Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There are three ways in which gods can be made:

1: Natural energy is condensed, concentrated (or saturated), and brewed in one spot long enough to gain a conscience. This takes anywhere from several millennia to several mega-anna. One thousand years is both lucky and incredibly early. They may be more fragile than gods with a vast and active following, but frail they are not. They are the gods that endure, the concepts that birth them ever-lasting, due to the fact their existence is not reliant on the patronage of a sentient species. Most Amina gods and myths (Animism) stem from sightings of these deities.

2: They are worshiped and revered into being by a sentient species. This means they are the most flexible, reflecting the domain they represent and the culture that created them. However, they are equally the most volatile, as their personality, mood, and temperament are a direct result of their people's belief as to how they behave. These gods have the most potential for power, and many end up with power beyond compare, but once they are forgotten, they vanish entirely. Myths and legends may allow an echo to persist, but without any real or substantial belief they are little more than a ghost. A common and well-known example of these are the pantheon gods.

3: A human rises to ascension, either through sacrifice, merging with an established God, or their spirit is worshiped enough after death that the phenomena remarkably resembles the 2nd entry. These gods, while the most human in nature and understanding, are the most fragile and unstable of the gods. Their power is unstable and subtle, but they watch the closest of all and are the most reliable in answering prayers, if they are even aware of their ascension (most, if not all, never realize they are a god in the first place while they are alive). Unfortunately, due to their instability and nature of conception, these ‘mortal gods’ are also the most susceptible to corruption and are the easiest to kill / erase. Ancestor veneration and post-mortem saint titles are the most common avenues that manifest this type.

While every god matches at least one of these categories, many draw from a variety of components across all three. There are only three possible ways to get a god, but the formula itself varies greatly for each individual.

Hylia likely originated with the first instance. She cannot be of the second, as her personality and domain barely changes between timelines and eras. It's marginally possible she's the third - she could be the first Hylian and just evolved into godhood - but her people's perception of her (especially Sky's) and her characterization makes it unlikely.

It is most plausible Hylia started out an Anima god, but received a significant following by a sentient species that provided her with a ton of power and possibly affected her appearance. This can explain why Hylia is so tied to a sentient species, her power affected by the state of their existence, yet still contains enough strength to pass along the Hero’s Spirit, complete with all their blessings, in several environments where the system of faith that revolves around her is lacking. Hylians are a source of strength for her, but the existence of her being is not reliant on them.

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Mortals often misunderstand gods. Many hate them, not realizing that they are at their most powerful in a natural environment where luck and coincidence are fickle and unreliable. The more developed a society is, the more control humans have over their lives, the weaker and more diluted a God's influence becomes as the notion of luck and coincidence stabilizes.

This is why Legend and Time seem to dislike Hylia (too developed + advanced of a society, which weakens Hylia’s ability to support and interfere).

It’s why Twilight and Wars have such a passive relationship (a rural life + the chaos of war) and why Sky and Wild have the easiest access (an isolated society that coexists with the natural life on floating islands + a civilization reclaimed by nature with the remainder returning to tribal-like faith).

It’s why Hyrule and Wind have never heard of her (an almost completely polluted and destroyed world where survival took precedence over religion + Hyrule had been largely mythicized / gone underwater Atlantis style). For them, Hylia is more myth than an active god, her power weakened and limited likely due to most of her source material having gone asunder.

Four is arguably an off-shoot, and his situation is likely aligned with either Twilight’s or Wind’s.

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Hylia doesn't know why all her Favored are named Link. She honestly didn't even intend for it. Perhaps her people noticed her favor early on and named the child in memory of her First...?

The Zeldas are not like the Links. Zelda has a piece of Hylia (a single fragment) within her, and rather than her soul reincarnating along with Hylia's favor, instead that piece of Hylia herself gets passed down along the royal line. Some have a stronger resonance than others, but that has more to do with personality and compatibility than anything else. It doesn't mean one Zelda is more capable, or more Hylia, than another, it just means that this specific Zelda is more of a resemblance to the fragment of Hylia inside her, is closer to Sun's personality, than not.

(There are also other factors that can determine how potent a Zelda's divine powers are and when they're unlocked, including but not limited to: the politics a Zelda finds herself with, mental fatigue, stress, constitution, complications at birth, and how many siblings came before her.)

A Zelda is always born with a clear connection to the divine. While the hero's spirit is, quite literally, a copy-paste with format conformity (copy-shift-paste), it's not always apparent there's divine favor at birth. Hylia regardless is still baffled by the consistency of their names in both instances. Their soul and favor are not connected to their names and it won't suddenly disappear if they're named differently at birth. The Zelda thing Hylia can kind of see (the clear divinity and the mortal concept of legacy), but the Links? She has no idea. She is both baffled and awed at the phenomenon that is the soul of The Hero: Link and is almost certain that her people have, quite literally, revered and glorified her First's soul into its own kind of God.

(Almost, because, despite it all, every Link is still mortal regardless of her favor or his soul's apparent status of godhood.)

Ganon is less a reincarnation as he is her balance and antithesis and Denise's curse is less a binding to a cycle than it is a promise that it'll be Ganon every time. There still would be a need for her Favored without the curse, they would just be battling the next iteration of her opposite. At least Demise ensured consistency.

Hylia is distantly amused by Denise's curse. It makes his defeat, comically enough, incredibly easy. There's no need for adjustment, no adapting to a new enemy. All she has to do is send off one of her Favored souls, with the same blessings that are already tied to his soul, equip him with the same exact sword, and then watch him complete a training journey. The script practically writes itself. It's admittedly depressing.

As for Ganon himself, he is the chosen and Favored of Demise. No matter how sentient, man, or animalistic he appears, all versions of Ganon have a piece of Demise.

(Hylia finds her opposite… short-sighted. Ganon is Denise's only Favored. Just the one, without any choice of rest, locked in an endless cycle of battle and defeat, of madness and agony. Perhaps that is why Ganon’s soul is so damaged and unstable that it’s barely sentient anymore.)

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A God's love tends to look like indifference or apathy. An immortal's favor often appears as a cruelty to a mortal.

They rarely realize that their love isn't of any kindness that mortals would perceive it as, with their fragile vessels and limited life span.

Sky is Hylia's First. He is so very treasured. She may not have created his soul, but she watched him all the same stumble through life like a clumsy cucco chick. At some point - she’s not sure when - she became completely enamored with her little bird and decided he shall be the first she’ll grant a soul blessing on. The Hylians have worshiped her long enough for her to develop a significant connection to them, not to mention the power she’s collected thanks to them. The blessing she crafted with exceptional care and carved it right into his soul so that it may never be rubbed away, and she sent down a piece of her own self, gifted with mortality and humanity, to watch over and support him in any and every way that she herself would have. When the surface world proved safe enough, she led him there to be his to rediscover and trusted in him most to deal with Demise. His inevitable fade had thrown her into great mourning, the intensity of such an emotion a first since her conception, and she cradled his soul as he ascended to eternal rest. Though she still looked after her people, it was a long time before she brought herself to watch them again so closely.

Four was her experiment - a Stabby the Roomba, if you will, as the mortals say. She was curious, after her mourning, as to if she could pass along, or reincarnate, her favor after Sky had faded and eroded away from his mortal shell. It's why he doesn't have the master sword nor was he sent after Ganon. It wasn’t needed. Four was a trial, a test, and her intentions were not strong nor clear enough to trigger such a response from her opposite. She never expected her trial to work, and it didn't completely, but it clearly did to some extent, and she dearly loves him regardless. She wouldn't have tried in the first place if she didn't. He is the clay project from childhood that she cannot bring herself to get rid of, for no matter the faults and imperfections she made him with, Hylia could never hope to replicate him, and the emotional attachment only makes her fonder.

Time is clearly loved too. His stint with the timeline likely never would've worked without Hylia smoothing things along. She mourned his defeats, celebrated his successes, and did everything she could to see him through. She watched him struggle, watched him grieve, watched him fail and succeed and persevere. What he does not realize is that he wasn’t the cause of the timeline split. Hylia did that. She was determined to give her tormented hero an ending he wanted, an ending he deserved, and gave him three possibilities - a return to childhood, a retired adult life, or an eternal rest. (How each timeline ended is not his fault. It is of her divine and high-minded opinion that it is her people that failed to fully appreciate her Favored, not the other way around, and she’d love it, truly, if they’d stop blaming her Favored, any of them, for Every Little Problem left unchecked thank you.)

Wind? She saw a cat… or a puppy… or a parrot… perhaps even a goat…, beg - no - demand, that he be given the power to save his sister and do away with this asshole. How could she not bestow favor? He's adorable! To not would be akin to depriving a pet from a toy or a treat; it is a great crime in any culture. She couldn’t do much for him, her power has weakened from all her sunken shrines and water-logged statues, her people considerably less in both faith and population, but she has been experimenting as of late and would you look at that, she can stitch her Favored’s soul-signature onto an already existing soul! All she had to do after that was drop a treat (Fi, in this case), then sit back and watch as her little predator pounced. If she could frame memories, that moment would be hung all over the metaphysical walls.

Legend is her most skilled puzzle master / problem solver and her most stubborn of her Favored. She’s quite fond of his sarcasm and has learned quite a deal of mortal vocabulary listening to his speech, even if the emotional meanings of many of his rants evade her. She doesn’t quite understand his displeasure of her, but if he finds a suitable outlet to express all his frustrations through her, then she’s happy to help. Though, she supposes it may be to his great shock that he's Hylia's second most trusted. It's why he's been sent on so many quests. He's just too good at what he does and she cannot bring herself to choose anyone else over him until he too fades away, just like her beloved First and the others. Perhaps she also sends him on so many quests to keep him... not happy, but happier. Hylia can't do anything with politics, social culture, or anything of that sort, but she can keep him out of it by sending him off on adventures. He prefers those to the castle, and she knows it. (She'd love to comply with his demands and leave him to a mundane life at his rural cabin, if only her people stopped Tracking. Him. Down-!)

Hyrule is from when she was at her weakest. He’s a skinny and skittish little fawn stumbling through this harsh world the Hylians before him left behind and she finds him so very precious. She's incredibly disheartened at how little she could do to help, how powerless she is, resigned to watching him run and hide and defend against the monsters out for her blessing running through his fairy blood, but she needs a Hero to start the dominoes that are cleaning this mess up. Her favor naturally bestows an increased constitution and unnatural luck, so at least her little fawn had something. She nudged him along as best she could and followed him with a bird's eye, watching him the closest out of all her Favored, perhaps to make up for how little she could do for him.

Twilight she loves like a house plant or a tree. She planted him with her own hands, gave him the attention needed, and then sat back and watched him grow. She had the strength and the experience to more effectively assist her Favored, but this incarnation has more resources than the others, more options to consider. He didn’t ask for much and she gave what she could, otherwise she potted him, placed him on a nice windowsill, and left him to do his own thing.They may have had their issues, bug infestations and root rot that she couldn't quite prevent and did her best to heal, but he stayed strong, he survived, and she is so very proud of him. (His lupine shadow fits him quite well, Hylia admits, but she had the little one cradled in her palms long before Midna even met him, so the plant analogies get to persist with her farm child.)

Warriors she handpicked for the timeline issue. Things were growing unstable the longer the timelines were split, and her power is weaker when her attention is to be divided between them. (In hindsight, it wasn’t a very well-thought-out thing to do, but she was admittedly new to the whole hero’s quest deal at the time and couldn’t think of anything else to do for her favored Hero of Time.) He is stable, strong, resilient, and works well in a team. Hylia blessed him with her favor and shadowed him on the battlefield, supporting him with every success and apologizing along the way for the mess he's dealing with. She cannot help him in the strange social game her people have taken to, playing elaborate mind games while dressing up like chirris, but she can merge the timelines when she gathers enough strength when her people rally in faith. (Cia was unexpected. She wasn't exactly welcomed, but she'll begrudgingly accept her intervention if it means the timelines could finally merge. Hylia may be a god, but a puppet-master and control freak she is not.)

Wild. Oh Wild. He is the wobbly, 3-legged, shy cat of the group, and while he may not appreciate that comparison, it doesn't make it any less true (or less capable. Cats, after all, are of the most successful hunters). She was getting weaker by the year in his era and backed off considerably, content in her people's independence and strength. If only she realized just how complacent and arrogant that strength and advancement made them. She wailed and raged at his death, and if the shrine was a little more in shape, if she herself had a little more strength and power, then she wouldn't have had to use his memories as fuel. (She would've let him rest, he most certainly deserved it, but again, she is not a puppet-master, and the Sheikah had already made the choice. A hundred years was pushing it, and she’d rather her kitten live, have a second chance, than perish in agony after a century of near useless suspension.) She didn't want to give him the master sword, didn't want him to take the mantle and suffer again. She wanted him to wait, to have a life free from icky politics and let a fresh and new mortal take the challenge, but his determination and love for the world was endearing, and she'd rather he have Fi's support than not. (The challenges were not her idea, but she cannot deny how helpful the orbs were as conduits to rejuvenating her blessings.)

Chapter Text

“An oracle!?” Wind asks, eyes wide and radiating curiosity like steam, “For real!?”

Twilight huffs out a laugh, amused, and nods his head. “Yeah. An oracle. For real.” He waves his hand in a ‘come on’ motion and leads them into the woods just outside Ordon. “She’s the reclusive sort, I didn’t really bother her much for my journey, never had the need to, but we all know she’s there. Figured we could go talk to her, see if she can give us any direction.”

“If the literal holder of both the Triforce of Wisdom and a fragment of Hylia herself can’t help us, I doubt an oracle can do shit.” Legend grumbles out his piece. Sky behind him winces a slight bit at the bluntness.

“Weeelll…,” Four tilts his head, drawing out the word alongside the motion, “I wouldn’t write her off so soon. I’ve met oracles, and, sure, they weren’t oracles in the conventional sense, but they could still do some wacky stuff.”

“Like what?” Wind is practically vibrating as he walks.

“I’m talking object manifestation, attack buffs, and time loops. Like I said, wacky stuff.”

“Sounds familiar…” Legend hums as Wind ‘ooh’s and ‘aah’s. “Are they named after the Golden Goddesses?”

“The very same.”

“Well she ain’t normal, that’s for sure,” Twilight calls out, shaking his head.

“No oracle is.” Four scrunches his nose when he calls back.

Legend scoffs. “No shit. Normal usually means a scam.”

Time pats Legend on the shoulder, whether in solidarity or a signal to make space in the conversation, he isn’t sure. “Anything we need to know about her? A civil conversation between nine twitchy and armed swordsmen and a single civilian with some screws loose is harder than people think.”

Twilight hums and tilts his head, thinking. “I dunno, I don’t really know her all that well. I’ve only got rumors and two conversations…”

“She’s not all that aggressive, all things considered, “ he starts up again after a few moments of silence, “She’s mighty calm, a little in the clouds. I suppose you shouldn’t touch the bottles of spices she's got, though. She sells them. And keep an eye out for all the wild animals she tends to feed. Foxes, squirrels, wolves, all that.”

They walk for a few minutes more. Eight Links nod in understanding, about to go back to their own conversations, when Twilight turns his head back.

“Oh, and mind the taxidermy, I guess,” is tacked on with the undertone of an afterthought.

“Taxidermy!?” Warriors squeaks, cringing. Legend takes on a vague expression of distaste.

"Oh boy, something they agree on." Four sighs out in his head. Red is happy with this discovery. Blue just sounds sarcastic.

“What’s taxidermy?” Hyrule asks, looking to Legend. Wild mirrors him.

The sailor opens his mouth before the vet can. Cue the chaos.

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One explanation much too graphic than it needed to be later, the chain arrive at the supposed oracle’s house.

Time and Twilight have tuned the explanation out with expertise. Wind is somewhere between pleased and smug and Four has just been nodding along in support with a remarkably straight face. Warriors has backed up considerably and is failing to do what Time and Twilight are succeeding in. Sky is both incredibly perturbed and vaguely intrigued. Wild has been traumatized and Hyrule disturbed. Legend has not dropped his disgusted expression, but he hasn’t moved away either, stubbornly sticking between Hyrule and Wild and hissing at Wind to Watch His Step as the sailor animatedly speaks while walking backwards.

The cabin of a house is visibly old, though not run down, as it is clearly stable and well maintained despite the vines and the overgrowth. There is evidence of wear and tear alongside repair. Feeders holding nuts and nectar are suspended from the roof overhang, and empty food bowls are clustered near each corner. Small glass charms dangle from windchimes strung to trees that glow from fairy lights. (Manufactured fairy lights. Actual fairies aren’t typically around with a bunch of strangers present, Heroes or not.) Running water babbles in the distance alongside a few bird calls. Moss peeks out between the cracks of the brief stone path to the front door, and various wildflowers grow freely in a clearing to the left.

One feeder sways as a squirrel scurries up to the roof with stuffed cheeks. Wild whines out a sob when he spots the stuffed corpse of a crow perched atop the doorframe.

A bell rings as Twilight opens the door.

“Sibyl? You home?”

A fox stares at them from the top of a bookshelf. A cat stands mid-pounce at another who’s arched in a playful pose. Finches and bluebirds are mid-flight alongside butterflies and moths. A raven is perched atop a lamp and a deer pokes its head from behind a side-table. Mice in frilly bows and skirts sit in chairs at a miniature table atop a desk, one pouring another a cup of tea while a third holds an open umbrella. A lizard in a butler's outfit pushes a cart of ceramic teacakes. A raccoon is seated on a pillow atop the back of a small couch, reading a book while wearing a tophat, suit and bowtie, and reading glasses. A decorative bronze collar is around its tail as an accessory.

Their eyes all glint without any sign of life.

Sky barks out a startled laugh at the sight. He cannot decide if he’s elated with the craftsmanship or traumatized by the mere existence of the mice.

The stairs creak. Bare feet give way to a pale, cloaked young woman that just barely reaches Hyrule’s height. Her dark hair is left down with the two sides braided to the back of her head and then joined with the rest. Small bronze bells hang from her ears.

Twilight wears an easy smile. “Ya open to any questions?”

Sibyl blinks, her gaze distant and in her own little world, yet aware all the same. She nods and smiles back.

“I’ll answer with what I have.” Her voice is serene and innocent, though not as distant as one would expect from her demeanor.

“Wonderful…” Warriors eyes with caution and trepidation a squirrel glued in place climbing a shelf. The stuffed animal brushes its tail with a bottle of herbs, one of the many lining the shelf.

“You got any idea on what’s going on?” Legend asks while pointedly ignoring the raven on the lamp in the corner of his eye.

“Nine of Hylia’s are here to ask me questions.”

“Not what he meant, ” Twilight sighs at the same time Legend growls out “Not what I meant.”

“There are monsters with black blood popping up, ” Time begins with, cutting straight to the chase, “and portals that drag us to different timelines and timeframes to kill them. The threat is evidently serious enough to require a team of heroes, but no Zelda we have spoken to has any idea who or what it is. We have so little information and no direction. At this point, anything you can tell us would be of great help.”

Sibyl blinks, this time much slower, and tilts her head, hair cascading off her shoulders. The bells on her ears echo the movement. Her eyes, rather than cloud over more than they already are, sharpen, pupils contracting to slits. Her gaze darts around, making eye contact with each hero, and then rests unnervingly with Time’s in an unblinking stare.

Her voice abruptly sinks into maturity, authority laced into its quality.

“Hylia got bored of chess. Demise knows no strategy. The portals are a game of Tug-O-War and Sorry. She is leading you to leaks of Malice. He cheats to knock you all off course, but is still losing terribly. Teamwork is for efficiency and intrigue.”

Sky stills, utterly befuddled and mystified. “They - I - What…?”

“So… what you’re saying is… we're all just game pieces to her? All just entertainment?” Legend snarls, astonished.

The oracle does not move, doesn’t so much as flinch. She merely tilts her head the other way and disengages with Time to lock eyes with Legend, all without ever blinking once.

The bells fail to ring with the movement.

“No.”

“Then what - ”

The oracle cuts him off without expression.

“One: It doesn't matter what Hylia does; opposite forces will automatically make their own move in response. The difference is that the response isn't always proportional to the initial action.

“Two: Hylia is not a god that was made in our reverence. She's a natural god. A wild god. The perspective of a mortal she cannot fully comprehend. Nature dictates that mice and wolves and trout and crows must all have enrichment in their lives, else they get anxious, erratic, and depressed. Hylia does not want that. Hylia loves her Favored too much to subject you all to that. Thus, she provides enrichment. It is her nature to do so.”

Legend blinks, speechless. The rest of the heroes balk save for Sky, who is stuck frozen with an error code dancing around inside his head. Sibyl does not break eye contact with Legend, doesn’t so much as blink.

“Thanks Sibyl, ” Twilight breathes out, “That was… helpful…”

Finally, blessedly, Sibyl blinks, the motion slow and deliberate. Her eyes return to the dreamy, far-away haze she started with and her head straightens up out of its tilted state. The bells on her ears ring.

“You’re welcome.”

Even her voice is back to serenity.

She spins into a curtsey and trots back upstairs, bare feet tapping against wood. She pauses for a moment, looking down from the stairwell.

“Oh, and I'm out of thyme at the moment, in case you came to buy any.”

And with that, Sibyl leaves their sight.

“I have decided, ” comes Wild’s voice, quiet and soft, examining a jar of peppercorns, “that I’m just gonna take her words at face value and not think at all on how she apparently knows more about Hylia than Sky or Sun.”

“Good idea, ” Four nods, and then repeats himself in a whisper. “Good idea…”

Wind picks himself up from gaping like a fish, attempting to find words, and just resigns to gesturing wildly to the top of the stairwell where Sibyl had left. Hyrule nods rapidly in wordless agreement, matching Wind’s energy.

Wild sticks to his previous philosophy. He takes a jar he’s satisfied with, drops the appropriate rupees in a box, and opens the door to leave. Like dominoes, the rest of the chain follows

“Huh.” Twilight has the gall to shrug. ”Well, that sure was easy. Creepy, but easy.”

“No, ” Warriors points at Twilight after guiding Sky out the door, “You do not get to leave it at that. What… How… She… Just - What the fuck?”

“While I do not agree with his choice of words, ” Time sighs, ignoring Legend’s ‘I do!’, “I do share Warriors’ sentiment. I have never met an oracle so well-informed.”

“Well, I dunno what to tell y’all. She’s the only oracle I’ve met.”

Twilight is met with multiple variations of an unimpressed expression.

He sighs in frustration, then runs his hand through his hair, thinking.

“I suppose the difference is in… perspective, ” he mutters out slowly, piecing words together, “Sibyl views Hylia as more a cryptid than a Hylian. People rarely go to her because of that. Most don’t really agree with her frame of mind, let alone like it, but I gotta say she’s probably the most accurate because of that.”

“I’ll say, ” Four mumbles. “At least she’s an actual oracle… Mine were just priestesses that, I don’t know, inherited the title…?”