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Link hadn't known what it was, the first time it happened. How could he have known? It had been a tiny pool of void in the center of an old stump. Simple. Quiet. They would've never noticed if his friend hadn't tripped over it while they played knights.
“Are you okay?” Link asked, shoving the little wooden sword in his belt. He offered a hand.
“I'm okay!” Zeu announced, raising his hands. “Tripped on a root.” Link pulled Zeu up, glancing back at the root.
“That's a weird hole” their friend Rioma said, Darpa trailing after. He kicked dirt at it, the dust falling in and vanishing.
Link leaned to look at it. He picked up a rock and dropped it. The void swallowed it whole. Link listened for a moment, but it never made a sound.
“What do you think it is?” Zeu asked, leaning beside him.
“...A weird hole?” Link said, echoing Rioma's observation.
“What if it's a portal?” Darpa said with a grin. He dug at the dirt around the hole with his play sword, “I bet it'd go somewhere creepy, like the Dark World.”
“Or a fairy cave! Fairies make portals too!” Rioma announced, poking a twig into the hole. It stuck, and he tugged, uselessly, as it slipped out of his grasp into the void. He pouted in disappointment.
“You're not making it any bigger, digging like that.” Link said with a giggle.
“Oh and how would you open it up?”
“Well-” he pulled his wooden sword from his hip. Darpa and Rioma took a step back. With a downward strike, Link cracked his sword into the void. A thrum of sound echoed out from the void, like a muffled crack. Link pulled on the sword.
“It's stuck.” Link complained, frowning.
“You drove your sword in so hard it's stuck?!” Darpa laughed, “Here let me-” he grabbed the wooden handle and yanked. Darpa nearly fell backward as he pulled. The wood remained still.
“Aw, now it's sealed up.” Rioma mumbled, shoulders sagging in disappointment.
“Yeah, way to go Link. We're never gonna know where that goes.” Darpa grumbled.
“Hey, at least nobody else is gonna trip on that!” Zeu said, giving Link a pat on the back.
“Link!” Link's mother called from a distance.
He sighed, glancing at his friends. “I gotta go help Ma. Sorry. See you later!”
“Bye!” Rioma cheered.
“I'll try to get your sword back for you.” Darpa said, already back to pulling. It seemed to only sink slowly deeper into the hole.
“Good luck!” Zeu said, waving as Link raced off to home.
Behind them, a hairline fracture cracked out from the void.
His mom sent him off to collect herbs just outside the village. She was making soup, and ran out of a key ingredient. Link played while he searched, chasing lizards and humming tunes.
When he stepped back to view of the town, it was sinking. Grey and frozen as a gaping tear of nothingness consumed it.
Link stood, frozen. If that rift had grown any wider, he would have fallen in too. Instead, in a terrifying instant, the land was sealed back up on itself, like nothing was there at all. Link was left frozen and wide-eyed and alone in a barren plain, nothing but the sun beating down on him.
(In a Still World, a goddess-made creature's magic was cut off, and a demon dragged them away from their work. With a final cry of effort from a magical creature, a town sunk out from stillness, into darkness.)
-
7 years later:
Link sat in the empty desert of South Hyrule. The setting sun left a chill that settled deep in his bones. He stared at the light leaving over the hills. Unobstructed by buildings that Link only vaguely recalled.
Midna peered out of his shadow. “Why are we just sitting here?”
Link let out a noncommittal hum, his hand wandering to his throat. The rift-like fracture there had long since healed, but sometimes… He felt like it was gone again, clawed out of his throat by the void. Especially now. While the Twilight cracked over this land in a way so similar to the Rifts, making his senses run in overdrive.
Midna huffed a sigh, turning to look over the dry land as the sun vanished behind the horizon. “I'd rather just leave the desert entirely as soon as we can.”
Link sighed. He fought hard for the ability to speak, he supposed he was obliged to use it. He whispered, “I was born somewhere out here.”
She glanced back at Link, tilting her head, “Can't picture a ponyboy like you in a place like this.”
“There used to be a whole village. It was taken away to the void.”
Midna’s brows furrowed. “Void?”
“About 6 years ago, I found this thing called a rift. Null, this creature of Nothingness, created them. Consuming all slowly.” Link pressed a hand into the sand, letting it sink as the sand poured slowly over his fingers. “I abandoned my home, let it sink into nothingness, and I… I didn't fix it in time for the village to be brought back. I- I just left them.”
Midna glanced down at her own hands, and floated down to sit beside him. “...I’m… sorry.” She muttered.
“That's why I had to find those kids as soon as possible.” He whispered, “I wouldn't forgive myself for letting that kind of void take anybody else again.”
“The Twilight isn't a void.” Midna said sharply.
“I know that now” He shifted and leaned slightly into her. “It's just- it feels eerily similar. Buzzes in my mind the same way.”
Midna scoffed, “...The Twilight is filled with everything that your land rejected, ages ago.”
“I know.” He said again. He let his eyes drift slightly closed, leaning his head on the top of her fiery hair. “I used to be able to just. Know where the Rifts were. It had this…Er, almost metallic taste in my mouth and a slight needling sensation. I could follow that for miles.”
“...No wonder you're a dog.” Midna cackled quietly.
“Thaankss” he drawled, “But. No, what I mean when I say the Twilight hits my brain the same way, is that it does the same thing. I have the exact same taste in my mouth when I enter it. The needling feeling ain't there, at least. Don't feel like the place is trying to consume me whole.”
Midna tilted her head to look at him. “Why didn't you tell me?”
He shrugged, “Didn't change anythin’ and frankly, don't think you would've cared when we first met.”
Midna looked back at the plains of sand and rock. “...I guess. It's just… Interesting how much more similar we are than I imagined.”
“Hm?”
“...Losing home, traveling somewhere that feels like it's trying to consume you whole?” She waved a hand dismissively. “Just didn't think I'd ever relate to someone from the Light World.”
Link softly, slowly, wrapped an arm around her thin shoulders. She leaned in, ear resting on his chest, hearing his heart pound, strong and clear. “Can… you tell me more?” She said quietly.
“I ain't the hero of the story for that adventure.” Link said, chuckling.
“Ha! Even more reason to know it. More teasing material for me."
He rolled his eyes, “Zelda was the one who found out how to defeat Null. I ain't afraid to give her all the credit.”
“Rightt.”
“I didn't realize Null was even there until later. No, I just… Found monsters and killed em. Spent a long while trapped in the void after the monsters took all my stuff. Zelda is who found it all and actually mended the rifts. I was lucky to find a stick.”
“Woof Woof.”
“Imma shove you off if you do that again.”
“Awww, but puppy found a stick! Good Boy found a sticky-wicky!” Midna topped her act by scratching under Link's chin. His ear flicked as he glared at her.
“Story time's over!” He announced, shoving her out of his space and standing up. Midna cackled, rolling into a float above the sand, kicking her legs in the air.
Link's lips twitched up, and he turned around to head off of the endless sandy plain.
“Oh! Thank sweet shadows, we're leaving!” Midna cheered, falling into place behind him. Link snorted and waved a hand behind himself, as if to brush her away.
As they hopped down the edge of the rock, leaving dust and sand behind, Midna grew close again, leaning against his shoulder. "For what it's worth..."
Link's ear flicked as he glanced out the corner of his eye at her. Her face somber, yet fierce. "Don't blame yourself... The monster who took your home is to blame."
Link refocused his gaze forward, brows knit. His voice seemed to slip away from him, finding its way back to some void he couldn't reach. He nodded once.