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Chapter Text

  His reunion with Zelda does not go as either of them had planned, with Link passing out in her arms as soon as it truly sinks in that they’ve won. Zelda will tell him later that she had hoped for an embrace, something soft and intimate, and he will tell her that he had planned on hugging her so tight their bones broke, but for now, he sleeps.

  And then, despite everything, he wakes. 

  “I was worried I’d lost you again,” Zelda admits softly from his bedside, her tattered prayer gown traded for an old set of Paya’s Sheikah garb; it looks good on her, Link thinks, even though she fiddles with the sleeves self consciously. 

  Zelda tells him they’re in the spare rooms at the back of Impa’s house in Kakariko Village, though Link hasn’t seen for himself, with Impa and Purah all but chaining him to the bed while he recovers. Still, the red lanterns outside his window are comforting, the soft sounds of Cado’s cuccos easing the tension in his shoulders. 

  It’s only been a few days since his fight with the Calamity, and without Mipha’s Grace, Link still has several more weeks of mending before he can be allowed to travel again; though he does not want to leave Zelda’s side just yet, his skin itches for mountains.

  “Purah didn’t know if she could heal you,” Zelda continues, hands fisted on her knees. “Though I know you’ve endured far worse this past year, it was still... difficult, to witness.”

  Link sighs, but smiles, and gently pats her head. She sniffles and looks up at him miserably, nothing at all like the warrior princess that helped him slay Ganon. They’re just children, Link reminds himself, the both of them. Some world saviours, they are, neither of them yet old enough to even own land.

  He motions for her to wipe her eyes and she obeys, nodding to herself. “I know it’s silly to cry about it, when you are fine now, but—”

  Link shakes his head quickly. “It is not silly. You are allowed to grieve.”

  “You’re too kind for your own good, Link. I know I didn’t say it before, but I’m... I’m glad it was you, that the Goddesses picked.”

  Swallowing the sudden bile in his throat, Link forces a tiny smile; surely she would not think so highly of him, if she knew he had not planned on surviving that final battle. Oh, he planned to win, to defeat the Calamity, but he had not cared whether Purah could heal him afterwards or not. “And I’m glad to have fought alongside you, princess,” he signs.

  “Please, Link,” she winces, pulling her sleeves over her hands, “I am no longer a princess.”

  He blinks, confused. “Queen, then.”

  “No, Link, I am not either. You know as well as I that the kingdom of Hyrule is... The world has moved on without the royal family, and I see no reason to change that.”

   “If you truly saw all that I went through, then you know that your kingdom is in pieces, and even now Ganon’s old minions run rampant. They need you now more than ever.”

  Sniffling again, she simply nods. “I know, you’re right, it is just that—”

  “You don’t want to rule.”

  Zelda flinches. “I don’t know what I want, Link.”

  Link leans back against his pillows and looks at his princess, the woman he had devoted a hundred years and a hundred battles to, but he doesn’t share her indecision. He knows what he wants. He knows he will not get it.

  “Then do nothing.” He shrugs at her wild expression. “There is peace at least for now; the Goddesses cannot begrudge you allowing yourself to rest and decide what to do next.”

  “Link, I do not...” She bites her lip, but seems to give it a serious moment of thought. 

   “You are right that you are not prepared to take control of a broken kingdom yet, no matter how badly it needs you. It would be foolish to throw yourself into something you cannot yet control.” He glances at the closed door. “And I’m sure Impa would agree with me.”

  She shakes her head again, but she smiles. “Let us discuss this when you are better recovered. Until then, please— Please call me Zelda.” That smile is hesitant and hopeful and everything Link can remember of their last weeks together before the Calamity, the first time. 

  “Do you have a name in Sign?” he asks softly, though he thinks he knows the answer.

  Zelda’s smile falls. “No, no I do not. My father... It was my mother that taught me Sign, she used to call me ‘little bird’ but I’m not sure that’s appropriate.” 

   “Then I will make you one.”

  Her head snaps back up, her hands flying out to grab his. “You would do that?” He smiles back and nods.

  “Give me a few days. When my brain is more awake.”

  Her laugh almost makes it all worth it.

  Zelda falls asleep on the cot across the room from Link, though he knows she has a proper bed down the hall; he appreciates her company more than he can express. 

  Only when she is properly asleep does the door open, Purah peeking her head into the room and smiling brightly at finding Link awake; she skips inside but closes the door softly so as not to disturb Zelda. Link offers her a tired smile as she pulls up Zelda’s chair and hops onto it, a small wooden box in her lap. “Linky!” she whispers excitedly. Link has vague, blurry memories of her trying to heal him, though he’s not quite sure if it was a few days ago or before the shrine of resurrection, but his instincts label her a friend, and it is easy to relax around her, even with her boundless energy. 

   “Purah,” he signs, miming her glasses with his pinky and forefingers and his hands turned out. She claps delightedly, but quickly quiets when Zelda mumbles in her sleep.

  “So you’re remembering more and more, then?” she asks, whipping out her pen and slate to make a note of it; the quirk is infinitely more charming now that Link is not fresh out of the Shrine of Resurrection. “How are you feeling otherwise? Your wounds?”

   “Mending. Stiff.” He rotates his left shoulder and winces. “Did I dislocate my shoulder?”

  Purah purses her lips like a bird cutely and makes another note, “_{Subject has yet to regain memories of his most recent battle.}” Flipping her pen dramatically, she tucks it behind her ear. “Calamity Ganon pulled it right from its socket during the first phase of your battle! From what Princess Zelda tells me, you reset it yourself. On horseback.”

  Link winces again for entirely different reasons: that does sound like something he would do. “Anything else I did that I should know about?”

  “Hmm,” she taps her chin a few times. “Her highness also tells me you switched bows mid-battle, so the Great Eagle Bow would not break.”

  That he remembers.

  Something seizes in his chest and scrambles for the Sheikah Slate on the bedside table, even though his arms feel barely strong enough to hold it up. He searches his inventory until he finds the bow, and yes, yes, he sighs, it is still intact. Damaged, but nothing that Harth couldn’t repair once he finally makes it back to Rito Village. 

  Purah watches him closely, pen back in her hand, but she does not write, her cute pout now some sort of angry. Link carefully sets the Slate in his lap before he drops it, meeting Purah’s eye and thinking he knows what she is so offended by. 

  Indeed, she crosses her arms over her chest. “You were not so careful with the Lightscale Trident, nor Lady Urbosa’s Scimitar.”

  Be direct, he wants to tell her. He settles for signing, “I was not engaged to Mipha or Lady Urbosa.”

  She keeps her angry expression for a moment longer, but it quickly cracks into something sympathetic and sad all at once. “I thought that might have been the case.” She hands him the box from her lap and puts her pen away properly. 

  Suddenly terrified of what the box contains, Link doesn’t open it immediately, staring at the simple carving of a cherry tree on the lid. With Purah watching resignedly, he lifts the lid and loses whatever breath he had managed to get back after his battle with Ganon.

  Revali’s feathers are singed at the ends, but somehow still intact, the tassel in good shape for how ferociously Dark Beast Ganon had ripped it from his neck. The braided cord is in worse condition, torn at the nape and ends fraying, but it snapping had saved his life, freeing him from Ganon’s chokehold and giving him time to put distance between them. He had thought it lost for good.

  Purah fixes the bedsheets tighter around his legs in a strangely maternal gesture. “Paya and I inspected Hyrule Field, while you were asleep; I was hoping to maybe find some evidence that Ganon was truly gone, but all we found was that.”

  “You kept it safe for me. Before.”

  She nods once, as Link runs his fingers over the vane of the centre feather. “It was in better shape when I put you in the Shrine. Impa did not know what to make of it, but I wanted to be sure you would find it after you awoke, no matter how many years later that was.” 

  Link swallows and nods once, feeling at the frayed edges and wondering if he could bring himself to try and reweave it. Purah seems to know what he’s thinking and produces two halves of a clasp, offering them to him. 

  “I think highlighting instead of hiding the break would be better. It’s important to remember the stories of things.”

  He doesn’t hesitate to take the clasp, turning it over in his palm a few times. “Is it bone?”

  “Abalone. From Lake Totori. Impa had it from her last visit to Rito Village and was more than happy to part with it.” She pats his hand as he sighs shakily.

  “I have much to thank you both for. I wouldn't know where to begin.”

  She laughs at this, wriggling in her seat. “Even if you had not already saved the world, my family would be happy to aid you. We’re your friends, Linky. And don’t you forget it.”

  Link’s hands aren’t nearly nimble enough after only a few days to add the clasps, but Purah gives him a small pouch to wear it around his neck until then, and it feels good, to have the feathers close to his chest again. Zelda notices it when she wakes up, but does not mention it.

  When not catching up with Impa about the state of her kingdom for the last one hundred years, Zelda sits with Link and asks about his adventures. Before, he might have thought it was only for research, but Zelda sits forward when he talks, eyes intent and reactions genuine; she wants to know because she cares, and that is a wonderful thing for Link to realise.

  He starts walking again eight days after the great battle, but it is a hobble at best and Purah refuses for him to try at the stairs. Link resigns himself to needing to build his strength up from scratch, again, but with Zelda and Paya chatting to fill the silence of his exercises, it isn’t so bad. 

  Paya can tell he’s grieving, even from how little they know each other, and brings him an incense burner once he’s allowed to open the windows. She says it’s one she doesn’t use anymore, but it’s a beautiful clay bowl glazed in green, coiling intricate and precise; she has clay stuck under her fingernails when she gives it to him.

  He burns three sticks for Revali the first night Zelda moves into her room down the hall. Paya had brought him cones, too, and he burns one each for the other Champions, the heady scent of shiso and sandalwood filling all the empty spaces in his chest. He lets that be enough. 

  With Impa putting him through tougher and tougher exercises, Link is exhausted by lunchtime, but luckily his injuries allow him to nap all afternoon without judgement. The morning after he burns the incense, it rains for the first time since the battle, cleansing the smell from Link’s room and taking some of the heartache with it. 

  He manages the stairs on his own and pulls on a cloak before stepping outside, inhaling the sharp tang of struck metal and clean dirt. He halts on the top step of Impa’s home, as a power kicks him in the chest and he looks wildly up at the clouds. Was that... ?

  All at once, the Divine Beasts scream, Link can almost see their heads turned to the sky, but it is not a battle yell, it is not a warning, it is a victory cry. 

  Something crashes in the house behind him, pulling him from his revere in time for Zelda to all but fall out of the front door. “Link!” There is charcoal on her hands, staining the knees of her pants, and sandalwood incense wafts after her. “Did you hear that?”

  He catches her before she trips down the steps, but doesn’t know what to say, when it feels like his heart will pound out of his chest. “Why would they...?”

  Zelda looks up, but nothing of the grey-matted clouds gives away their secrets. “I-I was just experimenting, I don’t think—”

  Lightning flashes behind Death Mountain, but the thunder clap is much nearer, so loud Link drops Zelda’s hands to cover his ears. She does the same, as rain plasters their faces and a wind picks up, ripping through their clothes. 

  Residents of the village shout and run for cover, Cado chasing after his panicked cuccos while Koko scoops Cottla into her arms and dives for her home, Cottla yelling in excitement the whole way. Even the dogs chase their owners’ feet to shelter. 

  Link and Zelda do not follow, watching the sky with hands over their ears.

Chapter Text

  Purah nearly eviscerates Link and Zelda alive for staying outside in a storm with the both of them still recovering, but as soon as the rains pass, she joins them on the muddy trek to the nearest shrine to see if anything else of the ancient Sheikah had changed. When Link leans on Zelda’s arm most of the way, she says nothing, because both she and Purah know better than to try and make him stay behind.

  As they round the hill enough to see the blue glow of Ta'loh Naeg, the sound of voices startles them to a stop in the middle of the path. Purah listens with her head cocked for a moment, then hitches up her skirts and races ahead, shouting, 

  “Who goes there!”

  Inpissibly, it’s Mipha that they hear gasp in wonder, “Lady Purah, is that you?” and Link feels his lungs give out. 

  Zelda’s grip on him goes impossibly tight, her eyes fixed on the glow through the trees; she looks as distraught as he feels, her breath quick in her throat. Link squeezes her arm and they move forward at the same time, Zelda a steady support for his numb knees. 

  Mipha looks up as they round the bend, and Link can see her attempt to throw up her diplomatic smile, but the moment she recognises them properly, her expression crumbles in a way Link hasn’t seen since they were children. She leaves her guards and Purah on the warp platform, almost tripping in her haste to throw herself at them; Link doesn’t hesitate to catch her. 

  “Link!” she gasps, as Zelda has to catch the both of them before they tumble to the ground. “Oh, Link, Zelda, when I awoke on Ruta, I could not feel either of you, I thought that—” Her breath shudders against Link’s neck and he holds her tighter, as tight as he can possibly manage. 

  His mind reels, left somewhere in the village proper, and he can't seem to catch his own breath. Zelda presses a hand between his shoulder blades as if she can sense his distress, taking a little more of his weight as Mipha sobs. 

  He had already mourned her. He had locked their friendship into his chest and buried the key on the battleground of Hyrule Field, but here she is, more real than she's been in a hundred years; she even looks just as she had left him at the Spring of Courage. He wonders if he didn’t actually die fighting Ganon.

  Mipha steps back suddenly, Link’s arms too weak to stop her. “Link, you’re injured,” she whispers.

  He manages a tiny smile, but the dizziness hits behind his eyes before he can speak, and his friends have to catch him under the arms. Mipha makes a plaintive sound and helps Zelda gently set him on his knees, putting both glowing hands on his chest; the familiar feel of her Grace working through his veins only makes his heart hurt worse. He drops his head onto Mipha’s shoulder as Zelda calls for Purah in panic, but Link knows it’s his own fault for not breathing properly. 

  Mipha quickly catches on to the problem, pushing her Grace to relax him instead of repair him, and Link feels his lungs suddenly obey him again. “He’s fine, he’s alright,” he hears Mipha tell Zelda hurriedly, as Purah stands over them and tries not to yell.

  “I told you it was too much excitement!” she admonishes, her tiny hand feeling Link’s cheek. 

  “You said he was healing,” Zelda argues, but Purah scoffs, though it is not unkind.

   “Physically,” she says. “It’s his mental state that I worry about. Princess Mipha, can you...?”

  Mipha moves one hand to the back of his head instead, Link letting out a little gasp of relief at the familiar gesture; somehow, he is sure this is far from the first time she’s held him like this. “He forgot to breathe,” she tells them quietly, sniffling and getting control of her own emotions, “I’m afraid I startled him quite badly.”

  “Well, Mipha my dear, we thought you were dead.” 

  Link’s lungs stutter again, but Mipha quickly soothes it with her Grace, murmuring to him some sort of spell that slows his pounding heart. “I was,” she says. “I know I was. But then, I awoke next to Ruta’s control unit, as if nothing had happened.”

  Zelda kneels next to them despite the mud. “When?” she presses frantically, though Link wishes they could all just wait until he got his bearings again. "When did you awake?"

  “No more than an hour ago. I— I used to be able to feel the other Champions, could always tell if you were well. But today, I could not feel anything, and I thought—” She inhales shakily, fins moving soothingly through Link’s hair. “My brother said you likely came here after the battle with Ganon. I came as soon as my father would let me out of his sight.”

  None of them say anything for a moment, but then Zelda breaks the silence with a hoarse, “It worked.”

  Purah stomps her foot. “What worked? Highness, just what were you doing in Impa’s—”

  Zelda scrambles to her feet, Link raising his head to watch her cover her mouth with muddy hands. He can still see charcoal on her wrists. 

  He blinks and remembers the smell of incense; had she been mourning before the family altar? 

  Link knows better than to stand with Mipha’s powers still forcing his lungs to operate, but he pushes away enough to free his hands of her Champion’s scarf. “Princess, what did you do?”

  She looks around at each of their faces, even the Zora guards standing a respectful distance away, before shrinking in on herself and curling her hands. “I–I wanted to see if there was any malice left on the Divine Beasts. At first, to... to make sure Ganon was gone completely.”

  “You feel them still?” Mipha asks softly, and Zelda nods.

  “As clear as I did when they were first activated. And then, I did find malice, just a little, trapped at their hearts. I think I wanted— I think I wanted to know why it was in the same place I used to feel the Champions, while I was trapped in the Castle.”

  As if fired from a sling, Link’s mind catches up with him, with the situation. “You warped the malice.”

  Zelda bites her lip, shaking her head quickly. “I’m not sure what I did. I... tugged at it. I didn’t think I’d even be able to touch it, without being on the beasts themselves, but I could, and then I. I bent it.”

  Mipha scrunches her fingers into the front of Link’s Sheikah tunic, bewildered and frightened and connected to him still. “You recreated us through malice?” she breathes, but it is not fear in her gaze as she stares up at Zelda. 

  Given the time, Link thinks he could decipher just what sort of look it is, but the more pressing matter is Zelda murmuring, “Yes?” uncertainly.

  All three of them, and the Zora guards, jump as Purah curses loudly. “You used the bits of the Champions that were still tied to their Beasts and pieced them back together with Ganon’s power!”

  Link doesn’t know if he should cry, or throw up.

  Mipha’s Grace soothes away either option, as her grip on his tunic tightens. “But I am not made of malice.”

  Purah whips out her pen and slate, scribbling on it furiously. “I don’t think so, your highness. If it was the same energy that killed you, all Princess Zelda would have had to do is reverse it.”

  Finally taking a hesitant step back towards them, Zelda looks hopeful. “Then perhaps it was not out of line to...”

  “The Goddesses would not have allowed it, if you were not supposed to,” Purah says firmly, with enough conviction that Link almost believes it. Healing their Chosen Hero before death was one thing, allowing someone to bring others back to life a century after death is another. 

  “I was able to use the Shrine to travel.” Mipha slowly lets go of Link’s shirt.

  Tapping her pen against her lips, Purah starts to pace, her little feet kicking at the ground. “Perhaps because Linky had already activated them with the Slate, other Champions are free to access them the same way you were free to access each other’s Beasts,” she muses, adjusting her glasses as Link’s words die in his throat.

  The others. Were the others—

  “Breathe, Link,” Mipha whispers, suddenly bent close to him again; Zelda crouches at their side with a hand on his shoulder, and he thinks he must have lost a few moments of time, for he had not seen them move. “Breathe,” she repeats and Link obeys, jerking in half a lungful of air. He had already mourned them. He cannot mourn them again, he can’t—

  “Let’s get him back to my sister’s,” Purah says, voice much softer than before. “Princesses, I think it would be best if you were the ones to help him.”

  They both agree with quiet murmurs, and carefully help Link back to his feet.

  They don’t have to wonder very long about the other Champions, when a crack of thunder welcomes someone else to Ta’loh Naeg before they’ve even reached Impa’s house. 

  Mipha steps between Link and the path up the mountain, fluidly pulling a Zora spear from over her shoulder; her guards are quick to protect her, raising their own spears and facing the path. Zelda balances Link at the bottom of the stairs to Impa's, curious inhabitants peeking out of doors and windows at all the ruckus after such a strange storm. Link ignores their whispers and stares at the mountain with his heart in his throat.

  The sound of armour reaches them first, of marching footsteps over wet gravel, but it is the glint of weak sunlight off gold gardbraces that tells Link just who is making their way down to the village.

  “Urbosa,” he whispers, and Zelda whips around to look at him. 

  “Urbosa? Link, are you sure?”

  As if in answer, Urbosa and two Gerudo guards round the corner, glittering like jewelled beetles in the early sunset. Urbosa halts at the mouth of the path in surprise, taking in the scene before her with one brow perfectly raised.

  “Is that really any way to welcome your fellow Champion, little bird?” she asks, voice husky and measured and happy.

  Zelda immediately leaves Link's side to push past the Zora and run for Urbosa, throwing herself into her arms with all the grace of someone meeting a Goddess for the first time. Which is to say, none at all.

  Mipha lowers her spear and leans it against her shoulder, holding out her arm for Link to steady himself on; he wishes he didn’t need it, but the sight of his princess and her closest friend embracing leaves him all jelly-legged again. Mipha smiles like she understands, using her free hand to press some of her Grace into his forearm. “Remember to breathe,” she murmurs, her fin a cool comfort on his bare skin. 

  Link nods once, refusing to allow himself to be so weak again, but then Urbosa turns to them, cradling Zelda against her chest. 

  “It is good to see you both alive,” Urbosa says, slowly closing the distance between them. “Truly, I do not know if I could live knowing— Well, it seems the Goddesses know better than to bring just one of us back.” Her smile nearly splits her face, the warmth of it almost enough for Link to feel like he had not failed them at all. 

  It lasts for all of a moment, before Urbosa truly takes in the sight of a barely-standing Link leaning heavily on Mipha.

  “Hero, you are still hurt.”

  Mipha clenches her jaw and holds his arm tighter. “My powers are still weak,” she says, avoiding Link’s eye. “I cannot heal him fully yet.”

  Raising her head from Urbosa’s chest, Zelda stares at Mipha. “You did not say anything. Urbosa, are you—”

  “I am fine, little bird.” She pets Zelda’s hair, offering a small smile before looking back down at Link. “Autumn is not far off; might I suggest we get you all out of the cold?”

  Purah appears out of nowhere at their side, hands on her hips. “And just when I thought I’d have to pull you all inside by your ears!”

  Urbosa blinks at her, then at her fellow Champions. “Who is this child.”

  Link inhales a laugh and has to let Mipha restart his lungs. 

His Zora body had never felt out of place the way his others had; even his Gerudo transformation did not fit him so well as the yellow-skinned Lephe. Even as a child, he is a little small to pass as a male Zora without question, a little too feminine and looking a little too like Mipha herself, but having the princess as your best friend has its perks: very few dare to bring up his strange colouring, or the fact that he disappears for weeks at a time without explanation. 

“The children like you, Lephe,” Mipha tells him with that older-sister smile, handing him another perfectly-smooth stone. Link just grumbles and fits the stone into the seal-skin sling he and Mipha had fashioned last summer. “For how you are usually so unsure of things, you seem very positive of their feelings about you.”

“They never talk to me when you aren’t around,” he argues, giving the sling a good few spins to test the weight. Satisfied that he knows how much force to give, Link looks out across the river to where a couple of herons are standing peacefully; swinging the sling low first to gain momentum, he slowly raises it as he picks his target and lets the stone fly. 

 Mipha is silent until his mark screeches and keels over, the other herons taking flight with a scream of warning for other nearby prey. Link wastes no time in moving across the water, his Zora legs making almost no splash even in his haste; he grabs the bird from the reeds before the current can sweep it away. 

“Have you considered talking to them first?”

Link scoffs and wades back to where she sits on the bank, adding the heron to the small pile of game they have going, including a trout and two tuna. Mipha doesn’t care much for them, but Link is hoping to catch a rabbit before they head back. 

“They don’t let me close enough to try.” He accepts the stone Mipha passes him, but sits down next to her instead; he pokes at the fishing rod stuck in the sand, though he knows nothing has taken the bait just yet. “And they keep calling me a girl.”

Mipha hides a smile behind her fin. “You do have a certain beauty about you.”

Link groans and buries his face in his knees. “Ameh’s son thinks I’m a visiting princess.”

“Baz?” She laughs outright at that, surely imagining the tiny Zora child bounding along behind Link and asking a thousand questions. “I know your presentation to others is important to you, I’m sorry for laughing. Perhaps if I say you are a visiting prince...?”

“As if I could ever pretend to be royalty. Muzu would have my skin.”

  Mipha’s hands are warm on his ribs and back, gentle and confident as she rests her palms over his lungs. Even just waking up from whatever semblance of sleep he had managed to achieve, Link knows her presence, and does not panic the way he had when he’d first woken in Impa’s home.

  She must know he’s awake, but she does not speak from where she sits on the edge of the bed, one thigh pressed along his back. Despite having no concrete memory of this position, he knows it is not the first time they have been found in it. Is this why Mipha had fallen in love with him, this intimacy? He can’t imagine her developing such feelings from having to take care of him so much as children.

   “Thank you,” he signs anyway, and knows she can see it even with him facing the wall. 

  “You’re welcome, Link.” He can hear the smile in her voice. “Are you feeling better?”

  Link laughs hoarsely into his pillow, and Mipha laughs too, as she carefully moves her hands away. 

  “I suppose it was a silly question,” she agrees, leaning over to the side table. She returns with a wet cloth and places it over his neck, gently brushing his hair out of the way. “Daruk arrived some time ago.”

  He rolls his head to look up at her, and doesn’t even have to force his smile. “Daruk used the Shrine?”

  Mipha’s eyes crinkle at the corners. “I’m sure he’d be happy to recount the ‘horrifying’ experience in detail.”

  Still smiling, Link drops his head back onto his pillow and closes his eyes. It’s a little difficult with him lying on his side, but he manages to sign, “Why did you all know to use the Shrines? You’d never used them before.”

  “I am not... sure.” She readjusts the cloth, Link feeling a drop of water slide down his chest. “If our return is truly blessed by the Goddesses, I’m sure they had a hand in it. When I awoke on Ruta, I knew I had to find you and Princess Zelda, and I somehow knew that I could do so using the Ne'ez Yohma warp point. The consoles had never responded to me before the Calamity, but you know this.”

  He shrugs. “The Goddesses,” he signs simply, and Mipha chuckles.

  “That does seem to be the answer to most things today.” 

  “BUT WHERE IS LINK?” Daruk’s voice booms from the floor below them, both jumping and looking to the door, even as Purah shushes him hurriedly.

  “Daruk, please!” she snaps, clearly having had enough of Daruk's brash nature already; Link wonders if she’s stood on a chair in hopes of matching his height. 

  “He’s resting,” Zelda says kindly 

  “Is he alright?” Daruk asks, quieter, yes, but still louder than necessary. “I’d hate to see something happen to the little guy.”

  A tense pause. “He is recovering,” Zelda finally says, floorboards creaking. “Mipha’s powers are not yet strong enough to help him along.”

  “I am weak as well,” Urbosa’s voice joins the others'. “If it not for the Shrine, I would not have been able to join you all here so quickly.”

  Daruk grumbles as Mipha sighs. “Nor I,” Daruk says.

  “Link, you do not have to listen to them,” Mipha tries to put the cloth back on his neck, but he gently pushes her hand away.

  “It’s alright. I want to see them.”

  She looks hesitant, but lets him sit up anyways, making a little more room for him on the bed. “I know I already asked...”

  Link offers a small smile. “I’m alright. I’m not an invalid.”

  With a shake of her head, she pats his arm.

  Daruk scoops Link into a hug before their friends can stop him, but he thankfully has the sense not to crush him in the process. Link makes it an entire two steps from the stairs before Purah is pushing him into a chair, her somehow-terrifying glare enough to silence any argument he has; Mipha hides a laugh behind her fin and moves to stand next to Zelda, who is in turn glued to Urbosa’s side.

  With Daruk and Urbosa’s heights, the front room has become almost impossibly cramped, enough for Link to notice Impa has not joined them. “Where is Impa?” he signs, though he thinks only Purah understands her name, as he mimes the ornaments from her hat with a fist, thumb and pinky out. 

  “She went to pray,” Purah tells him, dragging another chair across the room and climbing onto it. She pushes her glasses up her nose as if she had not just incarnated Link's mental image of her; Daruk stares down at her warily. 

  "And to find Paya," Zelda says. "We haven't seen her since she was helping Lasli tie down the shop canopy."

  "Speaking of, have any of you seen Revali?" Daruk says, crossing his great arms over his chest.

  Purah whacks him bodily with her tablet and hisses, "Tactless!" as everyone, even Urbosa, goes still and glances at Link. Mipha makes to move back to him, but he forces a smile and shakes his head.

   "I'm not an invalid," he reminds her, hands steady despite his shaky heart. 

  "No, we have not." Urbosa leans her hip against the nearest support beam. "But perhaps something in Rito Village has kept him, as your council kept you."

  Bewildered at their reactions, Daruk grumbles again. "I won't say it isn't like him to be late — because it is."

  Swallowing, Link manages a more sincere smile. "It wouldn't be the first time," he agrees, as if every fibre of him isn’t coiled to run to the Hebra Mountains and see for himself. 

  Purah gives his arm a pat, not sorry at all for hitting Daruk — though, Link isn't convinced he had even felt it. "It has only been a few hours since Princess Zelda's 'experiment', and much could be happening on the other side of the map. Highness, would you catch Link up on what we were discussing?"

  Zelda winces but complies. "Urbosa was able to answer some of our questions in regard to my... experiment, as Purah called it. She thinks my connection to the Beasts has only grown stronger the past one hundred years, and—"

  "And I agree the Goddesses had to have had a hand in it all; death is not simply trifled with, even by one of their descendants." She flashes Zelda a smile, and Link has to remind himself what year they're in. "Perhaps they were unable to save us from Ganon, but pitied us enough to give us a second chance."

   "It doesn't seem outside the realm of possibility for the princess' powers, if she had their aid."

  Urbosa cocks her head. "You're talkative today, little hero."

  Link blinks, and looks to Zelda; she seems just as surprised, and it occurs to him that, all things considered, their friendship is still quite new, and built away from the other Champions. "I have less reason to remain quiet."

  "I think it's great that Link feels he can speak his mind!" Daruk booms, reaching out to clap his shoulder but is stopped by Purah and her tablet before he can get close, smacking him over the wrist. 

  "Hands to yourself!" she scolds, shaking her hips. 

  Mipha goes on, nonplussed. "Especially since we all knew we could travel using the Shrines, I too believe our return blessed. Perhaps... Perhaps it is simply that we are needed again, to put Hyrule back to rights."

  Zelda's eyes find Link's and he smiles crookedly. She laughs, knowing exactly what he's thinking, and she doesn't seem scared by the prospect anymore.

  "Yes, perhaps it is so, that we are all needed to get the kingdom back on its feet. Purah, the Castle is not yet inhabitable; would you mind if I, and the Champions, stayed in Kakariko for a while longer?"

  Purah snaps her fingers towards her. “I’d be offended if you went anywhere else! Besides, Linky needs to recover a bit more before he can travel as far as Castle Town.”

  “About that.” Mipha looks to her feet, hands tight where they’re folded in front of her; Link knows from her expression what’s coming, but is somehow not disappointed. “I’m afraid that even when my healing powers are at full strength, I will not be able to heal any wounds inflicted by Ganon.”

  “Mipha, are you sure?”

  “Yes, your highness. I can help with illnesses, or later injuries, but even I cannot mend wounds that powerful. I’m sorry, Link.”

  He frowns, trying to catch her eye. “You do not need to apologise.” She offers a tiny smile, as Zelda puts a hand on her shoulder. “Besides, I’ve healed from worse on my own before.”

  “That doesn’t make it better, Hero,” Urbosa sighs. “But know that we are here for whatever you need of us.”

   “I’m not an invalid.”

  “And someday, saying it enough will make it true.”

  Link is tapping through the pictures on his Slate when there’s a knock on his door. He glances out the window and frowns, because it is far too late for a simple social call, but he still softly grunts for entry.

  Urbosa slips into the room with remarkably light footsteps; she smiles and doesn’t seem a lick surprised to find him still awake, as she sets a red, silk-wrapped parcel on the nightstand. “Good evening, Hero.”

   “It’s a little later than evening.”

  With a soft laugh, she pulls up the nearby chair and settles into it; she is somehow not out of place, even in the small room. “I suppose it is quite late; though that has not stopped you.” Link shrugs and smiles in agreement. “Purah only just found a place suitable for Daruk to sleep.”

   “It’s too bad there aren’t any hot springs in this region.” Link leans over to put his Slate on the table, eyeing the parcel. Urbosa must know he’s curious, but she sits back to let him stew a little longer.

  “Mipha is staying in one of the private baths at the bath house, if you should need her; Daruk has been put up next to the smithy.” She gets a good chuckle out of the thought. “Hopefully he will be warm enough there.”

  The great Goron Champion trying to sleep next to the forge is indeed one of the most ridiculous things Link has imagined of late, and yet again has to remind himself that they are not living in the time they met each other in; with all of the Champions under one roof, it is easy for him to forget. “And you?” he asks with a yawn, though he knows Urbosa would not be housed away from Zelda.

  She snorts. “Do not pretend not to know I am just down the hall; Purah and her grand niece were kind enough to push two beds together for me.” In the flickering of the single lantern, Link sees just how tired Urbosa looks, just how strung thin she is despite the brave face she’s been giving the others. 

  She gives him a resigned smile and leans her arms onto her knees. “Zelda was telling me how much you do not remember.” He winces, but she presses on before he can think of what kind of answer she wants. “I had my suspicions, when you freed me from Thunderblight, but I must confess that I did not ask, because I was afraid of the answer.”

   “You are never afraid.”

  “Not quite, little hero. There is much that I fear, when it comes to my friends. I fear that Zelda is not yet ready to lead her kingdom, I fear that Princess Mipha will push herself too hard trying to help. I fear for Riju, she is far too young to have taken up the mantle of chief, though I know she is doing well.” She lets out a slow, strained breath. “I fear there is more to our revival than pity, or necessity. I fear... that it has been so many hours, that we have not heard from Revali.” Link swallows past the lump in his throat. “And I fear for you.”

  He reaches over and takes one of her hands, giving it a firm squeeze before pulling back. “I am on the mend, you do not need to worry for me.”

  Her smile does not reach her eyes. “I and the other Champions have come back unmarked. We have our memories of what transpired on the beasts trapped with Ganon’s malice, but we did not feel pain then. You live with your scars still.”

  Automatically reaching for the largest on his chest, the one that must have been the blow that killed him, Link bites his lip; he had not considered this. “They are just scars, Urbosa,” he signs her name with a snap as he motions a lightning bolt; as with Mipha’s, with Purah’s, he does not have to think before signing it.

  “Perhaps you’re right. Or perhaps I worry that you and Zelda remember your scars far more permanently than I.” Urbosa looks out the window, though Link can’t imagine what she can see through the dark. “Do you remember the last time you visited Gerudo Town, before Ganon’s return?”

  “Very little,” he murmurs.

  “Zelda had been on one of her surveys, studying Vah Naboris; you both stayed with us for quite some time before moving on. You and I got to know each other well over those months.”

   “I am sorry that I do not remember it.”

  “I’m not here to guilt you, Link. I suppose I wanted you to know that you have a friend in me still; whatever you still grieve for, I am here for you.”

  He bites his lip until it bleeds, guilt eating at him despite her words; thinking on it, he’s remembered quite a bit about Mipha and Revali and their friendships, but he has not tried to remember more about Urbosa and Daruk. Link makes a vow then and there to do better, to be better. “And you have a friend in me.”

  Urbosa finally smiles something that looks almost right, ruffling Link’s hair with a massive hand and leaning back in her chair. "It really is good to see you so talkative; near the end, I feared you would never speak again."

   "The princess and I grew closer, on the way to the Spring of Courage. And of course I spoke around Revali." He says it half just to see if Urbosa had caught on to their relationship, and spells Revali's name in full, slow enough to let Urbosa follow it. 

  She smirks. "Yes, of course you did. Was it difficult to sign with wings?"

  Not the response he had been expecting, Link chokes on his spit. Urbosa throws her head back to laugh and grabs the parcel from the nightstand, setting it in Link's lap. "Come now, Hero," she says, stifling a chuckle, "did you really think I'd believe you only had one of these?"

  Link doesn't need to open the parcel to know what it is, but he does so anyway, feeling a part of himself settle back into place in his chest. He folds the red silk neatly, thinking it must have been very expensive to dye such a colour, and holds his Gerudo mask for the first time in a century. 

  As with his Rito one, this one had been kept in exceptional shape, the paint not even faded at the edges. The wood feels a little more rough than what he can remember, but even that becomes a part of him as he traces Letulu's features with slow and deliberate fingers. 

  "Perhaps it had been foolish," Link agrees quietly. 

  Urbosa hmms and smiles, relaxing against the back of her chair. "As soon as I told Riju that I was leaving in search of you and Zelda, she gave me that; a Sheikah gave it to the tribe after the Calamity was sealed, for 'hope', the story goes. A reminder that the Hero of Hyrule would return."

  "Elder Ylla kept my Rito mask safe as well."

  "Probably not too bold to think the Zora and Goron have them too. Were those the only ones you had?"

  Link frowns, furrowing his brows as he skims over painted lips. He had not given it much thought, these masks: even after Elder Kanlei had returned his Rito mask, it hadn't occurred to him that he'd have had others. But only four does not sound correct. 

  "No, I... I must have had another." He glances at Urbosa, but no recognition passes her expression. "I don't know what it would have been."

  "Maybe it hadn't been a transformation mask," Urbosa agrees, musing at the ceiling. "Hero, could I see your Rito mask?"

  Without any reason not to, Link carefully sets aside Letulu and lifts his Slate, picking Llac's mask out of his inventory. Urbosa watches in fascination, but only takes it when Link hands it to her. 

  After a long minute of staring, Urbosa smirks. "No wonder Revali fell in love with you."

  Link chokes and snatches it back. 

  Anxiety winds Link's shoulders too tight that night for him to sleep, but he does not rise until the sun does, carefully stretching out his aches and pains. Purah and Impa have been curiously vague about just what of him had been injured in his fight with Ganon, though luckily Link knows his own body well enough to guess. 

  Broken ribs healed by a potion are still tender, still faintly bruised even with the bones mended. His dislocated shoulder still catches if he raises it too high, but that will fade with time. His left wrist and arm are sore, from fighting with a sword for as long has he’d had to without rest, and he can see the healed cuts on his bow fingers from where the string had broken the skin. His throat his bruised, where his necklace had bit into flesh, but even that is yellowing and fading. The only open wound he seems to have received is a cut from his bottom rib to his left hip, closed with three stitches and bandaged neatly.

  It is strange to think, that someday he won’t look at his body and remember the battle clearly. For now, it haunts him still.

  With the sun barely over the hills, it is too early for breakfast, so Link props the chair against the wall, and moves the rug to the centre of the room. He doesn’t need Impa there to drill him on his exercises, after all. 

  Paya finds him soon after with a tonic for the tension, and helps him stretch with firm hands. She had grown significantly less shy around him once she understood just what his feathers meant; she still stutters when speaking directly to him, and doesn’t seem sure whether to call him Hero or Link, but the not-quite-awkward friendship they’ve settled into is one he cherishes. 

  “Did you sleep at all?” she asks, sitting cross-legged on the chair across the room with her head tilted, as she watches Link pull his arms over his head to loosen his shoulders.

  He shrugs, offering a small smile when her face falls. “It only means I will sleep far better tonight.”

  “My grandmother makes a very effective sleeping draught, should you ever need it.”

   “Thank you.”

  They fall into a comfortable silence until they hear the rest of the house start to wake, Purah calling them for breakfast, Urbosa and Zelda greeting each other sleepily in the hall. Paya nimbly gets to her feet, smiling as she offers a hand down to Link.

  He lets her pull him to his feet.

  “Should we perhaps... visit Rito Village?” Mipha asks carefully, once their meal has been eaten. Paya and Purah had set up a low table near the cooking fire in front of Impa’s house, knowing there was no way they were going to fit all the Champions at the table inside; despite the rain yesterday, the grass is warm and soft, dry enough for comfortable sitting. 

  Link takes a sip of tea and pulls his loaned haori tighter around himself. Urbosa glances at him out of the corner of her eye, but says nothing when Link doesn’t.

  Daruk munches on a handful of quartz pieces. “If it is a council matter keeping Revali, our presence would only make it worse.”

   “The Rito do not have a council.”

  “Perhaps Daruk is still correct,” Zelda murmurs from Link’s right, looking guilty for having agreed with him. Link just smiles at her.

  “It would not hurt to send a missive,” Urbosa says, pouring herself another cup of wine — the Gerudo drink all hours of the day, Link had learned while working to free Vah Naboris. Though, he must have learned that before, on one of Zelda’s surveys to Gerudo Town. “ ’Assure the Rito elders that the other Champions have returned as well.”

  It is a comforting thought, Link thinks, that none of them doubt that Revali had been resurrected with them. They had no reason to doubt it, of course, but it still eases some of the tight worry behind his sternum. 

  "I'll write something up," Purah says decisively, nodding to herself. Impa had not joined them for breakfast either, and Link is starting to suspect that it makes her uncomfortable to be so visibly aged when the rest of them don't show the century that's passed; or perhaps she continues to pray for some sort of indication of just why the Champions were brought back. Link isn't sure what praying will do. 

  Zelda, somehow sensing his morose thoughts, gently bumps their shoulders together, but does not draw attention to it as she reaches over the table for another helping of tuna. He gently bumps her back, and catches Mipha smiling at them softly. 

  Link excuses himself from the impromptu Champions meeting of what to send in the Rito missive, returning to the cooking fire while his friends crowd around the writing desk in Impa's study. Paya is already seated at the banked fire with Koko in her lap, laughing at something the child is telling her. 

  Link finds himself smiling as well, as they look up at his approach. "Can I join you?" he signs, and Koko laughs. 

   "You may!" she signs back gleefully. Link grins as he takes a seat across the cooking pot from them, Koko looking him up and down with a raised eyebrow. "Aren't you ice?" she gestures at Link's undone haori, which only makes him muffle a laugh in his fist. 

  "Cold," he corrects her, mimicking a shiver with his fists raised. 

  She nods seriously and repeats the motion a few times. "Aren't you cold?" She points to his bare chest again, as Paya hides a smile behind Koko’s bun. 

   "I like the wind," Link explains, nodding to further up the mountain. "My room is warm."  

  "And stuffy! Right, Mr. Hero? All the upstairs rooms here are hot in the Summer." Koko wriggles around to face him better. "Father says we shouldn't do it because it's sacred, but Paya and I sometimes put our feet in the Goddess pond when it's reaaally hot." 

  Paya squeaks in embarrassment and grabs Koko's hand from pointing at the spring behind them. "Koko!" she whispers furiously, but Link feels like his smile will split his face. 

   "Your secret is safe with me, don't worry," he laughs. "Have you two been out here since breakfast?"

  Koko nods. "I helped Paya clean up the tables. She showed me how to put out the fire!" Paya looks anywhere but Link, her cheeks scarlet.

   "Would you like lunch, then?" Link laughs. 

  Koko helps him build the fire back up, gasping in glee when he pulls ingredients out of nowhere from his Slate. He and Paya chop onions and truffles, and quietly teach Koko how to scale a fish, all while the early afternoon sun keeps them warm and content. 

  Eating with the fervour with which she had cooked, Koko finishes her bowl so quickly that Link is worried she'll get a stomach ache, but Paya reassures him with a laugh that she is a child and her stomach can take far worse than that. 

  The Champions must have finished writing their letter by now, but Link finds he doesn't care, more than happy to keep sitting here in the sunlight as if Hyrule has no worries at all. Koko is all too happy to do the same, moving to his lap instead so she can show him the bracelet she’s weaving for Cottla’s birthday.

  Link swallows bile and gently teaches her to keep the knots looser than she thinks she needs, how to keep the spacing even. Paya says little as they work, but she watches them with a smile that, in another life, Link might have lived to see on her face until they were old and gray; in this life, he settles for the warm swell in his chest and helps Koko tie a slipknot.

  Heart a little softer than it was before, Link slips the pouch from around his neck and shows Koko the cord Revali had woven him; she admires the down yarn and intricate tastle, but is most interested in the abalone clasp. Unprompted, she runs home and returns with a tiny jar of glue; Link tries not to cry as she shows him how to poke glue into the clasp with a stick and helps him hold the ends of the cord to attach the two halves.

  They stay seated at the fire until the glue dries, and Koko helps him string it back around his neck; Revali’s feathers tickle his bare chest, and it no longer feels like a tragedy. 

  The air is warm before Link even rises the next morning, sunlight dappling his bedsheets through the open window. From the sound of it, everyone but Daruk has already gathered at Impa’s for breakfast; Link isn’t two feet from the staircase when Purah tells him to go wake the last Champion, insisting that the walk would be “good” for him. 

  And he shrugs, because he doesn’t need convincing to move through the village before most of the residents are out and about. It’s peaceful, which is not something Link has had much time to appreciate: between waking in the Shrine of Resurrection and fighting Ganon, he had not let himself have the time.

  “Mr. Hero!” Cottla calls, racing up to him as he passes the cooking fire. “Koko made fish for breakfast! She said you taught her how!”

  Bewildered by why Cottla felt the need to tell him this, Link smiles hesitantly.  “Did it taste good?”

  Cottle nods her head so fast her hair sticks bounce. “Better than papa’s! Where are you going, Mr. Hero? Can I come with you?”

  Unsure what else to do, Link offers her his hand. She snatches it like her life depends on it, launching into a story about one of Cado’s roosters and a frog she had found in the Goddess pond. 

  Luckily, that breeze from the mountain picks up and follows them on the way to the smithy. Paya had found him a dark blue haori to wear instead of the Sheikah white, and he feels infinitely more comfortable in the colour, like he can simply slip into the shadows if he wished; old habits and all that. He wears it open today too, and his hair pulled up; his very bones itch for higher altitudes, which is strange, because he never cared before. The Calamity had changed many things.

  The wind grows stronger, Link with half a mind to stop and appreciate it properly, before he realises it comes from the Northwest and not the East. He does stop then, frowning at the sky and tracing the clouds towards the Hebra; Cottla stops with him, following his gaze but saying nothing.

  It is too much to hope, Link knows, and tears his eyes back to the little girl at his side. He gives her a tiny smile and they continue on towards Claree’s at a more sedate pace. 

  But the wind does not stop, only grows. A black blur falls out of the sky, a gale shaking the leaves of every tree in the village, and Cottla pulls Link to a stop to shout and point at the blur that lands in front of them.

  Link stares, and Revali stares back, chest heaving like he had flown from Rito Village without stopping, and perhaps he had. His armour is not the same as Link remembers, whites and blues instead of cream and yellow, but his Champion’s scarf remains, and he must have left in quite the hurry to not even have a bow on him. The only thing Link can think is that he has Revali’s bow, and he had probably come to get it back.

  Revali looks him up and down without moving his head, beak parted as he pants, and Link feels the moment he narrows in on the visible bandages, on the stark blue of his feathers against Link’s bare chest.

  His braids are unkempt, Link notices with a startle, all except the one at his right temple, and oh, Link is ever such a fool for him.

  He only remembers Cottla when she tugs on his hand insistently, jerking the both of them from whatever is happening between them just then. Cottla smiles up at Revali and holds out her hand, announcing loudly,

  “My name is Cottla!”

  Flabbergasted, Revali doesn’t wait to catch his breath before demanding, “I’m gone for a few days and you’ve already had a child?”

Chapter Text

  Somewhere between Link laughing so hard he thinks he’s broken his ribs again, and Cottla running screaming back to Impa’s, Revali ends up in his arms. Wrapped up so tight he isn’t sure he’s even breathing, Link tries to hold him closer still; his bad shoulder doesn’t even pull.

  Revali chokes on a laugh as they hear Cottla yelling about “Mr. Hero” being kidnapped, and presses the ridge of his beak against Link’s throat. “Your child is annoying.”

  They listen to the other champions rush across the village before they realise just what is happening, righteous fury turning to shouts of relief as they crowd around Link and Revali. Link stays wrapped around him until it’s probably no longer proper to, but is smiling too hard to be flustered when Zelda weasels her way between them to give Revali a relieved hug of her own.

  Daruk claps Revali's back so hard his knees buckle, Link stifling a laugh as he steps to the side to let Urbosa have a go. Mipha joins Link a few paces away, resting her spear against her shoulder and smiling contentedly at their friends. 

  Link eyes her spear. "Did you all really think I was being kidnapped?" he signs, drawing her attention. 

  She tilts her head and her gaze finds Cottla standing across the square, talking a mile a minute to Koko and her father. "Cottla was very insistent. And that you are still injured, we could not take the chance."

  "I do not need a sword to defend myself." And he's defended himself under far worse conditions. 

  Mipha just shakes her head. "I still hold hope that someday you will understand our worry." She still smiles at him, giving his arm a gentle pat as Revali squawks at something Daruk says. "You may have fulfilled your task for Hyrule in defeating Ganon, but you are still important to us."

  Bemused, Link leans onto her offered arm. 

  He doesn't get a moment alone with Revali after that, between catching him up on all that he's missed, and Purah grilling him on his experience waking on Vah Medoh. Most of Link knows they're not trying to keep them so busy that they haven't spoken since that morning, but the petty part of him wants to strangle even Mipha when he realises the sun has long since set and Impa is still playing twenty questions with the champions. 

  “I fear we have forgotten an important matter,” Mipha interrupts Purah before she can launch into her plans to make Sheikah slates for them all. “Revali, why did you not use the shrines to travel?”

  Revali blinks at her from across the firepit and then finally (finally) looks at Link. His surprise melts into a smirk. “Do not misunderstand, your highness: I would have greatly preferred not to fly the whole way, but someone did not activate the shrines in or around my village.”

  Surprised into silence, it is Zelda that responds for Link. “Didn’t activate... Link, is this true?”

   “Not even the one on the island?” he signs helplessly. He knows he didn’t find every shrine before fighting Ganon, nor solved all those that he did find, but surely he hadn’t really forgotten to stop at the four he had passed on his way up the Hebra mountains.

  Revali throws back his shoulders and shakes his braids haughtily, crossing his wings and looking so much like the Rito Link had first met, if it were not for the way his eyes crinkle at the corners and betray his teasing. “Elder Kaneli tells me you spent all of an hour in the village before trying to take on Medoh! Were you really so eager to see me, Hero?”

  Link does remember a frantic energy after freeing Vah Ruta, a marrow-deep need to reach Medoh as quick as possible, but he likes to think himself not so single-minded as that; had he really neglected so much in his haste?

  “But Revali,” Daruk scratches his head. “Why did you not then stop at the nearest activated shrine and warp from there?”

  Revali makes a sound like he’s choked on a marble, and Link joins their friends as they erupt into laughter.

  He really shouldn’t have worried so much: Revali finds him at the cooking fire when the others have all finally gone to bed. Purah had dragged Revali off after dinner to find a room suitable for him, though Link knows he has a hammock rolled up over his shoulder and could set up anywhere. 

  He hears Revali before he sees him, his feather-light footsteps still enough to trigger Link’s fight-or-flight; he looks up as Revali steps into the halo of the firelight, but stops just out of reach. His hesitant smile slips at Revali's grim expression. 

  “Do you remember me this time?” Revali asks quietly, and Link has to refrain from throwing his shoe at him; he isn’t even wearing shoes. “The others were not direct about it, but it was implied that there is still much you do not remember, and—”

  “Is this a joke.”

  He closes his beak with a snap.

  “Are you really asking me that? After the hug and the betrothal and— and Medoh?”

  “Link!” he squawks. 

  “Goddesses, you were serious.” Shaking his head, Link does manage a glare, though he really just wants Revali to get his head out of his tail and sit next to him, so close they forget whose feathers are whose. Link is a master of regret, but Revali getting cold feet had not once crossed his mind. “I remember you, you moron. Enough to know what we were to each other. Enough to know you’re being an absolute idiot.”

  “Well, forgive me, if the last time I saw you you were a snivelling mess—”

   “That’s not very nice.”

  “— and could barely remember my name! You were also bleeding out at the time, if I recall correctly!”

  And oh, now Link feels awful. He drops his hands and has to take a deep breath. “Is... Is that what this is about?” he asks, voice strangled. 

  Revali bristles down to his primaries, shoulders so tense they’re almost at his ears. “No,” he snaps, convincing absolutely nobody.

  It occurs to Link that until that morning, Revali had thought him dead; oh, Goddesses, had he mourned for Link? And then his first sight of him had been covered in bruises and bandages, not even his sword slung over his shoulder. The very idea of Revali worrying so sincerely about him could have been amusing, if Link did not know first hand what it is like to mourn someone still alive. To not know if the Goddesses had brought them back whole and hale.

  “I’m alright, Revali.”

  Somehow tensing even further, Revali stomps over to him. “Then why has Princess Mipha not healed you properly?”

  “She can’t, it’s Ganon so she couldn’t— Revali.” He helplessly grabs Revali’s closest hand, startling the both of them. "I'm alive. We're all alive."

  He sees Revali swallow, even in the weak light of the campfire. "I could not feel you, when I awoke." He looks down, anywhere but Link. "Before the Calamity, the Champions occupied a place in my mind, I could tell when they were alive, and when they were defeated by the Blights. I honestly did not expect to find anyone but Princess Zelda in Kakariko."

  Link has to close his eyes at that, though he would not trade this sudden pain for his previous ignorance. "That's why you flew. You were putting it off."

  Revali’s wing twitches like he wants to pull away, but Link doesn’t let him. “That’s quite presumptuous of you, Hero. Do you really think—”

  "Revali, sit down."

  Incredibly, impossibly, Reval obeys, slinging his hammock off his shoulder and sinking down cross-legged next to him; he avoids Link's eye, but lets him pull their hands between them.

  “What was I supposed to think?” Revali asks tensely.

  “Stop thinking.”

  “I understand that such a thing is easy for you, but some of us have brains, still. The Champions could feel you, while you were in the Shrine of Resurrection, Link: do you really think I could have hope when I awoke with nothing?”

  “I’m not angry with you, Revali,” Link sighs, fiddling with the down at his fingertips. “I burned incense for you. For all of you.”

  “Oh.” Looking chastised, Revali curls on himself enough that Link has perfect access to the top of his beak. And possessed by the sudden need to smother his dumbass bird in affection, Link darts forward and plants a firm kiss to where his beak meets his feathers. Revali jerks under his lips with a muffled squawk, but miraculously doesn’t push him away. “What are you doing?” he demands, and Link lets out a huff against him.

  “I’m kissing you. Obviously. Am I not allowed?”

  “No, of course you are, just— Warn me.”

  Chuckling at the crack in his voice, Link pulls away and smooths the feathers between his brows; Revali all but melts into him. “You know, for being the one to propose, you’re awfully bashful.”

  The skin around his eyes flushes. “You— You remember that?”

  “Most of it,” he admits. “I remember you weaving the necklace.”

  “Which I see you’ve broken, by the way.”

  “Ganon did, during the fight.”

  Revali hesitantly raises a hand to Link’s throat, to the bruises that are almost healed now. “And that’s what this is?”

  Deflating, Link nods. “It snapped in the second phase. Impa... Impa had the clasp from Rito Village.” He deftly unclips it and holds it out for Revali to inspect, but the Rito’s attention is elsewhere, carefully running a hand over the bandages at his hip. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” he adds softly, knowing it’s just about time to remove the stitches. 

  “It’s bad enough.”

  “Did... Did you think the Goddesses brought only you back?”

  “It crossed my mind,” Revali sighs. “What else could I think? You’ve all been in my brain for a century.”

  Link hesitates. “Did you think you deserved it?”

  Revali flinches, and Link reminds himself that they’re just kids, all of them, as Revali turns a glare up to him, slow and intentional. “Don’t pretend you wouldn’t have thought the same. Didn't think the same.”

  He remembers so little of it, but Link knows how much time they would have had to spend together, to move from rivals to... whatever they are now, how much they would have had to talk to reach whatever understanding of each other they’ve achieved. They know each other too well now to be having this sort of argument, and Link remembers enough for it to make his heart hurt.  

   “Let’s stop,” he signs, dropping his nose into Revali’s collar. “I’m too happy you’re alive to argue.”

  Revali groans like he’s been told to wash the dishes, wrapping an arm around Link’s shoulders and pulling him closer. “Did you think I wasn’t happy to see you?”

  “Not for a moment.”

    “Link?” Mipha’s soft voice rouses him just after dawn, as she pokes her head into Link’s room with an apologetic smile. “Oh, I’m sorry, Link: I thought you would already be awake, you used to be such an early riser.”

   “It’s alright,” he signs quickly, pushing himself up and rubbing his eyes. He doesn’t bother to tell her that he and Revali had stayed up far too late at the campfire, talking of everything and nothing at all, for as long as they could stay awake. He does offer her a smile, and gestures sleepily to the chair against the wall.

  Pulling it over, Mipha sets an abalone box on the edge of the bed, and Link knows just from the size what it is. “I went to see my father, last night,” she tells him softly, settling into the rough and creaky seat, prim and relaxed as if it were her throne in the Zora’s Domain, instead of the only spare chair Impa’s family possessed. “He gives his blessing for me to stay in Kakariko, and with Princess Zelda, as long as I am needed. That I am able to use the shrines greatly improves his mood, of course.” She folds her hands in her lap. “Sidon requests I tell you that he expects you to visit with me next time.”

  Link smiles to himself and opens the box, setting aside the loose lid and unwrapping delicate, salmon-dyed silk to see that the Zora had kept Lephe in even better condition than the Rito had kept Llac; how they managed it in the damp of their kingdom is beyond him. “I would like that,” he murmurs, though he knows it will be a little while longer before he is allowed to travel.

  “My father told me Impa brought the mask to him soon after the Calamity, and knew you would return because of it.”

  “He did believe me over Muzu.”

  Mipha laughs outright at that, and Link is glad she had the chance to spend more time with her family. “Sidon was telling me! I am... a little embarrassed, that you should have received my armour from someone other than myself.”

  Link feels guilty for all of a moment, before reminding himself that Mipha would not want him to. He carefully sets the box on the bedside table to put away later. “It helped me remember you, and Vah Ruta.”

  Her smile goes a little sad, but Link knows better than to think she would ask him to give something which he cannot. “Then please keep it. Not as a proposal! As a gift, nothing more. I am relieved you found a way to brave the waters without your mask, in my absence.”

  Link takes one of her hands, cutting off her babbling. “Thank you, Mipha. I know it must be difficult, after having spent so much time making it.”

  “It is only a waste if no one wore it,” she promises, moving to hold his hand in both her own. “Especially since I made it to size.” Her smile grows toothy as Link laughs.

  Link sits next to Revali at breakfast, perhaps a little too close to be proper, but none of their friends mention it. Zelda watches them with a confused curiosity out of her periphery, and Link wonders again whether she truly knows what to make of them, if Urbosa has said anything concrete. Daruk is of course bewildered, as Link gives his share salmon to Revali and Revali lets him.

  He catches Mipha smiling at Zelda even when the other princess isn’t looking, and Urbosa sends him a knowing wink. They’ll all be alright, Link thinks contentedly. 

  “When I was speaking with Dorian,” Zelda is saying, accepting another cup of tea from Mipha, “he mentioned that pilgrims were already making their way towards the castle. I would like to set up a settlement there as soon as possible.”

  Impa nods sagely. “Word of the Champions’ return is spreading quickly, and we should give the people proof, or there will be other powers that will seek to fill the vacuum Ganon has left. Purah and I considered another survey around the domains, but even if we could condense the journey to a year as we did before—”

  “What about the shrines?” Link asks softly, voice almost lost in the clatter of chopsticks and the crackle of the fire.

  Clearly remembering the silent knight of a century ago, the amnesiac that barely spoke a word when he stumbled out of the Shrine of Resurrection, it takes Impa a moment to gather herself again. “But then of course, day trips to the domains would then be possible... Princess?”

  Zelda hums her agreement, cheeks flushed proudly as she smiles at Link. “I, too, think we should make known as soon as possible to the other leaders that we plan to rebuild in Central Hyrule. Boost morale and offer work for those that want to help.

  “Some will be wary of someone claiming to be Princess Zelda,” Urbosa says, leaning her chin into her palm, but she doesn’t look worried about the idea. “But I know that Riju will have faith.”

  “My father as well,” Mipha adds.

  Revali shoots Link a sideways smirk, prompting, “Well?” 

  Link flounders for a moment before he understands what he means. “E-Elder Kaneli will give support?” he says, bewildered that Revali would rather him answer. “He did not doubt my own claims.”

  Wiggling in her seat, Purah points her chopsticks at Daruk. “And you?”

  Daruk scratches his head. “I do not know what the elders will think, but the commonfolk will certainly be on our side. And I’m sure my grandson will vouch for Link.” He eyes Purah warily, but she seems satisfied with his answer and returns to her meal. 

  Zelda gets to her feet to bow to them all. “Then will the Champions accompany me, to bolster confidence and attempt to reunify the kingdom?” 

  Urbosa laughs. “Sit down, little bird, you know we are behind you.” She pats Zelda’s head as she takes her seat again, blushing furiously. Link nudges her in encouragement.

  “We will have to be intentional with who we visit first,” Purah says, stealing a shrimp from Impa’s tray, her sister side-eyeing her resignedly. “We can’t give the illusion of favouritism.”

  “The Rito can wait.” Revali crosses his wings over his chest. “They will not be offended even being the last.”

  Mipha nods, “My father will also understand, but would appreciate a fast response; he will need time to talk some of the elders over.”

  “As with Riju: I can see a few of the older warriors putting up a fuss, but, with time, they will come ‘round.”

  Link listens to this all silently, not without agreement, but he is hit with the sudden realisation that he will be expected on these journeys as well, and will have to face the politics of the domains in ways he had not while on his own quest; he had been lucky the regions’ leaders were desperate for help when he’d first come to them, because he remembers nothing of the diplomacy education he must have received as a knight. 

  He jumps as feathers brush his knee under the table, Revali sending him a small smile. Link forces himself to relax and nod back, weaving his fingers with Revali’s; it’s a little weird, with appendages so different, but it’s comforting all the same. 

  “Linky should be alright to travel by Shrine,” Purah is saying when Link can focus back on the conversation, “but don’t overdo it; we have little knowledge when it comes to how Ganon’s wounds will heal.”

  He frowns. “I’m not an invalid,” he says softly, because he feels fine, better than he had many times before the final fight. 

  “But you push yourself,” Purah argues back, unbothered. “Highness, I expect you to keep him in line.”

  Mipha hides a smile behind a fin and glances at Link. “I will do my best, Lady Purah.”

  Link looks to Revali for help, but the Rito snorts and shakes his head. “You tried to fight Windblight with broken ribs; if you think I’m going to side with you, you’re as stupid as you look.”

  “Fine, then you can deal with Elder Kaneli on your own.”

  “Listen here, Hylian—”

  “Revali!” Mipha snaps, uncharacteristically stern. Instead of chastised, Reveli shakes his braids loftily and looks down his beak at her.

  “Even you, Your Highness, must struggle to hold a civil conversation with this runt.”

  Link gapes at him as Daruk starts to shovel gravel into his mouth uncomfortably. Urbosa snorts into her wine, and she seems to be the only one that realises Revali isn’t serious: Purah stands over the table with her spoon raised warningly, and Zelda claps a hand over her mouth. 

   But Revali has not let go of his hand, and Link finds himself slipping into a smile. 

  “I’m perfectly normal height by Hylan standards; aren’t even juvenile Rito five centimetres taller than you? On average.”

  Revali squawks in protest, releasing him to put both hands into Link’s hair instead. Zelda darts out as if to stop him, but freezes halfway when she realises Revali only means to muss it to the point that Link’s braid untangles, when Link wheezes on a laugh .

  “Urbosa, I don’t...” she murmurs, as Link inhales his humour and tries to regain some semblance of decorum in front of his friends. 

  He shoves off Revali’s hands and tries to pat his hair back down, but Revali gently catches his braid and weaves it around his fingers. Link’s throat closes, heart thudding, and he wonders if anyone but Zelda understands just how intimate such a gesture is.

  Nevermind that, does Revali know a Hylian would never do something like that in polite company? 

  But Zelda doesn’t look scandalised as he expects, just as curious as Mipha and Purah. It is Urbosa and Impa that stare with wide eyes and open mouths, Impa’s chopsticks dropping back to her tray with a clatter. 

  Revali smirks, meeting Impa’s gaze challengingly, as if daring her to comment, as Urbosa inhales wine and slams her fist onto the table. 

  There is a moment of shocked silence before Urbosa roars with laughter, Zelda jumping in her seat. “My dear Urbosa, what is the matter?” she asks with genuine concern, and something like relief floods Link’s bones; he supposes it stands to reason that Hylian Royalty would have different customs than the commoners. 

  Impa, on the other hand, seems to only now realise their relationship, gaze darting between Revali’s dare and Link’s plea to not say anything. The Champions have only just got back together again: he doesn’t want to think about how to navigate his half-memories of their friendships if they all start treating him differently for being tied to Revali.

  Before his face melts off with embarrassment, Link gently shakes away Revali’s grip, but takes the dropped hand into both of his own under the table so Revali knows he isn’t upset. The stupid, arrogant twinkle in his eye confirms Revali knows exactly what he’s doing.

   “You almost gave me a heart attack!” Link signs when they’re alone, the other Champions in conference with Impa and Purah to sort out a trade route for Hyrule Castle. He and Revali are warriors, not leaders, so even Daruk had not complained when Link excused himself; he doubts anyone had expected Revali to stick around in the first place. 

  Revali looks around Link’s room with his arms behind his back, a smirk that’s a little too soft tugging at his beak. “You never had a problem touching mine,” he says easily, inspecting a protection sigil Paya had scored into the wood of the lintel.

  “When we were alone,” Link huffs, stiffly sitting on the edge of his bed; his body must know Purah plans on removing the stitches that night, for how much his left side aches.

  He turns to Link, eyes darting over him in concern, even as he puts on his smug facade. “Ylla once told me how particular Hylians are about their hair, but Zelda did not seem bothered.”

  Link wrinkles his nose. “Royalty must have different customs.” Suddenly nervous, he raises his hands instead. “Where I’m from, only lovers touch each other like that.”

  “Is that not what we are?”

  Link’s heart stutters to a stop.

  “I did not take you for a blushing virgin, Link.”

   “I’m not!” he signs helplessly. “And, Goddesses, we’ve been through too much to try and hide, but the others—”

  Revali drops all pretence of humour as Link cuts himself off, moving towards the bed. “But the others what?”

  Link takes a deep little breath and drops his gaze. “I do not want to hide.”

  “Then why are you so startled? You have been wearing my feathers shamelessly around her for weeks.”

   “I don’t want to— overcomplicate things. With Zelda trying to find her feet, with all of you finding a place with your peoples, with Ganon, I—”

  “What are you scared of, Link?” Revali whispers, crouching in front of him, but not touching him, not yet. “You once said you did not mind the others knowing of our friendship, you wanted them to know: why is this any different?”

  Swallowing, Link glares at his scarred hands in his lap, wishing he had thought through this conversation before they’d had it. “I do not want them to question it.”

  Revali ducks his head to try to catch his eye. “What are you on about, Hylian? What is there to question?” Link waves his hand vaguely and Revali snatches it out of the air as he sighs. “I know you struggle with words, Link, but you cannot expect me—”

  “I don’t want them to tell me I can’t have this.”

  Revali chokes on his breath. “Why would they—? Oh, come now, Link.” Despite his bluster, Revali leans forward to lean their foreheads together, tone soft as he pulls Links hand into the warmth of his chest. “Do you really believe any of them will tell you you don’t deserve— What, happiness?”

  Link leans firmly into Revali’s browbone. “You know what happened the last time I was this happy,” he finally admits in a whisper, feeling Revali’s breath ghost his cheeks. 

  “It’ll take a lot more than Ganon to take me from you this time,” Revali whispers back fiercely and grips Link’s hand tight in promise. “To take any of us. The Champions will not be so easily defeated again.”

  Forcing himself to nod, Link pulls away enough to tangle his free hand in the feathers on the side of Revali’s face, his Hylian braid wrapped firmly around his palm. Revali certainly understands the meaning now, if he didn’t before, and all but melts into him. 

  “You foolish Hylian,” he murmurs, pressing the ridge of his beak to the length of Link’s throat before pulling away. “No one will understand better than the Champions. And besides,” he chuckles, “I can’t well marry you if none of them know.”

  Link whacks his shoulder lightly.