Chapter Text
Faron Tower took hours. Hours.
First there was the entire frustrating process of shooting down the wizzrobe guarding it, much harder when his arm was shaking with the strain of drawing the bow. Then he realized that there weren’t any platforms low enough for him to reach without exhausting himself, and he had to find another way up. There was a cliff nearby he could jump from, but that took just as much effort to reach, and there were monsters on it.
And it wouldn’t stop fucking raining. Link ached, and it didn’t help that he’d barely gotten any sleep the night before, kept up by unrelenting spasms despite Mipha’s best attempts to settle him.
He took a break just before he finally jumped onto the tower, late in the afternoon, to irritably crack a durian on a rock and rip it open, getting at the stinky flesh inside. The juices got his fingers sticky, and when he was done he tossed the rind off the edge just to watch it fall.
Daruk was making a valiant effort not to laugh. “Perhaps you could take a longer break, little brother,” he suggested gently, eyes glittering with mirth. “You seem to be in a bit of a temper.”
Link grunted, and Revali snorted loudly. Link scowled at him before he could offer unwanted comment, and decided he was still hungry.
He went for his slate and tapped around until he found what he was looking for.
“Perhaps you should consider first-” Mipha said quickly, because apparently she knew what he was going to do even before he did.
Link took the raw, whole Hyrule bass and bit into it, ripping open the skin and flesh, too impatient to bother preparing it. Revali made a sound of disgust and flew away, and Link felt a ripple of irrational satisfaction.
It wasn’t good, but it was food, which was enough for Link for now. Mipha covered her face as he worked his way through it, and when he was done he tossed it off the cliff with the rind.
None of this actually made him feel any better. He folded up his legs and stared at Faron Tower, which would probably take at least half an hour to climb even from this far up.
I don’t think I want to stay in Faron very long, he confessed. He liked the wildlife and the flora, the hearty durians and the bananas and the thistles, and there were a lot of radishes, which he appreciated. But he just felt so awful; he was pretty sure it was going to start raining again soon even though it had only stopped about ten minutes before.
“Then move along,” Urbosa said, soft and simple. “There’s a fishing village some ways east of the woods. Zelda’s mentioned a shrine or two in that area.”
Link rubbed his face, ignoring the smearing gross on his cheeks. I should probably explore the coast, he said sullenly, and then hid his face in his elbow, blocking out the light. His skin throbbed faintly.
There was a beat of silence.
“You should shelter for a bit, little brother,” Daruk said at last, quietly. “You might feel better with a break.”
Link shook his head without looking, ignored the nausea to stand up, and finally launched himself off the cliff, catching on the mesh of the tower walls with a grunt.
If he favored his right arm as he climbed up, that wasn’t anyone’s business but his own.
At the top of the tower, once he’d downloaded the region’s map, he sat down and leaned against the pedestal, scowling at the large assembly of forests and lakes that had opened up for display.
He looked at Mipha, blank and exhausted, and signed meekly, I like Kass.
You do like Kass, she agreed gently, expression soft with sympathy. He won’t mind if you miss meeting him, but I think you would be happier if you did.
Link sighed, enlarged the map, and worked through it until he found Calora Lake. He marked the location with a beacon, and then curled up and stared at the floor for a minute.
You have salve left, don’t you? Mipha asked him, with a look that was suddenly too gentle. Some of that chu jelly and safflina that you made in Gerudo Town.
He tossed his head irritably, and then deflated and nodded. Some. He met her eyes, suddenly anxious and embarrassed. Don’t let Urbosa see.
Mipha’s expression shadowed briefly, but she nodded, and within a couple minutes she’d coaxed Urbosa into going with her to scout ahead for the next stable. Urbosa was frowning a little – she’d clearly caught at least some of the conversation – but she went easily enough.
It was then, with just Daruk left, that Link stripped his tunic off with a painful grunt that made Daruk sit up sharply.
“You’re not hurt, are you?” he asked, suddenly serious. “If anyone could hide an injury from the four of us, it’d be you.”
Link shook his head, made to just move on, and then patted his shoulder gingerly.
Hurts, he explained shortly, and then fumbled for his slate to flip through his inventory. He’d made a batch of the cool safflina salve before leaving Gerudo Town, and he still had most of it left. He paused just as he took it out, set the jar beside him, and added, It’s fine. It’s just uncomfortable.
There was a brief pause while Link fumbled the jar open, and then Daruk huffed softly.
“We haven’t really been great brothers to you, have we?” Daruk mused, leaning back on his hands. “If you don’t feel like you can tell us things like this.”
I just did, Link snapped defensively. The salve was sticky and gross, and it tingled gently on his fingertips. He brought it straight to his shoulder anyway, smoothing it over the roughened skin, and then set to work getting to the rest of… well, the rest of the worst of it.
“You did, I appreciate it,” Daruk agreed with a chuckle, lacing his fingers behind his neck, head tilted to regard Link thoughtfully. “I just worry, that’s all. I had a little boy your age, and he was always complaining to his friends the moment anything was wrong, even something simple. You’ve always been a lot more reserved than my boy, though.”
Standoffish, Link signed, with an echo of a memory that felt like Zelda. Daruk shrugged.
“By some accounts, I guess. I always figured you were just private, myself.”
Link stayed silent for a moment, his hands occupied spreading the salve over his stomach, his forearms, his other shoulder, even reaching around and trying to get some of his back. He could even feel it starting to work, his skin loosening a little so it didn’t stretch so awfully; it didn’t make the pain go away, but it sanded off the edges in a way Link was already grateful for.
It wasn’t this bad when I woke up, Link said at last. I didn’t even notice it much at that point. It was just normal.
“Remember what I said, little brother,” Daruk encouraged. “Nothing to be ashamed of. Urbosa’s from a warrior culture; she’ll understand.”
Link hummed unhappily, finally capping the salve jar and putting it away, and didn’t answer. Instead, he just crossed his legs and waited for the salve to do its job before he put his tunic back on. Mipha and Urbosa would be back soon enough.
“You can sleep in the stable,” Mipha encouraged him, an edge of desperation to her voice. Link shook his head without even looking over, kneeling down to crawl through the hole he’d opened in the wall, where a shrine glowed brightly.
I don’t want to, he countered childishly. The skin of his chest and shoulder burned and throbbed, and at the same time his whole body felt chilled, soaked through from the rain. Exhaustion gnawed at the edges of his thoughts, and his body ached to move. He felt jittery and frustrated.
He wasn’t going to sleep.
“Let him go, Mipha,” Daruk soothed. “He’ll wear himself out eventually.”
Mipha made a soft, stressed sound, and Link couldn’t help but glance back at her, faintly guilty, even as he pressed the Sheikah slate to the shrine to open the way. She was tugging anxiously on her tail, but she met his eyes when he looked, sighed, and gave him a wan smile.
Link sighed, nodded back, and disappeared into the shrine.
He had to admit he was dreading it a little bit; a lot of the shrines were physically demanding, and he didn’t have a lot of energy or strength for that at the moment. He was worried, a little, that he would have to leave and return later.
Link looked around slowly when he touched down - there were no endless falls that he could see, no ladders or jumps. There was a see-saw in front of him, easily frozen in place by stasis, and then another past that where all he had to do was brace himself against the fall when he weighed it down and then freeze it too.
He could see another treasure chest, high up on one of the walls, but he didn’t need it, or could come back for it later. If all he did was navigate to the monk, he wouldn’t need to put any weight on his shoulder at all.
It was more of a relief than Link wanted to admit.
He weighed the second-last seesaw down, froze the final one in place, and took it at a jog. When that was done, he bowed once to the monk before he reached out to break the stasis cube.
Link was starting to wonder about the way that none of the shrines had featured something that he just couldn’t do.
“Your resourcefulness in overcoming this trial speaks to the promise of a hero,” the monk rasped, and it rang with as much sincerity and conviction as every other had. Link closed his eyes, accepting the spirit orb, and opened them again just in time to watch the monk dissolve away.
Outside of the shrine, Link took a deep breath before crawling back out into the rain, grimacing as it soaked his clothes all over again. Mipha turned quickly towards him to look him over, eyes wide and anxious, and he nodded absently before taking off, ignoring the stable entirely in favor of heading towards Lake Floria.
He caught the tail end of Revali and Daruk’s conversation as he approached, cocking his head slightly to listen.
“-don’t very well see what good we’re doing here,” Revali was saying, soft and frustrated. “Is this our purpose from now on? We’ve been demoted to moral support and scouts?” He sounded almost more scathing about the second job than the first. Link slowed down.
“If that’s what we can do,” Daruk said calmly. “I’m planning on seeing this through to the end one way or another. Aren’t you?”
Revali scoffed loudly. “Obviously.”
“And it’s good for him,” Daruk added, voice softening a little. “If there’s one thing the kid doesn’t need right now, it’s to be all alone in the world.” Link’s heart skipped a beat. “We’ve put enough on Link already. He was supposed to have a lot more on his side.”
Revali exhaled. “I hate this.”
“Me too,” Daruk said quietly.
Link didn’t realize he’d stopped until Mipha cleared her throat quietly, and then he shook himself and started forward again. Urbosa was on the bridge, frowning up at the cascade of waterfalls.
She turned to look over as they approached, and then waved her hand. “Calora Lake should be up there somewhere, but it’ll be a trial of its own to get there in this weather.”
Link took one look, and then turned around, sat down, and shook his head, dangling his feet miserably off the edge of the bridge. His hair stuck to his face, and rain dripped down his back from the trailing end of his ponytail. His head threatened to spin from exhaustion, and he. Hurt.
Daruk sat down beside him and didn’t say anything, just stayed. He could hear the other three talking behind him, but didn’t bother to listen to what they said.
Goddess, he wasn’t sure he could do this.
His ears picked up on the distant crackle of electricity before Daruk addressed him, gentle and cheered. “Hey. Look up for me, won’t you, little brother?”
Link looked up, and immediately a light and beautiful sense of wonder filled him from the heart out. He twisted around, instinctively trying to see better, and heard Daruk chuckle.
Overhead, a storm dragon sailed through the air, cutting through it more gracefully than the sweetest Rito dancer. Sparks of electricity jumped off her, making the rain around her body dance with light. She didn’t make a sound, but the lake glowed with her presence.
Farosh, Link signed before he realized he knew it, watching her glide away, twisting through the air. Her feet kicked languidly, swimming through the storm. Daruk chuckled softly.
“The very one,” he murmured. “We Gorons mostly see Dinraal, up on the mountain, but Farosh is a thing of beauty herself.”
He sounded wistful. Link turned around, crossed his legs, and watched Farosh until she disappeared into the water; it wasn’t until she was gone that he remembered he needed a scale from her, and even then it was a distant, detached thought at best.
Finally, he blinked, looking around at the others – Urbosa looked just as fixated on the place where Farosh had disappeared, and Mipha was mirroring the posture he’d kept earlier, feet dangling off the edge.
Revali caught his eye and sighed.
“I’ve only ever seen Dinraal once,” he said, as if that were the end of it. Link almost smiled. Typical Revali.
The smile disappeared, and he was on his feet and spinning around before he consciously registered what had startled him; the fire flickering through the trees helped him arrange the last few moments into a timeline that made sense. Lightning had struck something in the forest, and if he strained his ears past the rainfall, he could hear the commotion of people in a panic.
Without hesitation, he took off back toward the stable.
By the time he reached it, the rainfall and the quick reactions of the stablehands had already solved the problem; the fire was little more than a scorch mark on the giant horse head, one of dozens that Link hadn’t noticed earlier. At the base of the stable, a woman was standing with her arms wrapped around herself, shivering in the cold as she stared up at the stable roof.
She tried to smile as Link approached, though, shuffling her feet.
“We’re all good here,” she said, the slightest tremble to her voice. “This happens all the time. But thanks.” Link tilted his head, and she huffed. “We get struck at least once nearly every time there’s a lightning storm. I only wish I knew why…”
“It’s because there’s an axe on top of the stable,” Revali informed Link tartly. Link almost laughed.
Then, to Link’s surprise and pleasure, Revali flicked one wing off to the side, where a lookout post was stations, just high enough that Link could maybe retrieve the axe with magnesis. Link gave Revali a small, weary nod, and then turned towards it. He hesitated at the base of the ladder, and then, decisively, clasped the side of it with his right hand instead of a rung; he’d need it to keep him steady, but he didn’t think he could bear to climb with it right now.
In another ten minutes, he was up and then back down, found the woman inside the stable now, sheltering from the rain, and held out the axe.
She stared at him blankly, and he pointed up, indicating the roof. Her mouth fell open.
“Did you take this off the roof?” she squeaked. He nodded. She covered her face and moaned. “Oh, that’s basically a lightning rod, isn’t it? No wonder…” She shook her head. “I’m Cima- thank you, really, thank you for taking that down. I was sure the stable was going to burn down one of these days.” She accepted the axe gingerly, and then considered him. “Hang on, I owe you big for this- don’t move a muscle, I’ll be right back.”
Link turned to watch as she darted away, leaned the axe against a wall, and then dug through a chest for a minute. Finally, she returned with an ugly fish-shaped hat in her arms.
“It’s a rubber helm,” she explained, offering it to him. “My ma found it in a chest once, but none of us really wear it because it’s, uh…” She gestured vaguely with the helmet. “But it helps keep shocks off. Please, take it.”
Revali was laughing at him. Link sighed and accepted it, giving Cima a silent one-handed thank you. She giggled, visibly embarrassed.
“Yeah, it’s not much. But really, thank you.”
Link nodded solemnly, and then made his escape, tucking the rubber helmet away on his way out; it would probably be good to have. He didn’t realize until he was halfway down the road again that he’d maybe been kind of rude, then decided that he was too tired to care.
There was a Korok puzzle he’d noticed earlier in the middle of the bridge, and he sat on the edge and shot balloons until his friends caught up.
It was still raining.
There’s a shrine behind a waterfall, Link signed flatly, staring straight ahead at the large falls under Riola Spring. He could see the orange glow reflecting off of the water.
“Where?” Mipha asked quietly, and he pointed. His skin itched and ached. He needed to move. He was so fucking tired.
“Well-spotted,” Urbosa offered, and she was frowning at him. “Perhaps you could mark it on your map for another time.”
He wanted to scream. Even Urbosa was treating him like glass now.
(He felt like glass.)
Without responding, Link pushed himself off the platform and caught the wind in his paraglider, sailing down to a trail of rocks below. There was a Korok flower to chase on top of one of the pillars, and floating platforms with lizalfos guards to shoot down.
The skin of his chest stretched painfully when he drew his bow. He clenched his jaw and pulled harder until it threatened to snap in his hands; he’d need to change it out soon.
Link swam, and jumped, and climbed and hated every protestation of his body with a livid resentment that he just hadn’t felt when he was sore with overexertion, or worn out, or even when his ears screamed at him for the softest whispers.
The rush of the waterfall was too loud. The wind cut into his skin. He could hear the squeak of the octo balloons as if they were directly in his ear. The sky was lightening in the beginnings of dawn.
Link wanted to hit something. Instead, he nocked an arrow and took aim.
Silently, Mipha picked on ahead, cutting easily through the water, staying one step ahead of him as he struggled through the same space. Revali went on ahead too, and when Link was finally getting close, he called out just so Link could see him perched on a platform, from which he beckoned, projecting such a deliberate boredom that Link was… almost certain he was being genuinely helpful.
He looked at Mipha. Mipha smiled at him gently and gestured for him to go. Link went.
When he struggled onto the fenced ledge, he could see what Revali had wanted him to find: a cavern that led behind the waterfall, the soft glow of the shrine just visible.
His left knee twinged, threatening to send him tumbling, but he beelined for the shrine anyway.
Inside was another shrine that, while it promised to be tricky, was at least not physically strenuous. The balls he had to move weren’t unmanageably heavy, and he could take his sword in his left hand and swing to activate the switch, watching the results with a hawk’s eye.
It still took almost an hour and a great many more tries than it should have; he was so tired that his timing was awful, and he kept having to retrieve the balls. It was frustrating and overwhelming and twice he just laid down flat on his back to calm himself down, but eventually he stood back up, put the ball back on the launcher, and swung his sword into the switch.
The hum of the new spirit orb in his chest was oddly comforting.