Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Link woke up suddenly, beads of sweat rolling down his forehead. Was it a dream or? He went to wipe his brow with his right arm. Before he saw it. It wasn’t a dream. Either that or he was still dreaming. The darkened colour of his arm, damaged and infected by the malice.

Link sat there for a moment, the reality of everything having sunk in. All he and Zelda wanted to do was to explore the ruins under Hyrule castle and try and figure out if that was where the constant specs of malice appeared from. They always appeared in the corner of rooms and in the darkened places of the castle, and always in the rooms they had already repaired and made fit for living again. But no matter what they did, the malice always appeared again. At first both he and Zelda thought it might be some of the leftover malice from around Hyrule, but all of Zelda’s research on it made it clear that this was a different type of Malice. And that’s what led them to the underground caverns.

When they had first entered, everything was going to plan. But not for all that long.

They just had to have awakened Ganon, didn’t they?

And then that’s when everything went downhill. Malice had overtaken Link’s arm, causing him to drop the master sword down a hole leading to who knows where, not that he was even sure if he’d be able to wield it anymore, with the darkness of the malice inside of him. A cave in had caused Zelda to fall into the same place as his master sword. He had called out her name in hopes of her still being alright, but either she was too far away to hear him. Or… He didn’t want to think about the or.

But the worst thing by far, was accidentally awakening who they think was Ganon. The Gerudo symbols and him being sealed away was proof enough, but the evil they felt radiating off of him as he awakened seemed almost to solidify this fact.

It really had all gone wrong.

Somehow Link had managed to pull himself out of that cave, his arm a burning rage like nothing he had ever felt before. He just wanted to make it into the castle, but that was impossible at that point, as apparently waking up Ganon, also meant losing Hyrule castle yet again. And right after they had gotten it back.

With so many failures on him, and no clue how he was still able to stand, Link had dragged himself across Hyrule field to Riverside Stable. As he had no memory of talking to anyone or asking for a bed or anything. He assumed that he must have passed out either on the way, or once he was already there.

He sat up in his bed as he silently examined his arm. It still burned like nothing he had ever experienced, but it almost didn’t hurt as much now. It was obvious how much it had changed. The grey colour had stretched up, reaching well past his elbow. It looked almost as if parts of the skin had shrunken down leaving Sheikah style symbols on his arm. It almost reminded him of the countless Sheikah monks he had seen while trying to rescue Zelda all that time ago. But they had been sitting in those shrines for 10,000 years. He knew malice was dangerous, but this was a whole other level. The fact that it had eaten through him so quickly scared him. Not that he wanted to admit it. And the fact that Zelda had fallen down that chasm. What is a worse fate with malice had befallen her. For the first time in his life, Link felt utterly defeated. Even before when the world was being overtaken by Calamity Ganon, he had Zelda by his side. When he had awakened in the shrine of resurrection, he had the help from his previous companions to help him get Zelda back. But this time. Who would he turn to for help?

This was his fault.

He had agreed with Zelda to go into the caves.

He hadn’t stopped her even when he felt a worry in the back of his mind.

This was HIS fault.

Whether it was out of curiosity or something else entirely, he felt the corrupted remnants of his arm. The pain that shot through him was worse than it already was, causing him to want to yelp in pain. He stopped himself and only winced, deciding that it would be better if he left it alone.

He wanted to get up and walk away from this place. He wasn’t sure if his arm could be dangerous to anyone else. But he simply did not have the energy. Just the time of being awake and piecing together all the events had worn him out, and he could feel himself almost passing out again.

If he wanted a way to fix this. He needed energy first.

He allowed himself to lay back into the bed, and almost immediately passed out again.

Chapter Text

Link awoke again to the throbbing of his arm. He sighed as he sat up. Pain was something he was used to with all his time as a knight. But never like this. Never the constant throbbing that never seemed to go away.

“Ah, you’re finally awake,” Link heard a man say walking towards him. “I found you passed out just near here around a week ago.” Well that answered his question of if he had made it here or not. Link looked up at the guy, trying not to show that he was in any pain. He could tell that he either owned the stable or at least worked there with the way he was holding himself. “Thanks for that.” Link started to reach for his wallet. “How much do I owe you for the week?” he asked. The man immediately shook his head.

“I’m not going to charge someone who I found on the side of the road. You needed a bed or something. And that’s what you got from me. I don’t need any payment or anything. Save your rupees. You look as if you’ll need them.” This wasn’t the first time that other Hylians had shown him such kindness, but it was the first time that he hated the kindness shown to him.

Did this man know that he was looking at the hero, turned villain?

Did this man know that he may have caused the destruction of Hyrule, right after it got back on its feet?

Link did not feel as if he deserved this man’s kindness.

But Link knew better. He had met many people like this on his travels and they were always the same. No matter how much he would offer to pay, Link knew the man would never accept any payment. “Thank you for your kindness,” Link said, although he wasn’t sure if he sounded all too convinced with that statement. Link began to get up knowing that he didn’t want to take advantage of this man’s kindness. “Hey, wait just a second there young man.” Said the man. “You don’t need to leave so soon. Get some more rest before you leave, at least until your arm heals a bit.” The man reached out to touch Link’s arm. A thousand terrible thoughts flashed through his mind. He knew how dangerous malice was when it was simply on the ground. What if what he had was contagious? What if it did the same damage as malice did to living things and harmed them. He pulled his arm away from the man, causing an extra jolt of pain to shoot through his arm. But Link didn’t care. He needed to make sure no-one touched it. He needed to make sure he didn’t hurt anyone else. He’d already lost Zelda. As soon as he had seen Link jerk his arm back, the man retracted his as well. “If you are going to head out, then you had best be prepared for what has happened in the past few days.” Link’s mind started worrying. Had Ganon already wreaked havoc on the land?

“While you were out, parts of the land rose skyward. No-one can explain why. But for some reason all the pieces that rose up were underground and look to be some weird looking structures. The structures aren’t really a problem, it’s more the uneven ground that is causing problems right now.” The man explained. Link wasn’t sure what to think of this. If the structures were ancient ruins underground then it might be Ganon. But were there really multiple ruins linked to Ganon under Hyrule. It seemed more likely to be Sheikah to him. But then again the Yiga were Sheikah once. But one thing was consistent. This happened after the caves. No matter the purpose of these structures, Link felt as if he was the one who caused them to appear. “Thanks for the warning.” Link told the man, before heading out into Hyrule.

His arm hurt like hell. No. Not like hell. He had felt that pain before. This was worse.

His arm hurt like? Like getting it dunked in malice.

Since leaving the stable, Link had tried to keep away from people. He was worried. He had never seen it documented that it could infect people before.

He was currently a danger.

He didn’t deserve to be the hero.

What hero he was anyway. All he had done so far was cause problems. His mind was telling him to go and hide away somewhere isolated from everyone, and that sounded like the best bet right now.
He had removed part of his undershirt that was on his right arm, due to it causing him too much pain. It was weird, but he swore that it had gotten bigger than before. It was halfway between his shoulder and elbow, right? So why was it almost on his shoulder now?

He was going to buy some bandages and try to cover it up. But if just his sleeve was already causing him pain, then he’d try and avoid causing himself more pain than he needed to.

“Now onto the real reason I came out here.” He thought to himself. “Let’s see what the deal is with all these pieces of land.” He could see that the man from the stable was right. The ground looked as if chunks of it had suddenly just vanished. But no 2 of the spaces were too close to each other. It was truly a strange sight. What was even stranger were the markings all around the holes. They were green in colour and looked almost Sheikah-ish. No not Sheikah. This was different. But Link wasn’t sure how. But they looked almost swirlier. Similar. But different. This would definitely be something to look into later.

Link’s thoughts were brought to a grinding halt when he walked past a bush. Usually a branch gently brushing past his arm would be no problem. But it was his right arm. A jolt of pain went up his arm.
He looked at it. In pure shock, he blinked his eyes multiple times.

What he was seeing couldn’t be real. It just couldn’t be.

Please don’t let it be real.

The malice corruption was spreading.

It had been below the end of his sleeve beforehand, but the end of it had disappeared under it. He sat down right where he was standing and sighed. He wasn’t sure what to do now. He closed his eyes and took a couple deep breaths.

“Link” he heard his name being called from inside his head. He had this once before. The voice of Zelda before he had saved her. But it wasn’t Zelda. It was a male voice. “Link you need to listen.” The voice spoke again, and Link could feel him being pulled to sleep. Almost as if by the voice.