He forced down one gulping breath, then another, before looking out across the fog with a newfound wariness.
He knew now that traversing the basin along was too much of a challenge to take on alone, or at least not without significant preparation. The ache in his lungs was enough of a warning to the price of failure. But would he have time to collect everything he needed before the fall rains came and made the swamp impassable? And if not, how long would it be until the fog flooded past the bounds of the swamp to threaten the path to Faron Spring? And if he did, how would he begin to remove the source of the fog, whatever it was?
Link let out an impatient snort as the realization took root.
It was a simple fact that a companion would make this task all the more manageable. A second set of eyes could catch whatever he might miss and another competent pair of hands would lighten whatever work that needed to be done. With luck and skill, the swamp would be rid of this damned fog before winter set in. Link’s heart ached, familiar and strong, as desperately wished that Midna was here, that he didn’t have to rely on the aid of a stranger who could only be a pale comparison to his old friend.
He sighed the feeling away and tipped his head up again, where the uppermost branches swayed with a new, fresh breeze as twilight fully took hold over the valley.
There was only one person Link knew that could match Midna in talent and ability, but she was far beyond his reach.
With a panicked jolt, he realized the rustling in his ears was not the rush of his pulse or the wind against the branches, but steady footsteps rustling through the half-dying grasses behind him. Link cursed himself for dropping his guard as adrenaline shot up his spine.
He whirled around, instinct driving his hand to reach for a sword that slept just beyond the forest, and froze entirely as the Princess of Hyrule stepped into the clearing.