Chapter Text
Zelda would not tell anyone what finally unlocked her powers.
Ganon came a week early. Zelda was in Kakariko with the champions. For all intents and purposes, they were shooting the breeze.
To the King’s dismay, Urbosa insisted on an excursion for her highness to commemorate her soon-to-be-coming-of-age to hike Mt. Lanayru. And if it were truly that important that she continued with her prayer, Kakariko village was the best place to do it. Religiously streamlined. Geologically protected. Extremely safe, but with the propensity to be extremely productive.
For all the gold in the kingdom, the King cannot say no to Urbosa.
When the 5 champions and the princess are in Kakariko, Calamity strikes. The champions disburse to pilot the beasts. The princess and hero haul ass to the castle to fight. Zelda inexplicably unlocks her powers.
That's the objective, chronological version of it. Link experienced it differently. There are details missing that he should be able to recall, long dark stretches of memories. When he tries to remember the week at Kakariko, he seldom recalls a couple of good meals, the smiling ease of the champions.
Mostly, he remembers his fists were always clenched and clammy, nails digging into his palms. He remembers a clenched jaw. Eyes trying to draw an escape route in the wooden patterns of the ceiling at night. And when he recounts those days, Kakariko is only a note of it. The rest is...
Zelda likes to refer to it tastefully as "The Battle." Daruk just says "Ganondorf." Mipha and Revali don't talk about it much at all. The knights (and Urbosa) get more creative with it; Once, another guardsman said: "When you pulverized that fucker." Another righteously put it: "slaughtered the pig." Well, the actual killing of the Calamity was neither here nor there. It's a thing of the past, now's the time to recover, celebrate, retire.
Or so Link thought until he was sitting in a meeting room with every royal consultant and their assistants (and princess Zelda of course,) plotting the "next course of action." The champions, re-centralized at the castle, had no qualms about it. Zelda was exceedingly enthusiastic about an adventurous expedition. Link stood at attention behind their chairs, his shield arm in a sling and bandages on his burns, and said nothing.
Fanfare sends them on their way on horseback, each champion equipped with whatever artillery wasn't broken on doomsday. They even brought an extra horse to carry their luggage.
"I understand as well as any of you the importance of this little voyage but, really, horses?" Revali wastes no time in complaining, and Link would lie to say he didn't enjoy watching him struggle to straddle his horse. "All the wealth in the Kingdom, and we can't afford a couple of wagons?"
"I'm grateful to be off my legs, but I almost feel bad for the poor things." Mipha looks unnatural on a horse, anxiously fretting about its mane. It's hard to see from the back of the group, but Link notices her eyeing Revali with distaste.
"I only feel bad for Daruk's," Revali comments under his breath. Daruk, however, is doing fine horseback, and the castle-appointed stable hand made sure he was paired with a mount fitting his size. A Gerudo mare with a deep brown coat. Link spares a glance to Urbosa and finds her gripping the reins like a weapon, legs not quite comfortable in the stirrups. "Oh, this is ridiculous. The only people here who like rubbing their groin on an animal are you Hylians."
Zelda, leading the group and poised as ever on her white mount, peaks back at Link, smiling. Link doesn't care for Revali's lack of appreciation for horses, but he likes that Zelda can smile nowadays, so he smiles back.
"Didn't you ride a horse into battle with Ganondorf, little guy?" Asks Daruk. He and Urbosa look at him now, and Mipha and Revali turn their heads to await his answer. He has all their attention as if he were sharing the details of some juicy castle gossip. It makes him queasy. Link nods. "Is this that one?" Daruk asks, and he seems excited about it.
Link's warhorse died when a guardian beam aimed for him missed by some odd inches.
"She's recovering." Says Link, in his quiet kind of tone. He looks down at the horse he's riding now. It's fine, a random stable stallion. Does he even know its name?
"It'll only take some getting used to, anyways," Urbosa says to Revali as she seems to realize her ankles don't need to be so tense. "We have time now," and she smiles in a way Link's not sure he's seen on her. It would be rueful if not for the way her eyes and nose crinkled, her eyebrows lifting microscopically.
"Oh, yeah," Revali agrees, and behind his eyes is a warm, unseen sentimentality. Link wonders if anyone else catches it. "Time."
Again, Link looks down to appraise the stallion. No, it wasn't anything like his horse at all. This one was a little too big for Link. It likes to huff at him and doesn't accept apples and carrots. Even the gear and accessories they've equipped are all wrong. Link's old horse's saddle was enchanting in the most subtle way, and the gold-stained accents were long before his use rubbed silver. This leather is unworn and ill-fitting, but a second ago that didn't seem to unsettle him so much.
Link's warhorse was undeniably (and very embarrassingly) one of Link's best friends. He swears she knew exactly what he was thinking, just from the way she nosed him when he was extra quiet. And she never minded him leaning over to lay his cheek in her well-kept mane, or when he'd braid flowers into it on particularly slow expedition days. It intrigued him how unaware she was that she was a tool to the kingdom. She ran into a field on fire out of no thought or conviction of her own mind. For that, Link thinks, she earned her death.
But in the moment, it surprises him how much he wishes he could lean over and bury his face in her mane.
-
"Those two will never get along, will they?"
Zelda takes a seat next to Link, criss-cross at the fire. The casualty of it all is such a novelty to him: Her hair is in braids and she's in simple, dark, riding pants. Briefly, he wonders how true it was when she told him about "serving the public eye" on this trip. Not that he thinks she shouldn't be able to wear shit-stained riding boots and a sensible cloak and tunic. She looks good either way.
He's sure he looks worse for wear, on the other hand. Ugly cuts tear up the planes of his face. They're nothing new, but there's one particularly nasty gash running up his cheek right now, all the way across the nose. It's still healing, and the skin is still kind of raw in some parts and just starting to scab around the edges. He's reminded of something he heard from the castle seamstress once when she fitted him for some ceremonial garb, on the importance of facial harmony. He imagines she would find his face quite discordant, were she to see him again.
At Zelda's words, he glances over to find Mipha and Revali in argument.
"- Why would you even insinuate such a thing? I'll have you know that where I'm from, they value working for what you have -"
"I never meant to suggest that you don't work hard. I only meant that complaining wasn't helping your issue-"
If Link had to guess, Revali was the one in the wrong. He smiles, because it's a funny thing to watch, and also to show Zelda he's listening. For a breath, she seems to have trouble finding her words.
"I... I know you don't talk often, but I know you can sign. I've seen you do it. I've been working on mine, so I could probably understand if you- I mean, if that would be preferable, we can." Zelda says, carefully.
Fuck, she thinks he doesn't know how to talk to her. He doesn't, but that's not why he's quiet. It's simply far more comfortable for him to listen. Talking feels like pulling a bucket up from a gnarly, polluted well. He takes a breath as if to say something, but Revali interrupts:
"Princess, please settle this for me. Mipha thinks I'm lazy-"
"Quite untrue. I said, 'Revali, if you want dinner cooked in a certain way, why don't you go help Link at the fire?' And you said-"
"She basically told me that I wasn't pulling my weight. You didn't need to say it, I know that's what you meant."
"- And at that point, Revali went and insulted my Healing. Which you must know took years to perfect-"
"Oh, please-"
In her authoritative tone, Urbosa calls: "Silence." She had been silent, sitting in her own corner of camp on a downed tree. The light of the fire just barely illuminates her stern features, and she appears as somewhat of a specter. "That's enough out of you, Revali. Wouldn't want you to ruffle those prim feathers of yours, anyway."
To that, Daruk lightly chuckles. He is on his own across camp too, scribbling something in the dirt with a stick. Zelda sighs and brings her attention back to Link with a fondly exasperated expression, and maybe she wouldn't mind it if he didn't respond to her, like always. It would be easier, but...
It's not as if he wants to keep quiet. At least not forever. So he raises his hands to sign,
"Silence is easier for me. But you can tell me anything."
That's what he means to say, anyway. Hylian sign is blunt, and his skills in the language are admittedly rusty. Sentence structure muddies up complicated ideas. His expressionless countenance makes for clumsy intonation. What Zelda sees him sign is closer to: "Quiet more easy. But you talk good."
Hylia, how she must see him. Refuses to talk, and when he does, he does so ineloquently.
A twig snaps. The sound comes from behind Revali, who whips his head around, and after the briefest moment of being stunned, procures a bow and arrow from his back, aims, and fires. With a distinct thwap, the arrow lodges itself into the attacker.
"Monsters!" Revali calls, and then he's off the ground and flying up into tree branches. From there, everything happens very quickly.
The Moblin rips the arrow out of its stomach, a grotesque tearing sound as inky purple blood spews from the wound. To no one in particular, it screams, then starts for the next closest body, which happens to be Link.
But Daruk has already gotten out his hammer and started swinging. A killing blow to the head gets the Moblin dead on the floor - there are more coming.
Link sees flying arrows and Champions brandishing their holy weapons. The dazzling current of magic makes their campsite-turned-arena feel hotter. He perspires and detachedly grabs the Master Sword and his shield from the dirt they lay in. On instinct, Zelda stays behind him.
Urbosa shouts, either in manic glory or in pain. There seem to be arrows flying from all directions now, locusts forming patterns in the sky. A crash of leaves, and Link sees that Revali has fallen from his vantage point. As he scrambles to his feet, a monster rams into Mipha, who lands on Revali, who dips a wing in the fire. He squawks (in pain or insult, Link can't tell.) Zelda gasps and procures her waterskin. Link feels his gut drop with dread when she leaves his side to pour water on the flames. The smell is remarkably similar to the battlefield with Ganon. Link feels the stinging smoke of pink ash. The sword feels very heavy.
Now there are two monsters on Urbosa, one on Daruk, and Mipha and Revali attack one. As Mipha does her elegant melee and Revali aims a shot, the latter's eyes go wide.
"Mipha-!" Revali tackles her to the ground, just in time for a widely swinging bat to miss her head. One of the Moblin's on Urbosa had lost interest and was now flailing with its colossally-sized bat as if it were a magic wand.
From the ground, Mipha plunges her spear up and kebabs the 'Blin. Urbosa and Daruk finish off their respective foes, leaving one monster who at some point had its arm lobbed off by Urbosa. Almost casually, Revali shoots an arrow into its heart.
"...Is everyone alright?" Asks Zelda. 'Blins corpses are scattered, rapidly decomposing in the dirt. The putrid smell of their blood wafts up.
As Mipha catches her breath (as if she went for a light jog, hardly breaking a sweat,) she appraises Revali. "Let me take a look at that," she says and gently takes his wing and guides him to sit beside her at the fire. Daruk easily sits right where he had stood. He pokes at a Blin corpse (now just mush) with a stick.
"Well, I think that was a good enough reminder of any," Urbosa speaks up. She crosses the camp, takes a piece of loincloth from around the waist of a corpse, and uses it to wipe the blood off her blade.
"Reminder..?" Zelda asks, joining Mipha and Revali at the fire.
"Well, we're not here to see the sights. Or have lively conversation. This is a cleanup mission. Hyrule is still dangerous." Distracted, she wrings out the cloth into the dirt. "If they can't depend on us to fight off a handful of Moblins, then who can they depend on?"
"'Bosa, what's got your goat? We won." Daruk says lightheartedly. Link thinks, win might be the wrong verbiage. You win a spar between two equally equipped soldiers. Hell, you win a chess game. You slaughter monsters, or monsters end you. Urbosa gets a heavy look in her eye, and she glances around camp. There's a beat that, for the rest was only filled with leaves and crickets, for Link held a strange and unexpected suspicion. Then, she says: "There will be no more stupid quarrels on this trip." She sheaths her blade and sits down in disgusted finality. "I will it."
Her heavy gaze falls on Link, and he belatedly realizes he's still standing, still gripping the sword and shield.
That night, Link smells ash in his sleep.