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Link wakes to the sound of music.
Or maybe ‘wakes’ is not quite the right word.
He can tell that he is, in reality, still sleeping. Tell that this is a dream.
Everything around him has that distinct, detail-less quality. The forest he finds himself in is more a suggestion than a fact. There are fuzzy, watercolor columns of brown which Links supposes are tree trunks. A couple of splotches of different shades of greens to suggest grass, leaves. An indistinct, blue sky. Inky black shadows.
But none of it has sharp lines, distinctions, details.
As he looks around, all the colors seem to run together, blending into even less distinguishable shapes and colors.
Then there's also the fact that he fell asleep beside Zelda last night, safe in Skyloft on one of the many trips they took between their old home and their new one on the surface.
So yes, he knows he’s dreaming.
The question is why.
The only dreams that Link can remember in detail were the ones…
The ones he had right before he lost Zelda.
Which… doesn't bode well for his current situation.
Despite how beautiful the music that surrounds him is.
And it is beautiful. The music. Unlike the simple impression of the grove, Link can actually pick out a few specifics of the song. He can catch the rhythm, a fast triplicate– 1 2 3, 1 2 3, 1 2 3– being beaten out on a drum. He can hear something stringed, actually, two stringed somethings, one being strummed to the beat while the second plucks out a fast melody.
He can also pick out a direction from which the music is coming from.
And so he follows it.
He walks, weightlessly, into the smudge of ink beneath the watercolor trees. Walks through the misty dark for a while, the sound of the music getting closer and closer, until he breaks into another clearing.
Much like the first clearing, everything is more like a painter’s pallet than an actual forest. But beside the fuzzy browns and hazy greens, Link can also make out people in this clearing. A whole crowd of indistinct people, skin colors and clothes mixing and blending and overlapping and separating out once more.
Link steps toward the crowd. Places a hand on one of the people’s shoulders. To move them. To speak with them. Link isn’t exactly sure. But he watches as his hand simply falls through the color that makes up the other person instead of landing on anything solid. Anything real.
Figures.
And so Link walks forward into the crowd, through the crowd, watercolor paint rolling off his skin like rainwater off a Loftwing, until he makes his way to the front, where the music is loudest.
And there–
There Link can see the first things that actually look real.
Or maybe he should say the first person who looks real.
Unlike everything in this dream, She is all sharp lines, distinction, details. Link can make out everything about her, from her high ponytail of flaming red hair, to her magenta tunic with it’s intricate, flames of violet embroidery.
And the gold. The gold looped through her hair, pierced in her ears, jangling around her wrists and ankles and edges of her tunic as she dances to the beat. She is an instrument onto herself, her bare feet pounding into the earth beneath her in perfect rhythm, every movement punctuated by the chime of her jewelry.
She glides between her musicians, a stomp to the drummers beat, swayed arms to match the guitar, chime chime chime as she clinks her jewelry with the lyre’s run.
Her eyes flash open, bright embers of swirling red and orange against her dark skin, pinning Link in place. She smiles, bright and burning, and twirls her way over.
“Finally! You’re here!” She laughs and it sounds like crackling flames. “Dance with me, Oh Chosen Hero.”
Her hands grab his own, her skin burning his as she does, and drags him into the song.
“Took you long enough,” she starts. She drags him around and around, swinging him to the rhythm.“I was getting tired of waiting.”
“Who are you?” he asks a little dazedly, something about the watercolor world and the music and the spinning making him feel very very dizzy. “Why were you waiting?”
She laughs again, loud and boisterous, and twirls away from him.
“You know who I am, Oh Chosen Hero,” her voice goes deeper with his title, but the serious tone is undercut with humor. She’s laughing at him , he realizes. “Or, at the very least, you know of me. Collected my sacred flames to power up Little Sister’s sword, if I remember correctly.”
...Sacred Flame?
But that would mean–
“Anyway–” and shes back in his space, bringing her searing heat as she grabs his hands once again, leading him up and down and up again, until the two are in rhythm once more. “ Why I’m waiting for you is a much more interesting question.”
She takes one of his arms, pulls it above his head, and twists, and Link finds the world revolving revolving revolving, all the colors melting together as the musicians increase in tempo until it all becomes noise and–
“One of mine is planning something.” The voice comes from right next to him and everywhere and nowhere and inside and out. Lyrical and rhythmic but searing, hot, burning, please make it stop! “Something big. Something that could rattle the stars. And quite frankly, as much as I love a good show of power, there is one more thing I love more: A fair fight.”
More and more red bleeds into the other colors. Gnawing at the tree trunks, clawing into the greens. It seeps into the sky with swirls of black, smoke and fire and embers and nothing else.
The music has become a manic, swinging faster and faster and faster–
“You’ll need my sisters for that. In fact, I’m sure the know-it-all would like to tell you more about it. So, one last warning. More like a piece of friendly advice, really…”
She releases his arm and Link feels as the momentum in his body sends him down into the dirt and mud.
However, though he has blessedly stopped spinning, the world still swirls, the colors still mixing, reds and browns and greens and blacks melding together, making everything go darker and darker and darker.
And there she stands, a girl with red-fire hair and ember orange eyes, dirt and mud caked on her feet and legs from the strength of her dance. Behind her, the musicians finally fall silent, staring at Link with faces he can’t make out.
The girl smiles as the blackness overtakes everything, her hair and eyes gleaming in the dark.
“Knock him dead before he returns the favor.”
...
The next time Link comes to, he thinks he might have actually woken up.
It is, at the very least, dark. Night, as opposed to the middle of the day in a forest he has never seen.
However, a blink of his eyes and a turn of his head reveals that that is all it is.
All anything around him is.
Night.
Above, the sky is alight with more stars than Link has ever seen.
Than Link thought could even exist in the sky at once.
Winking and twinkling, clusters of them glitter and glow as they trace their way through the navy blue heavens. Nebulas swirl, spitting sparks of purple and pink into the galaxy. Solar systems rotate, around and around and around their red and yellow and white and blue suns. Comets and meteors are born and sprint and stutter and die faster than Link can blink while moons and planets glide slowly together, eternal partners in their weightless waltz– 1 2 3, 1 2 3, 1 2 3.
Link feels himself take an awestruck step back and is surprised by the splash that accompanies the movement. A quick glance below reveals a thin layer of water where the ground should be. It is dark, darker than the sky, and numbingly cold where it laps around Link’s ankles.
Cold as ice.
Cold as glass.
Cold as a mirror.
And when Link forces himself to pause his fascinated movements, when his legs freeze in place below him and the water finally stills, he can see just how apt of a descriptor ‘mirror’ is.
Because when the silvery ripples fade, ironing themselves out, the water reflects the heavens perfectly.
Above, the stars march ever onward past the horizon. Below, they glide back around to the other side, ready to emerge once again.
It is a cycle. A perfect circle. The cosmos in perfect rhythm and harmony and order.
And in the middle of it all stands Link.
Two Links.
Identical.
Mirror images of each other, each sprouting from where the other stands, taking turns staring up at the sky or down into the depths in wonder.
It is during one of these turns, as Link once again pries his eyes from the heavens to look down below him that for a second, a split second , a worry enters his mind.
A fear that if he takes another step, creates another wave in the dark water, that it will be reflected up above. A ripple effect that crashes through the stars, breaking up solar systems, sending quasars spinning, stars colliding. A fear that if he were to fall backwards, fall back into the waters, the he would just keep falling. Falling through the reflected sky, deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper, forever lost to cycle and stars and cold and inevitable movement of the cosmos and–
“Worry not, Chosen Hero. That will not come to pass.”
Link is not sure if he would describe the words that wash over him as having a voice. The sentences simply manifest in his brain, no inflection, no gentle timber to accompany the soothing words, or really, any tone at all to accompany what has been said.
The words simply… are.
Almost self evident.
Inevitable.
Regardless, Link looks for a source.
Scours the stars, searches in the depth below. Takes step after step, the mirror broken, ruined, shattered, as he splashes through the stars.
It takes him a while to spot Her.
He almost wouldn’t have been able to if it weren't for Her eyes. They hover at least 30 feet above the ground, bright and massive and glowing an ethereal aquamarine. No iris. No pupil. No scalera. Just two gleaming sapphires, hard and faceted, angled to perfection.
Unlike the rest of this place, this snowglobe of stars sent in constant, perfect motion, her eyes remain stationary.
The rest of Her however, is more difficult to see. Her navy blue skin is nearly translucent and the only way that Link can tell where the sky ends and she begins is by the slightly darker tint stars gain as they phase through her form.
Her hair, if he can even call it that, is a cloud of space dust settled up around her eyes. Parts of it dark, as though hiding black holes in their depths, while others glitter and gleam in the light of the galaxy, like stars themselves. The mass of it flows around her head, a mist of black and blue and cyan and purple, as though she is weightless. Or underwater.
“You have joined me,” The words exist in his mind again, cool and precise. “I knew you would.”
Link takes a step forward. It radiates through the galaxy at his feet.
“You’re Nayru,” he says, voice more hesitant than he would like. “Din… Din said something was happening?”
“Indeed. There is one who is bending the rules I have set forth. Leaping millions of miles of space in a bound. Traversing the Ifs. Treating time as a thing to be explored, rather than experienced.”
“And… You want me to stop it? You’re going to help me stop it?”
“I am going to help you all stop it.” A comet slashes across where her face would be, a suggestion of a quicksilver grin. “Even if I have to break a few of my own laws to do so.”
Link feels himself take a step back.
The numbing cold of the water below somehow feels colder.
“I–” he feels a shiver wind its way up his spine. “I don’t understand.”
“No. You don't.” Self evident. Absolute. “Mortals rarely do.”
A force swipes the legs out from under Link and hes falling falling falling–
With a splash, his back hits the water, the impact and the cold forcing the air from his lungs as the numbness crawls over his skin, into his veins. He tries to sit up, tries to use his arms and legs to push back against whatever surface he had been walking on under the water before but…
But there is nothing there.
The silvery water fully envelopes him, washing over his face, pushing down on his chest, forcing him deeper and deeper down into the water, into the stars, into the sky.
He reaches an arm out. Watches as his fingers brush the surface, tracing the path of shooting star.
And then his eyes slam shut as he falls and falls and falls.
“But you will in time.”
…
When Link wakes for the third time, he doesn't even entertain the possibility that he is actually awake.
He is in a forest once more, though, not the forest from the beginning.
Where Link would have described the first as a watercolor impression, colors and splotches in roughly the right places to mimic a forest, this one… this one is almost too lush, too full of detail, too alive.
If Link had to attribute a word to it, it would be overgrown. Above, a dense canopy of green blots out the sun, leaving the understory in dark, misty shade. Moss and mushrooms and lichen seem to sprout from every available surface, popping up through the mulch, caressing the sides of trees, dangling from branches, slowly blanketing rocks in spongy softness, both alive and choking the life from everything around them.
There is not a moment that isn’t occupied by sound, whether that be the creak of wood as wind brushes past, the squawk and caw and song of birds, the chirp and whistle of insects, the haunting wail of a deer, a river, a choir of toads, so much sound and movement that it’s nearly defining, sending a pounding into Link’s head– 1 2 3, 1 2 3, 1 2 3–
Everything is so alive.
Maybe even too alive.
“That’s funny. I’ve never heard that complaint before.”
Link whirls at the voice.
He hadn’t even noticed that he wasn’t alone.
Maybe because She blends in so well.
Like everything here, she is draped in green and brown and shadow. Foliage seems to sprout from her olive skin; fronds and leaves and moss clothing her, clinging to her, from neck to ankle. Half of her face looks at him with a closed mouth smile, her eyes bright and warm, like dappled sunlight through leaves.
The other half of her face is obscured, partially by the dark shadow of the canopy, and partially by the fluffy, cascade of green moss that grows from her head like hair. Flowers and thorns and curls of vine snake themselves between every mossy ringlet and when Link looks closer, he can see the flash of butterfly wings and the reflective shine of beetle shells skittering about in her hair as well.
She smiles at him then, her teeth bone white.
“I’m sorry,” Her voice is soft, reedy. Wind through branches. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
More bleached bone teeth and a tilt of her head, sending a plume of pollen into the air.
“And here I was about to apologize on behalf of my sisters.”
“Its okay,” Link says, though none of this dream has been even remotely okay. “You’re Farore, right?
“Right,” she agrees with a nod. “I’m sure you have questions.”
She laughs and for some reason, it comes out rattling. Hollow. A tree with heart rot.
“Din was always better with actions than words,” She hums. “And Nayru is usually too caught up in her own thoughts to even think of expressing them to others. I love them, but communicating with those of the living world was never their strong suit.”
“Din said something was coming,” Link starts, relaying the scant details he has managed to cling to. “That it was powerful. And Nayru… I think she said it was breaking her laws.”
She gives another nod and with it, a sea of dandelion fluff takes flight. She holds out the hand closest to him, becoming him forward, closer to her.
He doesn't want to go to her.
Doesn’t want to take a single step closer.
But something in his heart and his lungs and his chest pushes him forward. Pushes him to take step after halting step closer to her until he stands in front of her.
She is still smiling at him despite still not turning to face him fully.
Still showing her teeth.
“Correct,” she says, gently taking his hand in her own. She caresses it with fingers that feel too hard and smooth and cold to be skin. And when Link looks down, he can see that it’s because it isn't. Closer to her, he can see the lines and loops and circles in her skin. The tree rings and grain that make her up.
She soothes the calluses of his hands with her polished wood hands, traces the lines of his palms thoughtfully.
“One of Din’s chosen, or, at the least, an offshoot of one of her chosen, has gained a new power and with it, is breaking Nayru’s laws of order.”
“And you want me to stop it,” he affirms.
She sends him another rattling chuckle, her face crinkling with it.
“Well, we’d certainly like you to try!”
Link feels his face wrinkle at the dismissive tone. He stares at the side of the face he can see, searching for any hidden concern, or perhaps hidden malice, but can see none. Her face is free and clear of all worry, that simple serene look still etched on her features.
The bone white smile is still present.
He must show too much of his confusion on his face because Farore suddenly laughs again. This close, Link can hear just how hollow it sounds. Just how much the sound echoes inside her before actually exiting her lips.
“Oh, don’t misunderstand, dear,” She says in that soft and reedy, motherly tone. “I’d very much love it if you were to win. It’s just…”
And she takes his hand between both of her own.
Link can feel the smooth, polished wood of one.
The other...
The other feels cold and porous.
And when she turns to face him fully for the first time, Link can see why.
Because while half of her face is still set in that calm expression, that same gentle smile, Link can now see just how far it extends on the other side.
The entire left side of her face is bone. Pure white bone.
“I’d very much like you to win.” she says softly, still smiling, regarding him warmly with her one forest green eye while her open eye socket stares through him.
“But regardless, you all will return to me someday. It is only a matter of when.”
Link rips himself away from her, turns to run, to do something and–!
Finds himself gasping awake in his bed in the Knight Academy.
Breaths slice in and out of his mouth. Sweat drips from his brow, too hot, while the drying perspiration on his sheets and covers leave him feeling clammy, too cold.
A gentle hand brushes his elbow and Link flinches away from it for a moment.
“...Link?”
Zelda’s voice is sleepy and confused even as she sits up. She leaves her hand on his elbow, and when he begins to relax a little, when his breaths come easier and his muscles untwist, she uses it to gently guide him toward her.
She pulls him close, running a hand through his sweat-dampened hair.
“Are you okay? Nightmare?”
And Link remembers the fire and smoke choking his vision. The feeling of falling infinitely into the stars. The horrible brush of bone on skin.
And pushes himself further into Zelda’s embrace, memorizing how it feels.
“Yeah. A nightmare.” he says, knowing what he will have to tell her come morning. “Something like that."