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The puzzle solving is causing natural disasters every time you two find another one.
You don’t use “Link” much anymore. Well, it’s not like you used it much in the past anyway. It feels… too formal? Too… Before.
Now, the forest clearing echoes with your voice calling out, “WILD!”
The only answer is his wheezing laughter as he stumbles his way to the edge of the puzzle grounds somewhere before you can catch him.
Wild, as you’ve nicknamed him, both for his wild antics, his joy of being out in the woods, and it being a part of his hero title. You’d thought of the nickname as both ironic and kind of cute despite its simplicity. A good fit for the man you’ve come to know all over again, who’s just as wild as the lands he explores.
You get flickers of the game knowledge from Far Before, but most of the details come from your near deadbeat journal these days. You’d kept it since the Calamity, flickers of memories flashing through your mind anytime you retrieve it from your magically gained inventory. You shake your head to try and delay the inevitable old memories it conjures every time you get it out, bits and pieces of your time here in Hyrule. Flipping through finger-softened pages, the papers fall open with the ease of a book well-read. Finally, you find one of the few half-remembered puzzle solutions from Far Before that you wrote down so long ago. Luckily for Wild and you, you remembered the more complicated puzzles rather than the obvious ones. Faded clips of Youtube tutorials play in your head as you read it over once more.
You shout at him as you gently push off the ground, “As much as I would like for it to be just throwing a bomb at it, we actually have to wait until sunset, Wild!”
The wind does nothing to you as it brushes the surrounding trees, an exasperated groan off to the side giving away the hylian’s hiding spot. Sure enough, you phase through a tree to follow the sound and come upon the unnatural bright blue light of the Sheikah Slate’s conjured round bomb. Clutched slightly above Wild’s frizzy long blonde hair, he rolls his eyes, a playful smirk tugging the long-healed burn scars on his face. You cross your arms, the ancient journal vanishing in the ghostly soft black-purple light that comes with most of your actions these days.
Wild groans, dramatically and loudly, the crunch of rocks under his boots accompanying the grumbles under his breath as he lowers the glowing bomb to the ground. With an expert swipe from his side, he lifts the Sheikah Slate, his bottom lip comically poking out to pout as he pokes at the screen to dismiss the bomb.
You see his tanned, scarred and nicked fingers stop, thumbs poised over the screen as he suddenly looks up at you hovering a little ways in front of him over a bush. He grins, the kind of teeth baring that means he knows you’re trying to be the responsible one, but he also knows you are just as bad as him.
You try to pinch your lips together to keep from returning the mischievous grin, lurching out of your scolding pose to thrust your gray-scale arm forward to snatch up the Slate, but it’s too late.
Wild giggles as he swings his right leg back, gaining momentum to kick the bomb, VVHUummm!
It rings like a muffled bell as it soars between the two trees the hylian’s hid behind. The imaginary crowd of football fans roars in your mind as your jaw drops, your goal forgotten, your shade self left floating and frozen in your reach towards Wild. You can’t do anything but follow the ball with your eyes as it flies high to become an incredible fantasy version of a volatile touchdown.
It pings and pongs off of the geometric, short towers of the iconic Sheikah material in the clearing. The big slab beneath them made of the same strange stone, but it’s hard to see as it has long been overgrown by moss and grass. Vines are ripped off the short structures as it finishes its round of deadly pinball. The bright blue bomb lands perfectly between all of the towers in the center, the one part nature’s still trying to reach. So you hear it land loud and clear with a ringing THUMP!
A small, click! Comes from over your shoulder.
“Wild NO-!”, the last words you laugh out before the clearing shakes and is eaten up by smoke.
Birds squawk and scatter into the afternoon sun, the soft rain of rubble echoing before all that’s left is the smoke dispersing.
The forest is only silent for a moment before a sound rises from the ground, louder and louder, a long hisssSSSSS-!
A sharp spew of water cuts through the air as it sprouts up from the ground in the middle of the puzzle area. It grows larger and larger, the hissing filling the area as more leaks rapidly fan out from the center.
You’re laughter constantly interrupts you as you try to talk, “Oh my god- Hahaha! You little shit! W-Wild, take cover-!” Your last words left up to him to translate from wheezes.
Rapid hylian language curses follow your giggly advice, boots stomping over the undergrowth as the crazy young hero goes careening deeper into the forest. Clutching your stomach, despite barely feeling your muscles clench anymore, you will your laughing specter body to melt into the shadows of the trees to keep up with his weaving. Popping up in the darkness of the underbrush before darting to the next one a league ahead.
Wild’s long hair is nearly to his mid-back, the blonde braid it’s woven into flashing gold in the dappled sunlight as he ducks under branches and around tree trunks. You’d combed out what you swore was the actual beginnings of a bird’s nest in his hair this morning. You’d constantly been braiding it as one of the few protective hairstyles you knew to help him keep the length he liked so much. You don’t know how he would have kept it this long and relatively healthy without it.
Wild’s flushed face whips back around as he spins on his boot heel to then drop behind a large mossy rock. He pants, his lips still twitching with his earlier grin as he peeks his bright blue eyes over the rock he’s crouched behind for cover. He shoots you a full smile as you finally recover from your laughter, ascending from the shadow the rock makes to huddle beside him. His long shaggy bangs frame his face, the two longer pieces on the sides decorated with leaves, his pointed elf ears twitch cutely, one slightly crumpled by the old burns. It’s accompanied by a large burn scar on the side of his pretty face that scrunches from his boyish smile. His eyelashes go from dark brown to blonde at the tips, highlighting his captivating blue eyes.
Wild’s entire face is nothing but open, genuine joy aimed at you. You can’t remember the last time someone looked at you like that.
His irises look like when a stream meets the sea, a deeper hue that bleeds into a bright clear one. For only a second, the unfiltered expression is shared with you, before time forces you both to move on.
And by that you mean, a Korok goes flying above the treetops over your heads. There’s a stream of water droplets behind them like an eco-friendly rocket trail.
The Korok doesn’t even scream, its little body just wiggles through the air, looking like a fish spirit instead of a tree spirit. Both of your heads roll to watch as you don’t hear it land, but after a moment of stunned silence, an angry little screech echoes in the distance.
Rain follows not long after despite the clear day, coming from the puzzle area and soaking Wild and the forest. It passes right through you. As if that wasn’t enough, you start to hear a deep rumbling not too far from you and Wild’s hiding spot as a Stone Talus is rudely woken by you two’s nonsense.
Wild tries to clutch your arm for support, failing immediately as you nearly fall into the shadows again from laughing so hard you went rolling.
Meanwhile, he’s given up on you as he’s collapsed on all fours, clutching his cramping stomach. The dark and light blue split tunic you’d helped sew for him after finding his degraded Champion tunic begins to drip with the unnatural rain. He laughs like he’s making up for all the times he couldn’t before. The kind of wheezing, snorting laugh that sounds like the real thing.
Wild still manages to get one calloused hand around your gray ankle to keep you from going under.
____________________
Princess Zelda is squeaking her excitement into the spring breeze that curls around the field.
Sun blossoms across his exposed skin, slow to even out his light sporadic tan that only makes sense once you know he’s usually in armor. Impa’s hair reflects like sunlight on snow as she speaks much quieter next to the pale princess, both knelt in the long grass. You are the only people to be found this deep into the rolling hills south of the castle walls.
They look so small from here, less a fortress, or a prison, and instead something left behind. Your eyes filled with the green waves all around you as they are.
Impa is in traditional Sheikah wear and the Princess in a more casual outfit, but still befitting of her station. Link, the royal knight that he is, stands in near uncanny stillness in this real life painting you find yourself in. You are clearly within his sight, as you’ve noticed by now that he angles or positions himself to view everyone who is near the Princess as is his duty.
The young women’s light hair brushes together as another breeze across the plains sends their long strands waving. Their heads almost touching as the two lean over something in the grass that makes the Princess’s hands give a small giddy clap.
You turn back, Link’s blue eyes smoothing over the hills, back to the two women, to you, then back to the hills. He doesn’t make eye contact, but it has you huffing a laugh to yourself anyway. A grin tugging the side of your lips as you lean forward, hoping to go unnoticed as he begins his routine scan again.
Right as he checks the two hylian women again, now bickering over a frog, and turns his muted blue eyes back to your area, you figure it out. The exact spot his eyes land to check if your there or have moved, whether it’s because he’s guarding you too, or to make sure you don’t try anything with the Princess. Your teeth bare in the grin you give as you make eye contact with him, your guess right on the money.
His eyes aren’t quite as blue as you thought them to be in the game. Link’s eyes don’t match his tunic actually. The tunic is bright, a summer afternoon blue that is honestly even brighter than the spring sky that stretches above you all today. His eyes however, while minute in their widening, (the closest thing to a “jump” you’ve ever seen out of the knight so far), are comparatively darker. They blend in under his neatly combed aside blonde bangs like a forest stream. They’re pretty on his heart-shaped face, upturned nose, and slender hylian elf ears. But oddly not the first thing you notice at all when looking at him.
You meet those soft blues and try to hold him there, but as he quickly darts his eyes away to scan the hills once more. You peek at the Princess and Impa, silently thanking the frog that’s now getting held up in the air like Simba for its sacrifice.
Link’s the only one standing, arms held behind his back, feet braced in width with his shoulders like the trained soldier he is. Even his low ponytail you remember in game looks tighter than you expected, and it’s usually in a simple but perfect bun as well. It’s strange to see him in this outfit appearing so… polished. Proper and everything tucked in despite your memories of Breath of the Wild being filled with the shirt torn and constantly worn as you ran your hero around the entire world.
You huff, it’s hard to break his armor. You’ve been trying in the little moments you are allowed to be near Princess Zelda, a paper plane here and a wave there. Which you can thank your “otherworldly knowledge” and arrival for intriguing her enough to let you linger around her some days.
Your nose scrunches as your lips join the frustrated pout for a second, as his eyes check his surroundings, the hylian women, and you over again.
With another grin, more a smirk with your intentions now, you ease your hand through the grasses you kneel in with the two other hylians nearby. Not enough movement or a big enough body part to be noticed instantly, and concealed by the kind shuffling of the flora.
Subtle and steady, you channel every horror movie protagonist you’ve ever seen to begin to untie his boot laces.
Fate (or the goddesses?) must be on your mischievous side today, because the Princess launches into an increasingly louder passionate rant that even the gentle winds can’t muffle. Perfect distraction for untying laces.
You feel tough brown cords slacken under your glacier-slow fingers. You’re in.
It’s right as you’re pulling your arm back for the mission extraction, slithering through the soft grass, when all hell breaks loose.
Impa abruptly jumps to stand, stumbling from her own sudden movement. The Princess shrieks, high-pitched and shattering the tranquility of the spring day as her dark blue tunic goes down into the greenery. You let out your own yelp as your legs jolt from where they’re folded underneath you. Confusion barely able to register before you feel a hard but firm thump hit the side of your torso.
You only see leather braces and simple armored gloves flash in the sunlight above your head before you’re toppled under a misshapen weight.
The funny flop of your body just going sideways is not lost on you as you go into the yielding soil below. Your legs unable to do anything trapped under your thighs and arms told too late to catch you as the weight pushes you into the dirt.
“AHH! Phhbbttt-! Oh- Impaaa! I think it’s slimey foot got in my mouth! This is not- pfftt! Not what I meant when I said I was interested in trying fieldwork!”
You can’t see what the Princess and Impa are doing now, but you hear the howling laughter of the Sheikah woman as the princess sputters.
You are currently mashed into the grass, the world darker here where you lay curled on your side. The shock of the fall, and the possibly ominous thud just above your own head on the ground likely having dazed your poor victim.
But really, he kind of got instant karma against you, so is Link really the victim here anymore?
You feel warm muscles finally flex on your side that’s not getting cool from the earth, as strong arms brace in front of your face and behind your head.
Your body stays frozen as you creak only your head to the side to look up as the royal knight lifts off of you. Your eyes slowly scanning the tilted horizon before making their way up the leather brace covered arm, to the blue tunic flowing in the wind as it hangs down from his chest, and halting at making eye contact with him once again.
Half-curled up like a dead bug on your side, you give a cowardly side eye to Link above you.
His pretty face is neutral, and you can see a sliver of a more deadpan expression mixed in there, maybe somewhere between his slightly pinched dark eyebrows. He’s made his own shade here, the both of you hugged by the strong sunlight falling all around you as he waits a second too long in this moment. But as soon as you see his sort-of-unamused full reaction, it’s sharply cut off as his stomach clenches. Link’s pink lips twitch upward in one corner in time with a quiet huff from his nose.
You turn your head more to look at his face more head-on, and possibly get out of this deceased insect position, except he’s already sitting up proper now. Arms leaving their bracket around your strange pose as his shade disappears. Leaving your eyes squinting as you untangle your limbs from the ground.
Link’s scooted back enough to be on one knee, his eyes glancing between his propped boot that he’s retying and the Princess somewhere behind you.
He makes eye contact with you again as you whip your head back to look at the hylian women behind you instead. The Princess and Impa standing up now as they prepare to move on, Zelda brushing her shoulders off, as the taller woman helps the royal hylian brush out her long vivid blonde hair.
You give a small reflexive jump. Your poor neck is probably going to get whiplash as you jerk back to look down at your foot, where you felt something tug at it.
One of your own boot laces lies untied in the flattened grass around you.
By the time you think to look up, Link’s sky blue tunic is already fluttering over his arms that he’s grasped at his lower back.
Following the Princess, as Impa looks over her shoulder to wave at you to hurry up.
____________________
You take up vigil once more at the entrance of the Shrine of Resurrection the day the Temple’s roof caves in.
The blood moons, day by day, week by week, have creeped into the regular moon cycles now. Once a month, usually at the end when the new moon would leave the stars alone, instead its awful red light rises. Monsters have also finally reached the Great Plateau in the last year, though only Bokoblins and Keese they may be, all these coincidences happening all at once is just too strange to dismiss.
he roof was your final push. Everything now looks like the game once did, from what you’re calling, Far Before.
There are stairs that lead down to the sealed door proper. The steps sharp edges have long lost their battle against mother nature, looking as if they were built with the moss and weeds. It’s unsurprising, as most of Hyrule’s structures that aren’t currently in use, like houses or stables, have succumbed to the same fate over the decades whenever you’d wake to check on the surface world above you. Despite waking in the late evening, when you emerge from sleeping in the dark world of the shadows, even the stars seem too bright.
Your feet barely disturb the blades of grass or squish the moss as you almost float down the steps to the door below. It remains the only part that isn’t completely choked out by greenery. You tug at the few bold vines that have made their way to the Sheikah’s eye symbol at the center of the interlocking door in your latest absence. Your own greyed out hands looking like a vintage photo come to life next to all this color.
You’d had too many false alarms to foolishly get your hopes up again, so instead you sit and wait. It’s not like you have the technology of your old world Far Before to guide you any longer, to tell you how long it’s truly been. If it opens, it opens, if it doesn’t, then you will simply wait, maybe sleep in the shadows for a long time again. What’s another few years on top of what’s (probably) been decades already?
You watch the evening sky turn to night and the moon rise, silent above Hyrule’s sprawling mountains and vast landscape. It’s a beautiful white full moon tonight, instead of the red light that you barely notice these days. It isn’t until the obvious signs show up that you clue into the crimson phase. You usually feel an adrenaline rush and your hands darken to contrast the white glow around you, like a black hole in the making. Unlike Far Before, when you were playing the game, the blood moons are unimportant to you beyond what their increased frequency means. After all, the monsters can’t hurt you anymore, most don’t even want to at the sight of your shade.
You want a reason to care about them again, but the only one you can think of is sealed behind the ancient door pressed against your back. The sensation is muffled, like most things now. You can’t even remember the last time you’ve cried or yelled or felt yourself really react to something. As if the grey that’s taken over your spirit has dulled your emotions too. It feels like the only thing you can do, the only option your mind will allow anymore, is waiting. Sitting, standing, traveling, even flying as this shadow or ghost now, it still feels like the act of waiting. It is only passing time.
The moon and your own body’s faint glow are the only light sources on the Plateau tonight. Flickers of fireflies burn for seconds at random around the woods, before vanishing like embers into the night. You close your eyes, your heavy head pillowed by the worn stone.
The music of crickets and squeaks of Keese flapping through the air quiet down as the early morning hours cool the earth underneath you. It’s a chill still felt by you, which is how you know it must truly be cold on the Plateau tonight.
The night passes as it always does. The birds wake slowly, you know when they will from listening to generations of them. A chirp here, a tweet there, your eyes still shut as you remain resting against the ridged Shrine door. Dawn will come soon.
Your mind drifts, wondering if he kept it. If it was still hanging from his pointed ear when you dragged him inside the Shrine behind you. With the way his face and side were, his left ear was… You reach up, the first movement you’ve felt motivated to make in hours. One of the few things that kept you moving whenever you’d come out of your frequent years long slumbers.
The earring is smooth as only polished metal can be. You’d visited the castle’s forge for weeks trying to master enough jewelry craftsmanship to just make metal loops for earrings. He always wore the same pair, the bold blue-silver ones gifted to him by his father when he was accepted as the youngest Royal Guard, at only nineteen years old. You thought it only made sense to give him another pair for his twentieth birthday.
Your eyes crack open with the dawn that spills down the fuzzy green steps. Gold meets gray as the rays steadily pour into the shallow hole you sit at the bottom of, vanishing the morning mist coiled around you. You’re the only shadow left behind.
The earrings were gold, ironic you know, what with his hair and fair skin tone. But you’d teased him about getting a tan from being dragged outside by Zelda constantly, so it’d still look good. You joked they could be his “fancy ballroom pair” for when he’d be forced into the Royal Guard ceremonial uniform he secretly couldn’t stand.
You sigh deeply out of your nose, the world fully awake past the steps that lead up to the Plateau proper. Monsters in the distance groaning awake, the birds singing fully now, a choir for the sunrise. There is a noise like something mechanical humming for a moment before you blink and it’s gone.
You frown, tugging at the single smooth metal ring hanging from your rounded ear. He’d worn them everywhere after his birthday, and you’d even helped change them out for him the very day you gifted them. You hadn’t been aware how often he actually kept them in until you and Zelda were sitting under the shade of a tree deep in the Plateau’s woods. She’d leaned in to your ear, whispering between giggles to say that she hadn’t seen him change back to the blue ones ever since he got the gold from you. You hadn’t missed his slightly narrowed eyes on his otherwise neutral face as he’d jogged back over to you two from fetching a flower the princess wanted to study. You think she used it as a distraction to be honest to tell you that, as she’d waved away his offer.
Gesturing to give it to you instead. He’d hesitated visibly, which meant it really must’ve surprised the knight, before he’d thrust the flower at you. His posture stiff and arm straight as you’d taken the small lilac flower. Zelda laughed at him as you looked at the purple flower for a moment, then leaned forward and stuck it behind his pointed ear. You don’t remember what face he made, only the gold earring glinting prettily below the flower in the sun.
You sit up, straight. You force your stuttering breathing to the same slow rate it has been. You don’t even really need to breathe anymore. But it’s unlikely the habit is ever going to leave you from your living days.
You turn to eye the door behind you, drifting off the ground enough to give you some room to take it all in. The sunlight having crested high enough in the early morning to fully illuminate this dip in the earth you and he rested in. The Sheikah’s shrine door looking almost like sandstone under the bright light.
You don’t get your hopes up, not until you’re absolutely sure-
A humming begins deeper in the shrine. Something latches into place. You glance back up at the green steps as a familiar fluttering starts in your chest. You’d prepared an area nearby for when he came back. You know it’s still there, nothing’s changed, you’d checked on the basic shack just before taking up your vigil for the night. It’d been so, so, so long, you hadn’t really realized- well you did because you made and collected all those things for him- but you guess you never really imagined- No, you didn’t want to give yourself such naive hopes just in case he-
The door shakes.
Dirt rains down from the edges, the sticky vines shuddering as the Sheikah’s eye that cries a single tear shines to life, a royal blue eye looking back at you.
You stumble, all your inherent ghostly grace forgotten as you use your hands and feet to scramble to stand. Floating a few feet back to the beginning of the weeds of the steps as your hands twitch at your sides. You sway unsteadily, despite having no body weight or elements to affect you.
The Shrine of Resurrection’s door grinds against its own moving parts as it breaks open like a long finished puzzle that you want to start all over again. Vertical and horizontal slat pieces rolling and pulling away from each other as a cloud of dust puffs into the sunlight.
You’re dead and gone, you don’t have a body anymore. Your eyes get warm anyway. You feel your form blur like an old photograph, like the sun is about to disperse the last shadow.
The young hylian man shuffles, squinting into the sunbeams that angle into the doorway.
Link acts and looks nothing like the game cut-scenes, your old modern mindset whispers in the back of your mind. His blonde hair is untied, long and damp with rapidly evaporating blue water, it reaches down to his elbows. He’s in his boxers, the basic tunic and pants you’d left for him so long ago dragging on the ground a little, clutched in hand by his side. You’d been desperate, the only clothes you’d been able to spare him before the shrine sealed were some of your own looser ones, to ensure they fit him no matter what. He’s barefoot as well, the small puddle just inside the shrine door having gotten him a little muddy. The Sheikah Slate hangs from a belt wrapped above his dark boxers, it gives off a small blue and orange light.
He coughs, waving away the dust cloud with the clothes he’s holding pitifully as his eyes flutter around the area for a moment, before adjusting and landing on you.
Link doesn’t jump or put on that neutral “guard face” that you know it as, instead, he tilts his head. To the side, like a lost puppy, his long frazzled blonde hair following like a damp curtain.
His burns are okay. The stretch of pink swirled scar tissue brings relief like you have never felt, especially in these last… one hundred years. He’s okay.
You have to choke back a cry trying to crawl out of your throat. You blink rapidly to try and avoid it, avoid frightening him off, but tears leave cold silent trails down your cheeks anyway. Link’s right here.
You sniff, once, before urging your lips into a hard won smile. It is genuine, somewhat, on one hand you don’t know what to do with yourself, and on the other, your mind buzzes with victorious joy that has your arms jerking up as if to go for a hug. You pray a sudden, wordless wish, that this is not those awfully vivid dreams from one of your long rests. You catch sight of your grayed out arms lifting up as if to rush forward. You snap out of the emotions enough to bring them back down to your sides.
You inhale shakily, breathing out more smoothly as you stick out your hand. The other wipes away the near black tear trails on your face swiftly.
“Hi. I’m your friend. I was- I was waiting. For you. Good morning.”
Link looks at you, his expression so open you can see the squint of caution before his bare feet crush the weeds that you were sitting in just a minute ago. He reaches for your hand, tentative and clearly evaluating you as you try not to tear up all over again at that look. As soon as you caught your reflection in one of the lakes at the edge of the Plateau in the early days of Link’s sleep, the silent anxiety of what you looked like now had lingered. You’d worried about this day, would he be scared? If he had memories of you, would he even recognize you? Would he hate what Ganon’s pollution, his Malice, has done to your restless spirit? A shadow of what you once were?
Link, in all his barely dressed, newly awoken coma patient, wide-eyed glory, takes your hand. He doesn’t shake it, only grasping your hand gingerly.
His eyes, once all a mellow gray-blue, now look struck with sunlight.
You’re so stunned at seeing his expression relax and wait there curiously, at seeing how easily you can read him, that you take a minute to realize he’s just holding your hand. Your own eyes stunned out of tearing up as you look down at your holding hands.
Link’s hand littered with scars of old nicks and paler from his time in the chamber. Your hand that’s clutched in his looking like a drawing come to life with all your color drained down to shades of gray.
You feel a tug at your ear, jolting from the sight of your hands simply holding each other to look up at him. The morning light putting him in sharp focus as you see his other hand that’d held the clothes has dropped them. Only to be reaching to tug at your own hoop in one of your ears, before he tilts his head and slowly retracts his hand to his own pointed ear. The golden little hoop earring gets tugged on by his own hand. He gives you a small, friendly smile.
He doesn’t know any better right now, that he should let go of your hand, but you do, and you keep holding on. You’re a bad influence, because except for when you finally show him how to put on clothes, Link insists on holding your hand for the rest of the day.
____________________
The Princess insists you call her Zelda. That these dark times are not fit for such “frivolous formalities”.
You’d actually had a hard time not calling her Zelda when you first got to the real life world of Hyrule. You felt like you only recently started to get the hang of addressing her like the royalty she was. She better never expect a “Your Majesty” out of you ever again, because you doubt you’ll be able to change it after going back to your roots. You say something along those lines, all while the poor royal hylian is neck deep in books and paperwork at the library table. Zelda manages a small smile next to you, and Link lets out a tired but amused huff from the other side of the paper towers, so you’re counting that as a win.
It’d been almost a year since you arrived, and the two blondes, despite the class difference, were already good friends when you arrived. It’s clear they act indifferent when around the King or in public, but as soon as it’s just the Champions, Impa, or you around, they’re much more casual. Link usually isn’t trying his best to look like a strategically placed statue, and Zelda allows her posture to be anything other than a ninety degree vertical angle.
That’s usually how it is, but now, Zelda has bunched up her long light blonde hair in between her fingers from where they’re supporting her drooping head. Ink stains litter her hands as she mumbles under her breath, barely flinching when the door to the library is kicked inward. You jump in your uncomfortable wooden seat, barely seeing the top of Link’s honey blonde hair and the tips of his ears also jump up from behind the towers. Before descending back under the paper waves as if he reflexively reacted, only to see who it came flying in.
Impa comes storming inside the royal library in a passionate strut, her white long hair billowing like a cape behind her as she comes to a halt before your swamped table. Her arms cross, but instead of angry, Impa looks so tense her shoulders are almost touching the side hair pieces that frame her glaring face.
“They sent out Urbosa. Urbosa.”
Her stance and general frustration doesn’t catch Zelda’s attention so much as the Champion’s name she hisses out. Zelda drops her quill, the white feather splotched with black from falling into the wet ink of her words on the pages below. You hear a chair scrape against the floor on the other side of the table as Link stands.
The Champions, the royal hylian family, and the leaders of the other races across Hyrule have been in constant communication through use of Sheikah technology. It’d been a shy suggestion of your own actually, after Impa had wrung your brain dry for any advice about the coming Calamity. After all, you knew communication, as rapid and efficient as possible, could radically change the outcome of Ganon’s increasingly widespread attacks. That way if the Zora got ambushed, even the Rito on the other side of the continent could prepare for battle. It would also help with reinforcements, the part that you knew would matter the most for the Champions and each of their people.
“When? Now? Last night? …I knew father was acting strange.” Zelda rushes out her reply to Impa, her focus still sharp despite the clear fatigue in her voice. You’ve turned to listen to Impa, but when you get a look at the princess out of the corner of your eye, she looks pale and drained. She looks so much older than twenty-one.
Impa’s jaw is clenched as she fidgets with her long sleeves in restlessness. Her response sounds like it was pried out of her, “Early this morning. She’s only just gotten into Gerudo town and was finally able to send a Slate message. She’s got Vah Naboris up and running defense already, just like the others.”
Zelda sighs like a person who hasn’t slept in twenty-four hours, rubbing her eyes as Link rounds the table to stand near Impa and you. He frowns, fists balling and releasing constantly by his sides. The irony of him wearing his bright blue Champion tunic is not lost on you as you hear about the last of his comrades sent off without even being able to say goodbye. Just in case. The royal knight must be more tired than you thought if it’s this obvious he’s upset.
Zelda’s worn out eyes turn to you, a quiet, pleading look in them as she asks, “I know you can’t- shouldn’t tell us everything. But it’s almost here, isn’t it?”
You only hold eye contact with her dark blue eyes for a second before glancing back at Link and Impa on your other side. Impa bites her lip, arms still gripping each other tight as Link stands next to her, soldier straight. His hair is a little messier than its usual smooth low ponytail. You can’t tell if you’re reading him right, because when you make eye contact, you swear all you can see is strange understanding and acceptance.
You look back at the princess on your other side, waiting for an answer. One that she already knows but needs to hear you confirm it anyway. You give a short nod. The Champions forced to scatter to protect their own hometowns and all of Hyrule’s forces spread thin before Ganon even shows his face. It had been something you’d all tried everything to prevent, without becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Zelda closes her eyes, nodding slowly as she leans back into her chair, the wood creaking the only sound for a moment before Impa speaks again.
The Sheikah woman’s voice grows stronger as she processes your confirmation, “Their predictions have been spot on, and no offense, my Princess, but I do not give a damn if King Rhoam calls xem a charlatan. Whatever happens, he’s the one that gave these idiotic orders in the first place. Not you, nor xem.”
Impa tugs at your arm, pulling you to stand, your chair scraping back as she firmly persuades her princess, “They say it’s almost time, I say we start evacuation protocols tonight.”
Zelda rubs at her neck, the tension in her muscles clearly making her ache as she gives her emphatic right-hand woman an agreeing hum. She sighs for the thousandth time tonight as she quickly begins gathering what you assume to be her most important documents and books. The goal of staying up in the library through the night had originally been to help the young hylian woman with strategizing and confirming with the other kingdoms that their magical firewalls were installed in all their Sheikah tech. It’s a lot of work coordinating plans with the other races of Hyrule for a war that is nearly upon you. The princess finally stands, stretching her aching back as she stuffs a satchel full of the materials. Drawing herself up to proper posture as she gives commands without a backward glance.
“Impa, send out the emergency signals, get our staff and Castle Town evacuating to our designated safe spots by tomorrow evening. Link, tell the Royal Guard Captain it’s time to turn the castle to a fortress, and divide the troops as planned amongst the us and our people.”
She slings the heavy satchel bag over her head, whipping her long hair out from under the strap and tying it back into a messy bun like you had shown her so many months ago. She turns to meet your eyes, as you don’t so much as see Link as sense him come to the other side of you, the one that isn’t held hostage by Impa.
The Princess Zelda gives you another small smile, this one less like a victory and more like the promise of battle.
“With me, our world traveler. I’ll need you to help guide me, since it seems the king will not. Link and Impa will catch up.”
You think you feel a calloused hand squeeze your own before the four of you split up. The night from then on is as long as you knew it’d be, just not in the way you expected. Instead of breaking your back over scrolls and stacks of paper, you’re hunched over pieces of the princess’s armor as you help her strap it over her cotton white dress and riding pants. You’re not pulling out armfuls of books for her, rather you’re arming both of yourselves with the Sheikah’s bright blue shields, bombs, and knives. By the time midnight has long passed, you see crowds of hylian people evacuating. Families and knights alike stream through the streets with torches bobbing like fireflies in the dark, far beyond the castle walls.
Guardians with blue and newly gold ringed eyes perch on the ramparts, a piece inside them humming with Hylia’s blessing from Zelda’s own two hands. By helping the hylian royal awaken her powers earlier than in the “original” timeline, the princess, Purah, and Robbie had developed a magical firewall to combat the predictions you’d made about Ganon’s possession of the tide-changing technology. You had been a little cryptic, worried about causing an unseen self-fulfilling prophecy, but Zelda and Impa had been smart enough to understand and act quickly once they caught onto you helping Zelda with her powers so often.
The town’s empty shell at the base of the outer walls only serves to highlight Hyrule Castle as the imposing fortress it was built to be. Its solid iron gates and rings of defensive barrier walls perched atop the tallest hill in the plains can convince you it’s never seen fine ballgowns, twinkling jewelry, or champagne bottles pop. It’s late evening three days later when the world truly goes silent, the proud fortress waiting for her enemy.
And sure enough, your words are proven as true as the day you came here when the outermost wall begins to shake in the sunset. The distant sounds of booming, yelling, and stomping echo through the iron gates that separate the three layers of the castle fortress. Reports of first contact come pinging in through the princess’s Sheikah Slate that’s grasped in her gaunlet-clad hands. She talks with the Captain of the Royal Guard that’s flanked the side of her you’re not on.
Zelda and you had received reports of monster attacks getting closer to the castle nearly two weeks before the evacuation. You’d both predicted correctly that Ganon was closing in, luckily before only the hylian Champion remained. Every day for the past three mornings, you’d suited your armor back on first thing, sometimes even collapsing in it from the late nights spent checking in on the other Champions’ battles and preparing for siege yourselves.
In the courtyard of the innermost part, the both of you and the royal knights that had chosen to defend the castle had already gotten into formation by the time the sun began to dip below the horizon line. The Guardians high on the walls with a mechanical bird’s eye view.
It isn’t until you hear Impa’s voice murmur something to the armored princess beside you that you realize they’re finally back. You’d seen flashes of white and blonde hair that wasn’t Zelda’s rushing about the castle for the past three days since splitting up. But neither you nor the princess had had time to stop and talk to them, and it was likely the same situation the other way around.
You look for Link, only to startle when you find him clanking to a stop on your empty side. He’s in full royal knight armor, his helmet is drawn low over his eyes, hand resting on the hilt of a familiar sword that lies in wait by his chain mail clad hip. It glows even in its scabbard. You’re not dressed too differently from him, a lighter armor for long range combatants like archers hugs your tense body, as you’d likely be using Sheikah technology to defend yourself if it came down to it rather than your simple sword techniques you’d only practiced for a year.
Your heart subtly beats in your ears as you inhale and exhale a shuddering breath. The second inner wall of the castle fortress begins to get rowdy as you hear metal clang, and the rising sound of Guardians charging their lasers on the walls.
It’s as the first red beam fires off, aimed at the other side of the last wall protecting you and the friends you’ve made here that you snap your gloved hand out to grab onto his. He doesn’t flinch, his helmet shielding his face from you as he keeps it straight ahead, likely trained on the iron gate that has chaos storming beyond it.
The whole goal of taking a stand here, instead of fleeing with the majority of the hylian people, is to lure Ganon out just enough to give Zelda the clearest shot at him that she can get. As the only person able to genuinely do some lasting damage to the evil, what better spot to cover her back and aid the princess than a fortress?
Dirt and debris shower from the final wall not too far from your formation of knights and friends. With a swipe of her finger on the Slate, Guardians descend from the ramparts like territorial animals, taking the front line as the hylians knights raise their shield and swords.
A musical hum comes from beside you as Link draws the Master Sword. Your hand twitches in his as you feel something press into your palm. Your hands let go as you bring up the small ring to your eyes. A small, plain gold earring hoop rests on your leather gloves. The young royal knight steps just ahead of you, the ancient sword glowing like a guiding star as the sky finally drops the black curtain of night over you all.
Rain begins to sprinkle as you reach up to slip the earring into your round human ear. An groaning roar surrounds the fortress. The Captain curses as he flanks Link by stepping ahead of Zelda, the grass getting slippery with water from clouds you can no longer see. There’s the quiet shling of Impa’s kunai being pulled as she steps forward to replace the Captain’s spot by Zelda’s side. You remain on her other side, flicking your wrist to activate the Guardian shield looped around your forearm. It’s blue light form adding more visibility for your allies.
You turn to see Zelda’s silhouette illuminated by the faint light of the Sheikah Slate screen. The long blonde hair you’d braided back out of her face this morning going brunette as the sprinkling night rain weighs it down. She glares at the shaking iron gate.
An organic shape of things pitch black pile up at the gate, a mimicry of the Guardians’ mechanical limbs come bursting through the square holes to pry at the stones holding the iron in place. Despite possession-proofing all of the Guardians that light up the front line with sharp blues and golds, it seems Ganon has managed to make some kind of amalgamation of shadow constructs that mimic their shape. You can only hope they just don’t outnumber the ones primed to defend you all.
Princess Zelda stands tall, proud, and sovereign as the castle fortress that has cradled her close all these years. Her gauntlet shines in the Slate’s screen light as she makes a series of rapid gestures across its now rain-slick surface. The last commands to send out to the Guardians in their ring around the knights and your friends.
She turns it off after she’s done, and the iron gate comes crashing down with a resounding CLANG!
The royal knights’ battle cries join the choir of Guardian lasers firing double-time at the lump of darkness that comes roiling through the crumbling opening.
You raise your blinding shield, pulling Purah’s new invention from your belt, a bomb that can shrink to the size of marbles before activating it to its larger size.
But before you can see where to aim it in all the chaos at the front line, you feel a hand clasp your armored shoulder. The image burned in your mind of Guardians tangling with tangible darkness as shadows of monsters slip under them and come crashing into the knights’ line of shields. You whip your head to the side, Link is still in front of you with the Captain who’s shouting commands, the battle hasn’t broken the line just yet. Impa is swiping at the few imitation Keese that have flown too close to the princess.
And the princess, Zelda, is smiling warmly at you as her palm warms your shoulder through the chill of the drizzle in this desperate night. Her skin lights up, as if conjuring sunlight to her palms as she holds the Sheikah Slate out to you.
“Keep it safe. I have a stupid old god to take down, and I don’t want to break it.”
Maybe it’s the adrenaline, maybe it’s the acceptance that the worst is finally here, but she sounds more at peace than you’ve heard her sound in months.
The sunbeams getting brighter and brighter from her hands cut through the darkness as she drops it from your shoulder. You take the Slate from her shining hand.
“Keep each other safe.”
Zelda smiles at you one last time before she plants her feet, raises her arms, and faces her sunlit palms towards the writhing evil.
Burning eyes look back from the void, and Ganon’s maw opens to scream.
____________________
Wild sweeps you into a bone-crushing hug.
Well, it would be, if you had any, but as it stands you have to make sure you’re solid enough to touch as he forces you to sway with him.
Zelda laughs, carefree nearby in the grassy field. It’s as bright as that spring day, so long ago. Carts can be heard rolling closer as your allies realize it’s safe.
Ganon is gone.
You can’t see the princess, only glimpse the rusted armor that’s still blinding in the sun, the torn white underdress fluttering in the breeze. Because Wild turns you in his fierce hug, his smile pressed into your shoulder as you hear Zelda yell an excited greeting to the people coming close. An older Impa responds, followed by the shouts of some of the original Champions, and their current mantle holders. Most are a part of long-lived races, so even though some of the Champions are past their prime, they’re alive and kicking. Daruk's same booming guffaw quickly follows Revali's signature offended squawk as you're sure Zelda has come barging into their arms.
It’s one of your proudest accomplishments in changing the timeline, and it only adds to the giddy feeling that bubbles up in your chest at being in Wild’s arms.
You start to chuckle, then giggle, your joy overwhelming you as true laughter erupts out of you. You clutch his firm back beneath the loose, roughed up tunic, his happiness contagious. As your laughter slows, he still doesn’t let go. You only see his long blonde hair, trapped as you are over his shoulder, it’s dirtied from battle in its low ponytail. You’ll have to brush it out again, maybe braid it. You jolt in his arms as you stop being distracted by his messy hair enough to see the ground behind him come rushing up to meet you.
You squeeze your eyes shut, clutch the foolish, feral hero tight, and drop into the shadow his tired body makes. You feel a little strained, having constantly used the ability to give himi the edge over Calamity Ganon. You reappear instantly, rising from the shade behind some of the rubble near the first castle wall. It had been the first to get hit by Ganon's forces, and the shattered stone ramparts all around reflect it.
“Wild!” you huff at him, slapping his shoulder lightly as he laughs from his position as your sweaty, lumpy pillow. He sighs, as if any energy he could possibly have from fighting an evil god was used on hugging and spinning you around. Wild lets his arms flop to the ground, his eyes sliding shut as exhaustion settles his body into the earth below. Despite Hyrule's natural landscape hardening and toughening his hylian body to most situations, Wild's taken some injuries in his final, most difficult battle. Nicks, scrapes and bruises for the most part little his arms and part of his stomach you can see from where his shirt is torn at the hem. You make your shadow form hover above him slightly, about to get up when, unmoving except for his slightly split lips, he softly calls out.
“Don’t go. Please. Tell me you won’t vanish with him.”
His dark eyebrows are scrunched with a deep anxiety, eyes still shut.
You look down at yourself. You are a shadow as you ever were when you passed away so long ago. It sounds terrible, even in your head, but to some degree, you're secretly a little grateful there was some way that ensured you'd see him again. See him live again, cook over a campfire again, see him worry about nothing but decorating his barren house.
You'd had the same fear he's voicing now, that you were too tainted by Malice to sustain yourself without Ganon's power. But you hadn't appeared that way when your spirit first woke up from your body. It had only been exposure over time that had made you the way you are now. And even if you did vanish after the nasty old man was gone, you knew your hero would be worth all the waiting and the journey until now.
“It's not Ganon’s power that keeps me here. It’s you. It was always you.”
Wild’s eyes open wide, his face crumples with desperate hope, a look he didn't even have when Ganon came thrashing to life before his eyes inside the castle. He huffs a laugh, giving you a watery smile. Those pretty blue eyes shine with unshed tears. His gold earring twinkles even in shadow. It looks like it takes all the tired Champion's effort to pick up his heavy arm, reaching for you.
You meet him halfway, falling back down, your weight nothing at all against him as you wrap your arms through the earth to encircle him once more. Wild's, Link's, his arms crossing on your back.