Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Lorule, eh?” A shining, humanoid figure swayed from side to side, talking to himself. He thumbed his scarf that was hung over right shoulder with his opposite hand, as he looked out of the window on the bridge. “The Vet’s been there—ha, he’s been everywhere—so any navigation shouldn’t be too hard. Ravi might be there, but he could also be in Legend’s home world…I mean, he was there the last time we checked, but you could never know when it comes to that man—“

“Captain.”

The captain jumped, high into the air, startled by the sudden call. Ugh, Terminuses and their padded feet, giving them that silent gait.

“Yes, little sprite?” The man inquired as he spun his head around, his body staying in place as he looked up to face his companion, “Has a problem occurred?” It was a vague question, since this captain had come to find that problems of many types could occur—especially at the most random and unfortunate of moments. Especially with this group, and their combined—honesty pretty poor—luck.

In a tired, nearly monotonous voice, the Terminus spoke, “Reports of an unknown spacecraft hurtling towards Lorulian soul have been received by our transceiver. Officials are currently investigating the matter. However, it doesn’t seem like it will be coming into contact with any area of civilization, thankfully.”

“So no one on the ground will get hurt, at least,” especially since none of the native sapient species were flyers, “Can we still land at our requested location?”

“We have been encouraged to do so.”

“Because of the Vet?”

“Because of the Vet and because Queen Hilda is worried about the safety of Lorule’s Triforce.”

“Ah!” He twirled around, “Yes, yes, the Triforce . Wonder where the regular one is—oh! Also—I am so glad we brought Legend along, it’s so much easier to get to places with barely any hassles!”

“It is. All because we all have the same goal, ha, the same name-“

“Technically,we all have the same name. They all sound different in our respective languages.”

For a brief moment, the captain’s companion simply looked at him, silently, before continuing on to say, with much exasperation, “That is how languages work, yes.”

The captain let out a laugh that his species would consider to be “haughty,” akin to the sound of little bells being rung as he walked past his friend, towards the ship’s navigation deck.

“Well, we best be docking soon, then. The Linked Universe longs for solid ground!“

His friend laughed too, a breathy laugh as he bobbed his head, “Ah, I still can’t believe we called this ship that.”

“We’re all named “Link,” after all!”

His friend chuckled, “We all are, indeed.”

There’s a famous saying that goes something like this—In space, nobody can hear you scream. Whether or not this saying was true, that had no baring to those inside of a suitable spacecraft. In a suitable, functional spacecraft, it would ideally mimic the right conditions for one to breathe. For one to speak.

For one to scream.

Whether or not one could scream in a spacecraft had no baring, none at all, to somebody who was violently hurtling toward the ground in one. That was something far more important. Figuring out how to land safely—or just plainly survive—was far, far more important.

Good thing Link was able to do that, somehow.

Look, this wasn’t his first spaceship-wrangling rodeo. Somehow. It definitely was the first time he was kidnapped onto a spaceship, though. All the other spaceships, spacecrafts—whatever, were all machines his friends managed to pull out of the ground. Old, extremely complex and robust machines, originally made from an even older spacefaring race.

Link really wished he was on his ancient-alien motorcycle, riding around at absurd speeds back on Earth. Instead, he was almost definitely going to die on some random planet. And he wasn’t even going to get the chance to explore it before dying.

At the very least, he was definitely going to take this shadowy, alien freak down with him.

The blaring of an alarm pounded against Link’s head as he continued to tilt the two-pronged steering stick down, towards the purple planet. The ship shook as it entered the atmosphere, and if Link didn’t have a death grip on the stick, he would’ve slipped out of the half-torn chair. The other half that wasn’t connected to the rest of chair, had been used to bludgeon Link’s kidnapper to probable unconscious.

Well, it didn’t matter if the guy was unconscious or not, anymore.

Death’s scythe became clearer and clearer to see, as the purple foliage became ever closer. Link tired to pull the steering stick up, to try and land the damned vehicle. Tried, and failed.

The pain was unbearable. Shards of glass and metal pierced Link’s skin as the ship collided with the ground, gouging into scared and fresh flesh indiscriminately. A unique kind of pain he had never experienced before, while his vision quickly blurred from the pain and blood loss. Link figured that he was as good as dead.

That is, until he removed himself from the broken, burning wreckage of what could barely be recognized as a ship, utterly unscathed, except for his newly tattered clothes, feeling better than ever.

“Thank you for your grace, Mipha!” Link looked to left and grinned brightly at the cyan spirit next to him. The slightly smaller woman glared at him, shaking her head disapprovingly as her fishtail braid whipped around with ferocity, before stopping to sigh and rub her temples. Then, giving him a soft, tired smile, she disappeared in a shimmer of light.

Link sighed, “Yeah, I should’ve thought that one through more.” He scratched the back of head, looking away from where Mipha’s spirit used to be, “Thank goodness I snagged back this puppy here!” Link whipped his Sheikah Slate away from his belt, the leather surprisingly not fully shredded. Only partially. His slate, too, only seemed to work partially. His inventory still didn’t work, most of his runes still didn’t work, the thermometer and scope still worked…ugh.

Link grumbled to himself as he whacked the slate against a piece of rubble. The slate left a large dent in the metal fragment, bending it, and the device still did not work as intended. This human would really like to have some new clothes, thank you. At least he wasn’t barefoot. The weird, shadowy alien at least gave him some slippers for him to wear while they experimented on him. Among other, chalk white clothes they gave him, but the slippers were especially comfy.

Link sighed and shook his head. Who cares if he had comfy slippers when he was likely light years away from Earth? If only he had some way to make his map work, and then find some way to make it work on a universal scale, then he could just teleport back home.

Wait, did the towers still work? The Beasts seemed to stop working right after defeating the Calamity—ah, it’ll be fine , probably. He’ll think about that later. Right now, he had to survive. And clearly, he was quite good at that.

Link first examined the wreckage site, trying to see if he could salvage anything mildly useful and not on fire. The only thing he could find was a bent pipe he could use as a potential weapon. He couldn’t find the body of the shadowy alien, so it likely survived…or maybe it worked like the Calamity’s monsters and disappeared. Either way, the absence of a body did make Link much more paranoid and on edge.

And the Master Sword. Link had it on him when he got kidnapped, but the alien stole it when he was out cold. Hopefully, it was still underneath the wrecked ship, and not in the hands of evil…even though it couldn’t be really wielded by evil, but that bastard still could’ve hidden it, somewhere.

After he finished scanning the wreck, he turned to scan the surrounding area. Link had managed to “land” the ship in a forest clearing. So trees surrounded Link, tall, slender ones with purple leaves that faded down into a yellow shade. Actually, they were more like tree-like organisms, but Link didn’t care for semantics. They were trees.

Something soon caught his eyes, with that something being camouflaged along the tree bark. It wasn’t the easiest to make out, but the creature was clutching onto the side of the light brown bark, two arms fanning out over it. Two of its legs were also clutching onto the tree as well.

It was also making eye contact with Link, now. It looked like its face was planted onto the tree, so only one of its half-green half-brown eyes was staring at Link. Honestly, it looked pretty cool. And also reminded Link of a stick bug.

“Uh, hello?” Link called out to alien—wait, Link was actually the alien here, huh—and the bug guy seemed to stiffen. So, Link called out again.

“I can see you, you know? Oh, wait, I don’t think you can understand me, huh? Well, I can still see you.” Link pointed at his eyes, and then pointed at the visible eye of the alien. The alien…chimed, like a bell, slowly pulling themself away from the tree. Their colors changed too, from various shades of light brown, into a yellow and green ones. Link just noticed that the alien was wearing clothes, too. A green dress(?) with yellow accents, with dark brown boot-like shoes and gloves. Oh, and the guy had brown hair. Or head fur. And brown mandibles. And very saturated yellow skin…? Exoskeleton?

Link simply whipped out his slate, zoomed in a bit, and took a picture. Because his Camera rune still worked! He could figure out what this guy was made of later. And by him, he meant either Purah, or Zelda.

Link did not expect this to unlock a new compendium in the slate.

“ChaRai. These bug-like lifeforms are theorized to be distantly related to the Fairies. Like Fairies, they have healing capabilities no other species are capable of. They also have a knack for camouflaging, blending in with their surroundings.” 

“Ha ha, what?” Link blinked rapidly at the new entry, “How-? Actually, I don’t care how, I’m going to be taking so many pictures now! I need to be more knowledgeable.” And so, Link got to snapping. The trees, the other foliage, his new pipe-weapon, and the new aliens that were literally coming out of the woodwork. That is what the saying meant, right? Ah, whatever, it was picture taking time!

After Link finished his compendium-filling spree, this pink, bunny-centaur looking alien started to walk towards him. They were a…Lopper, according to the compendium. Like a lop rabbit. They had this red vest-thing over a long-sleeved, dull green dress, that only really covered their front legs. The Lopper made some chittering noises, pointing at what seemed to be their mouth, then pointed at Link’s mouth. …oh! They wanted him to speak.

“Hello!” Link greeted with a closed smile, trying to look as friendly and innocent as possible.

“Hello!” The Lopper responded back, in the same exact cadence and tone as Link.

Which was scary.

So, naturally, got into an attack position. His fight or flight instincts took over, and he was prepared to attack. The other aliens looked to be in what Link assumed to be shock. Fair, but also that was just an assumption. Maybe they were feeling…something else. Link didn’t know, couldn’t tell, and-

Out of the corner of his eye, something to his left moved. And naturally, Link chose to fight, spinning on his heel to hurl the pipe right at the figure.

Oh, it was a Blupee. So they were here too, neat! Wait, with Blupees come-

“Rupees!” Link shouted as soon as he saw the familiar, shinning object. He remembered shooting a bajillion arrows at Blupees whenever he saw one, all for those Rupees, all the while trying his best to ignore the Calamity Ganon that was still ravaging the capital. And Rupees were the main currency in at least all of the areas Link had been to.

And you can never have too much money.

“Ooo, eleven more Rupees for me!” Link bent down and passed the slate over the currency, it sucking them within its circuitry. The Sheikah Slate lucky still handled collecting Rupees well, and now Link had a little over 69 thousand of those things. Nice. It wasn’t nice that his pipe broke, though. But hey, that wasn’t anything new. But now he was utterly weaponless.

Low, deep, echoing chimes, like that of a wind chime in a soft breeze. Those sounds came from the right of Link, so he looked up and over to see a bright figure that nearly blinded him.

If not for the fact that the alien was made of what looked to be a golden light, he could almost be mistaken as a human. A human who was ripped straight out of a ren faire, with that royal blue side cape and green tunic, but vaguely human enough nonetheless. They didn’t seem to have hands or feet, though. Link looked back at his new alien compendium for more information—which he probably should’ve done with the Lopper, but hey, mistakes happen.

“Soulsolu. These humanoid lifeforms appear to be made entirely out of light, and can alter their shape freely. They come in a variety of colors, and can change them under certain circumstances. Their low mass allows them to run at very high speeds.”

So this guy can run fast, huh? Link would love to see if they could keep with the Master Cycle Zero. He really wanted to use his Master Cycle Zero.

When Link looked away from the slate and back at the Soulsolu, and in a newly formed, four fingered hand, the alien was holding up a Rupee.

A silver one.

“A hundy!” Link excitedly jumped up, and the Soulsolu stumbled backward. And then they kept walking backwards, and like a loyal crow, Link followed them diligently. No matter how long it would take, Link was going to get that silver Rupee, and would continue to follow this strange, light-based creature.

All the way into prison cell.

Not his smartest move, but he still had his slate and also a silver Rupee. So it was worth following the alien for what was likely a mile into an alien jail. Link was not paying as much attention to his surroundings as he should’ve. Maybe that crash affected his head, even with the healing Mipha gave him.

But now he was getting closer to having 70 thousand Rupees! And he’d broken out of prison cells before, so he didn’t really need to worry about anything. Most of those cells were him accidentally trapping himself—and they weren’t always cells, exactly—but he had always managed to escape! And this just seemed to be your standard, metal bars with a metal gate cell.

Too bad all eight of the aliens that he had met were watching over him. And there was also a new one, another Lopper. A purple one, holding staff and glaring at Link. The end of the staff had this odd, upside down pyramid, that reminded him of the magic Zelda had used to seal the Calamity, and to save him so long ago…

Link grinned at the purple alien, trying to appear nice, but they just skittered backwards, clutching their staff tightly and pointing it aggressively at him. The other Lopper, the pink one who mimicked Link, started to talk to them and then Link lost all interest. Mainly because another alien was waving around another Rupee.

They definitely seemed somewhat aquatic, having tentacles like an octopus. They were a Hyswi—he couldn’t say that five times fast. They were a solid, very nice yellow color, wearing a long blue tunic with a dull pair of orange pants. They were the second smallest one there, and had both a red, and a green Rupee in their left tentacle.

Link scuttled closer to the Rupees and their holder. Their big, black eyes widened, with their mouse-ear like fins on the side of their head raising up. Then, they spoke…words Link honestly could probably pronounce, but had no idea what they meant. But at least Link could more easily tell that words were being said. They weren’t the chimes or bell-like sounds of a couple of the aliens here, which honestly was something Link would love to learn how to do with his mouth. Maybe he could whistle something similar to those noises?

The octo alien reached through the bars to give Link the Rupees—yes!—but then was pulled back by the armored alien next to them—no!—who almost definitely chastised them. Link knew that exasperated face quite well.

And now Link was missing Zelda, fantastic. Homesickness was a curse that should be able to be stabbed, but oh well.

Some of the other aliens started to leave, with the armored one lightly pushing the Hyswi away. And with the way they clearly whined, Link could guess that the octopus was a child. Or something. Link was really just projecting hard here.

Link was left with the armored alien—a Terminus—and two others; the Soulsolu, and the mimicking Lopper. Three out of the nine total aliens. Were they the strongest ones? The friendliest? The smartest given the fact the the Soulsolu succeeded in luring Link to a cell, and that the Lopper was able to mimic what Link said?

Link had no clue, and had really nothing to do but wait, and tinker around with his slate. He just had to get it working. It had all his cool stuff still looked in it. Including his food! Also, maybe some fairies. It probably wasn’t too good to keep them trapped in the device for too long. Maybe.

Oh, and the new compendium that was unlocked, maybe there were other things that were unlocked as well! And if he was lucky, there would be a translator of some sort.

Link was only somewhat lucky, it seemed. But lucky nonetheless.

There was a upgrade to his Camera rune! Wait, how was there a upgrade to his Camera rune? An upgrade to any rune would be weird, but why the camera one?

“Did the shadow like,” Link mumbled to himself, “Do this? Why? Did they also add the new compendium? Were they planning to like, use it all for something? Probably, probably…” Link grumbled to himself, glaring at the slate. He would not consider himself smart enough to figure this out. Zelda was the smart one, he was the guy who ate rocks.

Actually, considering Zelda once tried to get Link to eat a frog…yeah, no, Zelda was the brain, Link was the bite. And now that he was thinking about food…Link was rather hungry. The last time he ate was…a few hours ago? When the shadow alien gave him his “meal” for the day. It just looked like grey slop, and didn’t taste much like anything. Didn’t even fill his stomach much, either.

Could Link eat the Lopper? They looked like a rabbit—did they taste like one? No, no this guy was clearly somewhat intelligent and had the ability to talk to him. Still, Link couldn’t help but wonder…if only his stupid slate would work!

Link smacked the slate onto the ground, it leaving a much larger crack in the concrete-like ground than he expected it to. Which was none at all. Whoops. He checked to make sure that the slate didn’t also crack, and breathed a sigh of relief at his undamaged property.

Then, he smelled it. Something that made his mouth salivate.

Link rushed to the bars, startling his wardens as he peered over to the right, to just barely see one of the other aliens coming closer. The Lofttail, a creature that kind of resembled Hylia. And considering that when taking a quick look at the slate, and it telling him that the Lofttails were “blessed by the Goddess Hylia long ago,” the similarities were reasonable.

That left him with a ton of questions, but the most pressing one was “was Link going to eat that steak on that tray?” And the answer was going to be yes.

Link went to the door, and pulled hard on the bars. This ended with him shrieking as he toppled over, onto his back, with the barred door on top him. He quickly threw it off of him, right at one of the walls inside of his cell. As he scrambled to get back up for the food, the door bounced off of the wall and right back at Link, forcing the Earth’s Champion back onto the ground.

The aliens were laughing at him, weren’t they?

After gently removing the door from his body, he calmly stood up and walked over to the cell’s exit. The Lofttail was standing there, there clawed, shaking hands clutching onto the silver good tray tightly. Yeah, they were laughing at him, damnit. But whatever, it was time to eat!

Link grabbed the tray with his own hands, and glared at the bird man until they released it, then turned around and walked to the middle of the room. He turned back to face the aliens as he sat down, crossing his legs and placing the tray on top of them. Looking a bit closer, there were also some fruits on the tray as well! He logged everything in his slate—the meat was just registered as “Seared Steak,” boo—while the other two were called a Stamina Fruit, and a Recovery Heart. Very straightforward names that Link would definitely get to testing out soon, but first he would have to deal with the alien steak.

Clasping his hands together, he grinned and shouted, “Thank you for the meal!” It was time for his feast to begin.

His teeth sank into tender flesh as the light smoky smell asserted itself through his nostrils. Link tore through the juicy, rich, beef-like dish like he was a staving wolf, who was had been led to a fresh deer carcass, by his ravenous raven friend. The sharpness of the salt and the slight afterimage of copper—all was well welcomed by Link’s tastebuds, anything, anything but that bland slop.

Link felt like he was in a daze, like he had just feasted on an actual carcass, with the red juice staining his hand and mouth like blood.

Welp, time for the fruits! Link wiped his hands off on his shirt, since they didn’t give him any napkins. The shirt already was torn up, who cares if it looks a little bloody? And his health was perfectly fine, so he just stored the Recovery Hearts in the slate—and now it was stuck in there. Ugh. At least he still had the Stamina Fruits! There were two of them, so he clipped his slate onto his belt, took one in each hand, kicked—lightly!—the tray away, and then started to sprint.

His stamina wheel appeared in the corner of his eyes, a little blessing of the Shrine of Resurrection. So he kept running until one wheel was down, and then stuffed the fruit into his mouth. The wheel filled all the way back up, and Link could feel that. A complete refill of his energy. So, he continued to run and run and run, until his stamina was almost entirely gone, and his legs started to ache, before eating the other fruit.

Completely filled, completely energized. Link let out a shout of joy as he ran towards a wall and flipped off of it. And then, he kept running around the cell, until he was all tuckered out.

“W-whew…” Link breathed out, bent over and clutching his knees, “I hadn’t been able to run in a while,” he breathed in and out a few more times, before regaining enough energy to get back up and stretch his back. “Man, I need more of those Stamina Fruits!” He placed his hands and his hips and looked over towards where the aliens were, and it seemed like all nine had returned!

“Hey guys!” Link waved at the group with a bright, toothy—and red, unbeknownst to him—smile, “When did you all get here?”

Link did not understand why they all started to get very loud.

Chapter Text

It was hard to reel back the group’s confused screaming, especially when you’re screaming yourself, but Warriors managed. It was all—thankfully—short lived, so they could all get back to more pressing matters. Like the one who made them all scream in the first place.

None of them had any clue who or what this bipedal creature was. The only things they were really sure of, was that they miraculously came out of a crashed spacecraft unscathed, was carrying around this strange piece of tech, and was very…wild, in simple terms. Nearly completely nonsensical, to the rest of people here.

But that was normal, when encountering a new species for the first time. That didn’t make it any less of a strange experience, however.

“What will be done with this…” Queen Hilda tapped her fluffy fingers against her staff, nervously, “This-this creature? I worry that they may pose a threat to my people, if not…wrangled in, properly.”

“They seem to like Rupees!” Wind exclaimed, “And food! Maybe we can use those for like, um…training?”

“Perhaps,” Time crossed his arms as he looked down at the unknown creature, who was idling with their hands on their side, looking at everyone with their teeth bared.

“What are they doing?” Warriors leaned back, covering his face with his scarf, “What is going on within their mind?”

“I tried to talk to them,” Legend huffed, “Then they almost hurled that pipe at me, if not for that Blupee.”

“Does that guy even know what Rupees are?” Four questioned. And that was a good question. Did the creature know that it was a kind of currency, or did they just like shiny things? Warriors glanced over at Sky, who definitely had a penchant for collecting shining objects. Warriors was like that as well, but to a bit lesser of an extent. At least his excuse had to do with how his species communicated, and—

Suddenly, the wild beast walked forward. Warriors tried to hide the way he tensed up, but let his right arm settle on end of his sword—just in case. The creature simply could still be hungry—somehow—or perhaps wanted more Rupees. His Rupee sack, thankfully, was next to his sword, so it wouldn’t be hard to quickly grab one of those.

But just what was this person thinking?

Link needed his sword. The Master Sword, he had to find it. He has some fun eating and running around, but his sword was still out there, and not in his grubby little hands.

Link had no idea how to communicate that fact to the aliens. They seemed to be… anxious , at the very least, whenever he tried to communicate, and Link honestly was the exact same.

But Link was known for being courageous, and being very, very stubborn. The amount of times he hurled a few Boko Spears—that he had just set on fire—at an explosive barrel in a Bokoblin Camp, and failing each and every single time, before ending up just running around the ‘blins, who had quickly noticed the spear hurler, dropping a bomb behind him, and accidentally ending up in a barrel’s blast radius…

How was he still alive, dear Hylia. At least he’s gotten better at aiming his spears, compared to back then.

But anyways, Link always found a way to survive and get what he wanted, and this time would be no different. So he simply went up and looked up at the Soulsolu, with the most pleading eyes he could manage.

The alien simply grabbed at what likely a weapon underneath his cloak, their…eyes possibly glaring at Link. So that wouldn’t work. Welp. Plan B.

“Excuse me!” Link clasped his hands together and used as a wedge—the greatest of all of the the simple machines!—and tried to maneuver his way past the aliens, right between the Soulsolu and another alien, the Dawli, a very…furry looking biped. The Terminus was also fluffy, but this guy was fluffy.

Surprisingly, the aliens stepped back, letting Link through. He made brief eye contact with the Dawli, with their oddly vibrant blue eyes. Oddly familiar. But Link didn’t have much time to think about that, since he took off like a bullet once he had the chance to. He remembered where he entered the prison, he paid that much attention to his surroundings, at least. And he was going to leave this place, get his sword…and then maybe go back to the cell, just to be nice. All the aliens were clearly freaking out, and Link felt a bit bad over that. But the Master Sword, it was practically calling out to him. It wasn’t really doing that though, unfortunately.

A type of large, chain-link fence surrounded the small building he had briefly been held captive in, and looked very climbable.

Link slowed to a walk as soon as he left the building, regaining his stamina. There were barbs on the top of the fence, which would definitely hurt to climb over, but he could probably handle it.

The aliens were rushing behind him, but Link tried to pay them no mind as he started to climb the fence. Chain-link fences were always so straightforward, yet fun to climb. Even though the holes in this one were smaller than an arrowhead, they were still big enough this sink a couple fingers in. Link made two jumps, one near the beginning, and one nearing the end of the climb. Only the barbed wire encircling the top was in his way.

If he had a weapon, like say, a sword, he could probably just cut through it and be done with that. His slate seemed to be durable enough to at least press the wire down, but then there was a good chance Link would lose his footing on the fence if he did that, due to the amount of force that action could require.

Someone threw a rock at his back, not big enough to knock him off, but hard enough that it took out one of his yellow hearts. Rude. Link glanced over to see who threw it, and it was the Lopper, who was pointing at something. That being the fence’s open gate.

“By the Goddess,” Link sighed as he shook his head in embarrassment. At himself. “I’ll uh,” Link shouted down at the aliens, “I’ll be down in a second!” Then Link remembered they couldn’t understand them, but that was fine. He was able to verbally covey that he understood his mistake, hopefully. Now, time to get down. It would take a bit to climb down, but dropping down would be quicker.

So Link pushed himself off of the fence and embraced the ground, losing two yellow hearts in the process. Yay. He now only had two yellows left, after that, he’d to start actually take damage.

“So glad that the ground’s flat,” Link hissed out with a groan, as he pushed himself up to his feet. There were some aliens around him, but he just waved them off, as he went right into sprinting towards the gate. Standing in front of it, like a sack of bricks, it quickly hit him that he had no idea where to go. He looked over the treetops, expecting to see the smoke from the ship’s burning wreckage, but there was none to be found.

“Well, that was fast,” Link noted, hands on his hip as he tapped his foot, “It does make sense why they’d want to quickly control the fire. But, how do I find my sword now?”

The Soulsolu, the Terminus, and the Dawli walked in front of him, gesturing for him to follow. Link glanced behind himself to see the rest of the aliens seemingly circling him.

“Yeah, it’s probably smart to do that,” Link said with snicker, “Now let’s get moving!”

They all went at a steady pace, a bit too slow for Link, who was constantly used to running as much as he could, but he honestly should get used to just…walking. Like a normal person. Especially indoors. Perhaps walking outside normally would encourage him to start walking inside normally. Link really hoped things would work that way, for Purah’s sake, at least.

Link had accidentally bumped into her stuff far too often. The only more common occurrence than that, was him accidentally running off of various sets of stairs. How very embarrassing of him. In his defense, his motor skills were not…great after getting out of the Shine of Resurrection.

Link fiddled with his slate as the group continued their trek towards the crash site. His Camera Rune upgrade had to do something, but what? It couldn’t just have to do with the new compendium, that would be boring. And another important question, one that Link knew he wouldn’t be getting an answer to anytime soon, was what did the shadow alien hope to gain from doing this? From kidnapping Link to upgrading his slate, what was the meaning behind all of that?

A tug on his collar, the pink Lopper stopped him in his tracks, and from bumping into one of the three aliens in front of him. They had stopped, because the wreckage was right in front of them.

There were a few more Loppers there, some of them wearing odd masks, all of them working on cleaning up the metal mess. Link rushed closer to the site, seeing in the corner of his eye, that the Soulsolu and the Dawli following right behind him.

Since the area was a tad clearer now, Link went right into running around and seeing if anything stood out. He ignored the shouts of everyone around him as he did so. And after that cursory glance, he dove into the cracks of the metal slabs, crawling and rummaging about, looking for his sword.

“C’mon, come on!” Link let out a shout of frustration, slamming his fist against one of the slabs next to him. Doing so pushed it to side, just enough so that Link could see a small, blue light.

“WOO—ow. Owie,” Link rubbed his head, he had jolted right up into another metal fragment, it bouncing up from the force of Link’s very own thick skull. Link braced himself for even more crawling, as someone grabbed the piece of metal above him, before the sheet had fallen back down. Link looked up to see the Dawli holding the metal, head tilted and looking down at Link. Those blue eyes…wait, those markings, they looked just like the ones Wolfie had!

Wolfie was Link’s greatest, closest companion he had, ever since he got out of that shine. A giant, very friendly-to-him wolf, with greenish-grey and white fur. This Dawli was even colored the same way! Link forgot whether or not his slate mentioned something about their fur coloration, so there was a chance that this guy right here…

Was Wolfie.

And he didn’t seem to recognize him! Maybe they weren’t actually Wolfie, then. Or maybe time travel was involved, somehow. He kind of hoped so, only because he missed his bestest boy ever. Oh well. Time to fetch the Master Sword.

“Wolfie!” Link shouted to the Dawli, because he was still hoping that they were his giant “fur baby,” as some say, “I need to get over there!” He pointed at where he saw the blue glow, and he saw the newly dubbed Wolfie’s gaze going over to it. They squinted, leaning forward, before leaning back and moving the metal plate away. They returned to help Link on his path towards the Master Sword, so now Link wouldn’t have to crawl like an ant. He hated crawling. Now, crouching? That was where the fun was at.

“Almost there…” Link mumbled to himself, crouching and moving closer to one his most prized possessions, “I worked so hard for this little fella here, it will not be slipping from my grasp again.”

As Wolfie grabbed at the final metal scrap above the sword, Link readied himself. As soon the scrap was off, Link lunged for his sword. The cool feel of the metal blade, the winged guard, the green grip, the blocky pommel. And that triangle symbol engraved on the blade, the same as that power Zelda held, and the same as that object on that purple Lopper’s staff.

Wolfie peered over Link’s shoulder, and he could feel their fluff rubbing up against him. It took way too much effort to not pass out that very second. Link didn’t realize just how sleepy he really was, up until that moment. But he couldn’t fall asleep now! He had just gotten the Master Sword back!

“This is Master Sword, the greatest of all swords,” Link whispered dramatically to Wolfie, tilting the weapon so that they could see it better. Then Wolfie tried to touch the blade, so Link jerked it away from them.

“Hey! It’s my sword, not yours!” Link wagged his finger at Wolfie, scolding them, before then booping their noise. They recoiled from the sudden boop, which gave Link enough space to stand up.

“Wanna see something cool?” Link asked, fully aware that Wolfie couldn’t understand him, but man, he kind of missed talking to people.

Link spun the sword around in his right hand, doing a few stretches with it after. He saw the aliens looking at him, likely curious of what Link was doing, of what he was holding.

Link twirled the sword once more, before getting into a throwing position. He griped the hilt tightly, making sure he didn’t actually throw his sword, before swinging the sword as hard as he could. A beam of light shot out of it, smacking against a tree, leaving a nice, arced scar on it.

Link spun the sword around one final time, before sheathing the sword behind his back, the scabbard for it materializing out of thin air.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Link grinned widely, very happy he got his favorite sword back. But for some reason, the aliens started screaming again. Really now, nothing that just happened was worth screaming about, right? At least that didn’t last for too long, but then they all started to get closer to Link. The Lofttail, especially, seemed to have eyes on his sword.

The alien spoke to him, trying to communicate something as they held their clawed hands out. One of those words stood out to Link, for some unknowable reason.

“‘Fi?’” Link questioned, “Is that like, the word for sword in your language—why am I asking things like you’ll understand what I’m saying?” Link scoffed, shaking his head. He looked over at the other aliens, and they were all looking at him. Except for the Loppers who were working on clearing out the area, those guys didn’t really seem to care.

The Lofttail seemed to care a lot about the sword, and looking in their eyes, to Link, they seemed to caring about the sword for reasons far…grander than it just being because it’s “shiny and cool,” or simple thoughts like that. There was a certain glimmer in their eyes, one that Link couldn’t possibly discern or describe, but one that felt familiar. A familiar kind of yearning, all for the Master Sword.

Link gripped tightly onto the grip of the sword, shutting his eyes in thought. Common sense dictated that giving this strange, alien bird-guy this absurdly powerful sword, would be a very bad idea. And yet…

Link relinquished the Master Sword to the Lofttail, begrudgingly, a painful action. But seeing the gentle way the alien grasped their claws around the hilt, gently brushing over the blade…maybe he made the right decision.

And seeing the Lofttail point the sword skyward, before then throwing out an absolutely massive arc of energy from the sword, definitely reassured him about that. Because, ha ha, what? What? How??? Link could only stare dumbly at the Lofttail, completely dumbfounded at what just happened.

Link stammered some nonsense as he gestured at the alien, and at the Master Sword. Oh, of course someone could wield the Master Sword better than him! Obviously! Link groaned in frustration, running his hands down his face and keeping them there, hands pressing down on his cheeks, looking at his feet.

On an alien planet, light years away from Earth, there lay a god damn bird man, an alien who was a more rightful owner to the sword than him.

Maybe a hundred years ago, maybe back then, Link was more worthy. Back when the Master Sword, the Sword That Seals the Darkness, hadn’t had to dig into his very soul, ripping and tearing at it, until he could pull it out of that stone. Until he could properly wield it. When weapons lasted faster than a single hit in his hands, back when he actually was a—

A soft paw landed on Link’s head, and looking up, it was from the Terminus. The armored giant patted his head, and Link had no idea how to feel about that. Comforted? Angry? Who the hell knows anymore, Link just felt like crying, honestly. But he didn’t want to do that, so he let out a rather pathetic whine instead. Like that was any better.

The Lofttail offered the Master Sword back to him, but Link refused it, shaking his head. The sword was clearly better held in their hands, not his. Also, even though the sword was rechargeable, it could still break in Link’s hands. That likely wouldn’t happen to this alien. And even if it did, that short display of power from the Lofttail was worth it.

The Soulsolu now appeared in front of Link, a golden Rupee in their hand. They wanted Link to follow them, obviously. Link glanced back at the wreckage of the spaceship, before turning back to face the alien. There wasn’t anything worthwhile in that rubble. The thought of the shadowy alien still being alive burned at the back of his mind, but he chose to ignore. To ignore that, and every other thought to simply follow the Soulsolu.

It was a bit longer of a walk, compared to going to the jail. The aliens around him were chittering, chiming, and talking to each other, while Link could only stay silent, barely focusing on the shiny Rupee in front of him. Link wondered how they all communicated with one another, wondering—hoping—that he could eventually do that as well. He wanted them to at least understand him, or for him to understand them, instead.

Wolfie—his actual wolf friend, not the newly nicknamed alien—always understood him, somehow. Which made it all the more frustrating when Wolfie kept going off on his own, attacking any monster that came close—not even that close, as long as Wolfe could see one, he’d be off to maul them in a snap. Honestly, it was more funny than anything, as time passed on. And it was nice, how much Wolfie wanted to protect him.

Hmm…what if Link could that for these aliens? It was the least he could do, since they seemed like they weren’t evil, especially the Lofttail. He just needed…ah! A stick! Link quickly dashed off to pick one up. The slate said that it was basically the same as an Earth stick, but slightly sturdier. Nice.

Now Link could happily follow the Rupee holder with a weapon in hand.

Link and the alien crew arrived at a gigantic spaceship—compared to the one he was kidnapped on and crashed, at least. It was triangular, silver in color, propped up by nine sturdy kickstands. It was definitely bigger than the Divine Beasts, or it just felt bigger to Link. Either way, he just had to snap a picture of it.

The boarding ramp for the ship lowered, and most of the aliens started to go up it. Soulsolu led him towards it, up it, into the ship. Link did hesitate, for a moment, standing on the ramp. He looked back at the planet and saw that purple Lopper talking to the pink one, before the purple one sent the other off.

Link watched the pink Lopper walk up, before they stopped at Link’s side and lightly shoved him forward. The Soulsolu chimed, waving the golden Rupee in front of Link’s face.

Link scowled, tilting his head back dramatically, “Fine, fine I’m going, I’m moving.” He poked the Soulsolu as he moved forward, and he had never heard a chime sound so much like a bird squawking before. Link snickered, and he was pretty sure the Lopper next to him was snickering too.

The three stepped inside of the ship, and then the ramp started to raise up behind them. The two waved at the purple Lopper who stayed behind—this was probably their home planet, now that Link thought about it—so Link waved too. The purple Lopper waved back, up until the ramp fully closed.

The Soulsolu chimed and waved the Rupee again, and after a quick glance at the Lopper to see what they were doing—which was looking at Link expectingly—he diligently followed them.

Link didn’t know what kind of fate laid ahead of him, but he was determined about one thing; getting back home. He’ll figure out how to communicate with these aliens, what the deal with that shadowy alien was, and how to get back home.

Link was the Champion of Earth, Hero of the Wild. He’ll figure out how to get back home, one way or another.