Chapter Text
Cum ad finem viae pervenero
Link’s worn leather boots clicked quietly on the stone stairs, perfectly in time with Princess Zelda’s own footsteps. It was an unconscious habit and one of the few he’d never bothered suppressing. It made following people easier when he didn’t want to be heard or remembered.
The two were heading under Hyrule Castle, following a lead Purah had given them. Recently, people had started getting sick whenever they went near the castle, even though all the malice had drifted away when he’d killed Calamity Ganon.
In Link’s opinion, going right down to the source of the “gloom” as they’d started calling it, wasn’t a good idea. He’d communicated that a few times to both Purah and the princess with much more expressive signs than he usually used, but they were both researchers and there was no stopping them.
In the end, they’d come to a sort of compromise. Purah brewed some gloom resisting potions for them to drink if things got really bad (and Princess Zelda had been none too pleased with the extra time it had taken), but that was about all the preparation they’d got.
Link hoped things would be okay. He had a bad feeling about this, but didn’t bother trying to tell the princess. She always seemed a bit sad when he signed around her instead of speaking. He knew that he used to talk to her, way back before the Calamity, but in a way that was a whole different person. Now, no matter how hard he tried, he could only look at her and feel the same way he had when he was just starting out as her knight. Crushed.
It wasn’t her fault, and Link felt guilty every time he tried and failed to make any verbal noise. He’d managed it once or twice, but it felt uncomfortable and forced. The problem was that his foolish brain could only associate her with his worse days in the past, when she’d been so angry all the time.
It was a constant barrier between them. Princess Zelda wanted Link, her best friend, to have come out of the Shrine. She wanted the man she’d met and hated and grown to care for. She wanted someone who was dead.
Link was not that person. He remembered his past in the same way he remembered the book he’d read last week. It was an interesting story, but only that. A story. Sure, feelings from “the knight” side of him would crop up and make things difficult at times, but he never properly understood why he felt the way he did without a concrete memory to go along with it.
He didn’t feel like he knew the princess beyond the words they’d exchanged since he’d defeated the Calamity. The only person who he’d actually remembered in all her grace and kindness was Mipha. His fiancé.
He missed her. It was a harsh ache in his chest that never went away. Sometimes he would spend hours alone in Mipha Court, simply talking to her statue as if it might bring her back to listen. The Zora kept everyone away while he was up there, which he was very grateful for.
It wasn’t like–
”The gloom is getting thicker.” The princess spoke up for the first time in a while, “We’ve been descending for a while now. These tunnels are deeper than Purah and I estimated.”
Link made a vague hum of assent, a rare vocalization for him. He could do that much for her. She glanced back at him, pleased. Taking it as a sign to continue, she spoke again “I wonder what could be down here. Purah said to keep a look out for any ancient mechanisms that might’ve allowed the guardians to come from down here, but it seems that they weren't near this place... The structure of these halls are too intact.”
She looked away just in time to miss Link’s flinch. He hated mention of the guardians, even now. It was a bit pathetic; he should really be stronger than this, but he just couldn’t handle it. Despite feeling detached from most of the emotions of his past, the horribly clear memory of the burning, terrified agony of his own death still haunted him.
He gladly took the distraction that the next cavern brought. Princess Zelda gasped as they entered, pulling out the Purah Pad and immediately snapping several pictures of the odd environment they’d just walked into.
It was a cavern that looked like the night caught in stone. Tiny glowing fragments of Luminous Stone glinted from high above and down in the water of a stream that flowed through this cavern alone. Plants with glowing purple and blue flowers wound around stalagmites and stalactites along with a fluorescent white moss.
The gloom was thinner here, as if it couldn’t reach into this oddity. The princess took pictures of just about everything, and samples of each plant and even the water of the river. “We’ll have to come back here later, Link! Just look at these! I’ve never seen anything like it!”
It looked something like a place he thought Mipha had taken him once. It had been a rarely occurring natural phenomenon, according to her. He wondered if that cave was still there.
“-and I’ll tell Purah about it and see if we can get her down here too! Right now we can keep going, but I want to remember this place!” Princess Zelda finally finished. She turned to continue down more stairs, a new bounce to her step, and Link followed a pace behind as per usual.
Wisps of gloom were starting to curl up from the ground, wrapping subtly around Link’s calves as if they were hands trying to drag him down into the abyss. He shuddered, shaking them off. The princess hadn’t noticed a thing.
It just got worse as they continued. “Hmm… The gloom doesn’t seem concentrated enough to harm us, but perhaps we should have our potions at the ready,” the princess decided, taking out the golden vial.
It was made from a strange, very rare flower that Purah had found by chance during the long argument about whether or not Link and Princess Zelda should come down here. They were near-extinct, and Purah had used two to make the potion. She had also taken the seeds and was trying to grow them domestically, though. That probably made up for contributing to the species rapid decline.
The liquid was glowing and swirling quickly in the confines of the bottle. “Huh, I wonder if it’s reacting to the gloom down here?” the princess hummed. She didn’t drink it yet, and neither did Link. It wasn’t bad enough to justify using it so soon.
The two continued down yet another flight of stairs. These ones were flanked with ancient looking stone pillars, and a weird smell was emanating from below. It was sour and sickly, along with… something like Hateno Goats? Strange.
They continued for a short while in relative peace until a chime cut through the quiet and the sword on Link's back illuminated in a flash of pale blue. Fi didn't speak anymore, but she was able to communicate with Link through rushes of emotion. Currently she was transmitting a warning, not a very intense one, but a warning none the less.
He pulled her out of her sheath, frowning. Did she too know that this was a plan almost certain to go awry? “Link! The Master Sword!” Zelda said in alarm as he cautiously tilted the blade, wondering if she was trying to tell him something more, “It must be sensing something-" ‘She’ Link corrected briefly with his free hand, keeping his eyes on the sword “-and we must be careful as we move deeper. I knew there was something off, and this just proves it!”
Link slid Fi back into her sheath so he could sign with both hands, ‘Are you sure that's a good idea, Princess?’ Link ignored the princess's frown at the title and his continued signing, even though they were alone.
She huffed, ignoring him in favor of turning to look at the tunnel ahead, curiosity clear in her gaze. Link’s sense of foreboding increased tenfold, ‘Princess, It's really not a good idea-’ but she wasn't looking at him anymore.
She had spotted something a little ways ahead and was now darting forward to investigate. Link drew Fi again as he followed the princess down even more stairs. He was so tense that Princess Zelda’s call of, “Link! Look here!” made him practically jump out of his skin. He entered the newest cave, some anxiety slipping away as she came into view.
She was gazing at some sort of ruin, “Look at the way this is carved! Judging by the age and architecture, I’d guess that this could be something from the Zonai era!”
Link had no clue, but she wasn’t looking at him anyway. It was a tactic that many older, jealous soldiers had used to ignore him if he remembered correctly. He knew that the princess wasn’t doing it in the same way, but it still made a small twinge of hurt pull at his heart.
“I’m sure that these are Zonai carvings! I’ve seen patterns like these in my studies! The Zonai are said to have lived long ago, in the time of earliest legend. They possessed godlike powers and had a prosperous civilization in the sky-” she paused to take a quick picture “-many history books tell us about the Zonai, but none gives us the full picture. Much is still unknown about them.”
She took a few more pictures before moving on to a statue of what seemed to be a creature that looked something like an anthropomorphic panther-dragon-goat standing on two legs by the entrance to the next cave, “Is this what the Zonai looked like? They seem so different from us, and such large ears… How did the ruins from a civilization in the sky end up here beneath the castle?”
Link frowned up at the statue. It felt very familiar for some reason… Perhaps he too had studied the Zonai in the past, though he had no clue why he would have. He reached to brush at the tips of his own long ears. Maybe the statue just reminded him a bit of himself. It sounded weird, but he too had ears a bit longer than normal and hair almost like a mane… and suddenly he remembered something.
“You look kind of like the cat, you know,” Zelda laughed. She was holding a fluffy tabby up to Link’s face. “It’s something in the features… You see it, don’t you…”
Someone else gave an agreeable laugh saying something about catlike eyes and fickle moods…
Link blinked back into reality, relieved to note that the princess was still carefully photographing the statue and hadn’t seemed to notice anything. He allowed himself to think over the memory. No emotions properly connected with it except for the vague idea of “you were happy”.
The princess straightened up, and Link snapped himself back into focus. He needed to keep his attention on her, not on the pieces of his own faulty head.
“The path ahead goes even deeper. Come on, Link. Let’s keep going.” She started walking without pause. The sense of foreboding in Link’s chest only grew. Something wasn’t right.
Keese were in the next cavern. It was a common thing to find them in caves, and Link cut them down with ease, but he found himself wondering how they’d gotten so deep down into the tunnels.
“Are you hurt, Link?” the princess asked, jogging up to him as soon as the last Keese hit the ground. He shook his head, eyeing Fi, who was glowing brighter. “Good, we can continue then.” Princess Zelda was pleased, but Link held out an arm to stop her from heading deeper into the room they’d just found.
‘I think we should go back for reinforcements and explore more another time, I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Princess.’ The cave was making him feel an odd mix of nauseous and sorrowful, and he would love to get out of it now.
The princess, about to tell him off for his continued use of her title, noticed something else, “Look at these murals!”
The murals in question were carved on the wall of the cave, and the artist even used red paint for what Link assumed was the gloom in them. He grimaced as the princess darted towards them. Apparently so much undiscovered history was too strong a force for Link to fight against. Maybe he could at least get Princess Zelda to drink her gloom resistant potion if he tried to ask verbally…
They depicted some sort of battle it seemed. “The written histories of the royal family…” the princess said, staring at the mural with wide eyes, “They include stories of a great war fought long ago. It was a conflict between the allied tribes and someone only referred to as the Demon King.”
Link came to stand beside her, peering at the picture on the mural nearest him. There were nine people standing together, but one had been made to stand out. They had been painted light blue and there was a rune carved above their head. The others were carved with careful love, but no paint was used on them. What made that small figure more important?
In fact, it looked like the figure was in most of the murals, and every time they had the blue paint and that same rune carved over them, like a sign or message that he felt like he should understand.
“Is it possible?” the princess continued, oblivious to Link standing next to her, “Do these murals depict the same legend?” She ran farther down the row of carvings, stopping before one that looked like a Zonai with seven teardrop stones around it.
“This is similar to the statues we saw earlier- a Zonai. And these figures look like Hylians,” she added, pointing to the people carved below the apparent Zonai, “This depiction certainly suggests that the Zonai descended from the heavens.”
She moved to a different carving, one with a Zonai and Hylian with intertwined hands and two of the teardrop shaped stones hovering above them.They both appeared to be two that were also featured in the carving of the nine people.
“It is said that my ancestors- the first of Hyrule’s royal family were born from a union with gods who had descended from the heavens.”
(Does that mean that Zelda is part Zonai? If the Zonai were these ‘gods’...)
“These murals tell a similar story, and if they are accurate, then the gods mentioned were the Zonai! They must have forged a relationship with the Hylians of that time, working together to establish… The Kingdom of Hyrule!” Princess Zelda was getting more and more excited as she pieced things together.
The tale felt familiar. He probably heard it some time in the past. It felt like a foggy memory, clouded over by what was probably the Shrine of Resurrection's power.
“This figure,” the princess said, turning to yet another piece of the massive artwork, “He seems to be stealing something of incredible power from the young kingdom. That aligns with what I’ve read during my studies!” She ran on, Link following with growing interest as Princess Zelda continued with her story, “And then this… It shows the Demon King! And a fierce battle against him!”
She ran back a few steps to take in the whole thing, almost crashing into Link as she did so, but hardly seeming to notice.
“If the creature depicted here really does represent the Demon King, then… Incredible! This mural must be the Great War recorded in the royal histories! This is the Imprisoning War and the events that led up to it!”
She whipped around, face alight with excitement, “Link! This is a huge discovery!”
Pulling out the Purah Pad, the princess scrambled to take several pictures of everything. Meanwhile Link gazed at the murals a bit more closely.
(The first one is that Zonai descending with those teardrops, then it’s the Hylian woman holding hands with him. After that it goes into darker topics. The Hylian woman being killed… The Imprisoning War… and that’s it. I have the feeling that there is much more to this story. Those nine figures are strange, too. One of them almost looks like a Korok.)
“Looks like the rest of the murals are obscured,” Zelda eyed them curiously, “No matter. We can come back to clear those stones away… For now we might as well go deeper. Come on, Link.”
The gloom was becoming thicker. It burned Link’s nose and made him cough. Zelda was already a couple steps down, showing no signs of stopping. Desperation made Link force himself past his stupid mental block.
“Zelda. Drink your potion. Please.” His voice was rough and painful as usual. The scarring on his throat meant that even if he wanted to speak, it was distinctly unpleasant. Using her name felt wrong too, but he needed her to listen.
Listen, she did. She blinked in mild surprise, but obeyed. The flavor was not pleasant judging by her face, and Link discovered just how bad it was when he downed his own potion. It tasted like a dead horse leg left in the rain for two weeks before being dragged away by Moblins and used as a club.
“Oh, gross. Purah and I will need to work on the flavor of this thing… Let’s continue now.” If she hoped he would comment on her words, she was disappointed.
Once she tucked the bottle away, the pair went down the long tunnel, and… Oh by Hylia Link was absolutely right to worry. A mummified corpse was on an altar, pinned by what looked like a glowing arm which was creating a thick swirl of green and blue light that rose slowly upward. It practically screamed danger, and Link had the sudden urge to take the princess and run.
“What is this place?!” Princess Zelda gasped as she saw the mummy, “Come on, Link. We must be extremely careful.”
“Please tell me you're joking. Princess, please! We can't stay here!” He really didn't mean to yell. It made his throat burn and he knew that he should never yell at Zelda (he remembered how her father would shout at her for the smallest mistakes). But he couldn't help it. He was scared.
Hurt flashed across the princess's face before she set her jaw and stubbornness glinted in her eyes. Any chance of them turning back disappeared in that moment, and Link knew it. “We’ve come this far, I’m not going back now.” Well, if she wasn’t going back then neither was he.
They advanced slowly on the corpse together, Link was tense and ready to strike or run at a moment's notice. Fi was practically screaming at him to run, but he wasn't leaving the princess. Present time blurred with his memories of the past. Was he standing in a cavern or on an open field? Was he facing a strange mummy or facing a guardian?
It didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that Princess Zelda was in danger, and Link had to protect her. He stepped in front of her as they edged closer. She was not going to be the first one to die if something happened.
For a moment, it looked like everything might remain motionless. And then the arm holding down the mummy creaked and fell. The odd teardrop shaped stone slipped off the bracelet that had been holding it, clicking across the floor before coming to settle at Link’s feet.
The sound seemed deafening, and Link flinched back from the stone. He was fully intending to leave it there, but suddenly he just knew that he couldn’t. Whatever this was, it was meant for him. He had no clue how he knew, but he crouched down to pick up the still glowing gem.
His memories quieted as he closed his fingers around it, and the clarity was a welcome change. The princess peered over his shoulder with a hum of interest as the stone began to glow brighter. Suddenly a blue rune burst to life above its surface, making Link jump. He tried to drop it, but his fingers didn’t listen as the rune sank into the stone.
Warm rays of gold began to pour off the thing as Link felt a bond form between them almost like the one he had with Fi. That was definitely not supposed to be possible.
And then everything went wrong.
A loud heartbeat made his and the princess’s attention snap back to the mummy. It was moving. Creaking slowly upward with jerky motions accented by the awful crunching of bone. Link was already backing up, herding the princess behind him with his arm, Fi pointed at the creature.
Just as soon as it started, it stopped. The mummy went limp, falling backward over the altar it had been on. Link paused, straightening slightly in confusion. For a moment, he thought that it was dead.
Then it snapped its head towards them and its eyes blazed red with hate so strong that Link took several steps backwards in an attempt to physically get away from the feeling.
Gloom exploded out of its body, sending shards of its bone and chunks of infested flesh flying. The gloom raced towards Zelda as the mummy snarled something garbled that sounded like a name... (Sonia? Where have I heard that?)
There was no time to wonder. Link shot forward, Fi outstretched. A stupid move. Gloom wasn’t solid, so he should’ve known it wouldn’t work. What he did know was the immediate agonizing pain as the gloom latched onto his sword. It raced up the blade to his arm, and Link had the horribly unique sensation of feeling the flesh of his arm rotting straight off.
Potion or not, nobody could survive something like this without extreme amounts of light power, which was something that Link was pretty sure he was running short on. A new gloom tendril formed as the stuff pulled back, and despite the fact that the flesh of his arm was starting to slide off his bones, he still moved to block it.
He had to protect the princess.
Fi, as powerful as she was, couldn’t do it. Her blade shattered into pieces. She screamed and Link screamed right along with her despite the agony it brought to his scarred vocal chords. The princess was screaming too, but Link couldn’t hear her over the ringing in his ears. A tiny fragment of the blade kept its momentum and skimmed across the mummy’s cheek before hitting the wall and bouncing back.
Fi dropped from his hand and the princess lunged to catch her poor, broken remains. Goddess power was swirling around the princess, and she looked like she might be about to try and help. Before Link could do anything to stop her, the mummy drew their attention by speaking.
(So this isn’t some mindless monster.)
“Little Prince. Already claiming your birthright I see... And you, the failed princess, are Zelda.”
Its voice was mocking, cruel, and Link saw with increasing horror that the scratch was bubbling and healing. They couldn’t even make a lasting mark on this thing.
“Rauru placed his faith in you… and that was all you could do?”
The gloom residue was still pulsing on his arm, and he was getting dizzy. The stone in his hand seemed to be trying to help though. It was shining bright as a star and was the only thing keeping him conscious.
“How do you… know our names?” Princess Zelda asked bravely, trying to hide the fact that her voice was shaking in fear. She had stepped ahead of Link, as though she could protect him from the creature that stood before them.
He tried to reach out with the arm not holding the stone, but realized with a sharp stab of alarm that he couldn’t move it. It was completely numb and the flesh was in the process of sliding off in bloody chunks.
The mummy didn’t bother answering. Instead it let loose a primal scream and another explosion of gloom. The very ceiling started shaking, and the entire castle began to rise from its foundations.
The potion she had drunk protected the princess from the brunt of it, and the stone in his hand saved Link from the full force of the blast too. Gloom swirled like a hurricane around them, and the ground began to shake as the ancient tombs of history rose to see the light once again.
The ancient floor began to shudder and collapse, and the mummy fell into the depths of the crevasse it had created with a smile. "You will see me again... and you will not be so fortunate, Little Prince," it rasped, before it vanished into the darkness of the pit.
Link stumbled backwards, clutching at his injured arm and almost immediately letting go as a chuck of his muscle came off under his hand. As the princess called his name once again, she darted forward in an attempt to help, the weak remnants of her goddess power still flickering around her.
And then the ground crumbled under Link's feet, and he was falling.
Of course the princess jumped right after him, not bothering to catch the Purah Pad as it slipped out of her belt, arm outstretched as if she could catch him. She almost succeeded. Her fingers wrapped around his mutilated ones, but his arm was so deteriorated that the fingers came with her and nothing else with the wet pop of joints being wrenched out of sockets and away from flesh.
Link fell farther and farther alongside the Purah Pad and what looked like a fragment of Fi, becoming deaf to Princess Zelda’s screaming pleas as blue and gold light wrapped around him like an embrace. The last thing he saw was his princess being caught by someone’s arm.
He allowed himself to let go of his consciousness. She was safe, and that was all that mattered.