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Link had braced for the scene to be unpleasant when he walked into Termina Station. Being told they'd found "something like him" and wanted help identifying it was one thing; being told it was dead was almost a relief, so he didn't have to worry they'd kidnapped some poor Kokiri that'd knocked itself out of the weak gravity well of the planet. But that wasn't going to make going to see it better…
He'd have preferred the dead Kokiri.
The first thing Link noticed, before anything, was the orange eyes that instantly fixed on him at the doorway. He only needed a brief glimpse of its body: too slender, too tall, a single panel of narrow wing and that whip-like tail before he just about threw himself back out the door.
He heard the impact of a body on the wall near where he'd been, and a keen of dismay and put his head down on his knees in the hallway.
"What's wrong?" Dr. Koume asked. "Why did it do that?"
"Not Kokiri," Link gasped. He swallowed hard again and looked anxiously at the closed door. "That's not a kokiri," then, belatedly, "Didn't you say she was dead?"
"It was dead," Dr. Koume said, as if this was the most obvious answer. "It woke up again in the last two days. Is that not something your species can do?"
"She's not my species, she's…" Link had to take several seconds to think of something to call them in Hylian. The Kokiri words were pretty simple; there were options in Hylian dialect and he made a face and picked. "She's a skullkid. Just. Call her a skullkid. They eat Kokiri."
Dr. Koume—predictably, when faced with new information, just as she had reacted to him and what was happening there—brightened and stood up to take several notes. "If we restrain the subject, will you come in and take another look? If that's not your species, then you might know what's going on with the black parasite attached to its body too."
Link wanted nothing less, but skullkids could kill and eat things much bigger than them, too. He didn't want them to be unaware of the danger… and most Hylian children were well within the size range of their preferred prey. He swallowed and nodded, standing up with deep reluctance to follow Koume into the room.
The skullkid sat quietly on an exam table now. She wasn't actually restrained, Link could see, but she was watched on both sides by two nurses clearly meant to grab her if she tried, close enough Link believed they'd at least get in the way if she did. She was clearly a girl: there were more markings on male skullkids, dark bands down the feet and legs she didn't have, things he could see even if she were dressed… which she wasn't.
Not that that bothered a living skullkid much. It clearly wasn't bothering this one, as she watched him with those alert orange eyes.
"My sister said you know what this is?"
"Yeah, she's a skullkid," Link swallowed. "Are you certain she was dead, not just in some kind of hibernation?"
Most things on Kokiri had an ability to do that, in the face of weak gravity well, tall trees, and a special fondness for jumping. The usual way to deal with a skullkid trying to eat you was to kick them off into the sky where getting back down was a matter of luck and the whim of gravity.
In response, one of the doctor's pulled over a scan and tried to explain it to him. It made little sense at first, but somewhere in the middle of the explanation he figured out what they meant: there was something growing out of her spine, something that shouldn't be there. Something that had severed a connection between body and mind that was universally fatal in every known species shaped like them.
Link licked his lips. "Let me see the back of her head?"
He could see that the skullkid didn't understand the words being said around her. Whether or not she was dead or alive, Link supposed, she wouldn't have ever known Hylian on Kokiri planet. He wasn't even sure if Skullkids had a language of their own: they never interacted with Kokiri in any context where that would come up. They'd only ever been the terror in the darkness, a risk of leaving the village limits. There were rumours they could mimic language at least, or possibly even knew it…
As the doctors tried to get her to turn with gesture and touch that made his skin crawl (they were still calling her it, the subject—dehumanizing things that made her an animal) he cleared his throat and spoke in his first language instead.
"Can you turn around?"
The skullkid instantly turned to stare at him, eyes on his mouth. He took a step back, terrified to be pinned under her gaze, but after a second she hopped off the exam table, even as it dropped her into the assistants' legs, and turned.
Under her short red head of hair, a knot of black sat at the base of her skull. It was moving.
He swallowed.
"What did you do?" Dr Koume asked. "What was that language? She understood you?"
"It was Kokiri," he said, after a pause to remember the Hylian words for it. "My language. I don't know if she has one, but… sometimes skullkids were known to… pretend to be someone you knew, call out to villagers to get them away from the others. I figured I could at least try." He cleared his throat. "That's not—the black parasite—ever found on any living thing. It's from our planet, too. It colonizes dead bodies. Sometimes—sometimes it infects the living, but rarely. You can sometimes see it on the skullkids, usually. Rarely a kokiri, unless they survive an attack."
"Does it look different on the living?" Dr. Koume's sister asked, and he could hear her typing on the computer across the room.
"Yeah, it infects the blood. Turns it black. It's spread by bites, which, skullkids fight each other a lot." Even this one had a myriad of fine scars, scruffy fur on arms and legs where it hadn't quite grown back right. Her tail swung slowly as she leaned with strange patience on the table. "But you run into it rarely. We never like, we weren't sure they were the same infection…"
"No, you're right." Dr Koume said. "The subject's blood is black and contains parts of the infection. It's spread into the brainstem, spine, eyes, and other systems as well. Interestingly the incisions we made earlier have all healed."
Link didn't ask. He didn't want to ask. He definitely didn't want to know how they knew that and he swallowed until the nausea faded.
"So did you mean you only ever see the—I'm not even sure if this would be called a flowering or fruiting body—"
"It's not a fungus, Kotake, last time I looked at it it was clearly some kind of cestoda or neodermata—"
They devolved into an argument in words that Link had no context to understand, joining at the computer to continue. He swallowed hard and saw the skullkid turn to look back at him over her shoulder.
"They're ignoring us now," he said in Kokiri. "Do you understand me?"
She turned to face him again, still intent in the way only a skullkid—or some other predator, some men he'd seen since returning to Hyrule and some women too—could. He wondered if they saw the same thing she did: small, vulnerable. Especially Hylians who read his height as 'young' too, not as older by far than most people in this room.
But possibly not older than her. He didn't know how old Skullkids got, how to tell what stage they were at. He just knew females were more likely to target large prey than males: they had young to feed, after all.
"Does she have any kind of name?" Link asked.
"Majora," Dr. Koume answered. "Its our big project, after all. Two new species at once? It's beautiful."
"They call you Majora," Link translated for her and he watched as clear understanding crossed her face. She mouthed the word, as if unsure how her lips worked, unclear if she could make noise and he watched the assistants step away, convinced she was no longer a risk.
Convinced him communicating with her helped one bit.
It didn't. It meant nothing. She would (could) still kill him in an instant and he could see the awareness on her face as they stepped away too, but…
But if they were willing to risk his safety like this, well. They were on a medical research station: one known, Link remembered, for their work on difficult disorders, congenital ones. There were a lot of children here, mothers—some pregnant. He'd seen them coming in. Greeted one: a young woman named Anju and her husband, Kafei, who wanted to have kids.
He didn't think anything preyed on Hylians but other Hylians, and that—he realized, as Majora stepped closer to him and reached up to touch his face with one hand, to run her fingers through his short hair and nobody stopped her…
—That was a massive fucking problem right here.
IIII
It was two years, three months, and six days before Link failed to avoid a bite. A year and eight months since she'd started growing purple markings on her face and neck and down her chest… Markings like his. Like a Deity. Everyone had questions and he had no answers, but he certainly hadn't been able to leave. Not with her like this.
She'd shown no signs of extra power though, something like him who'd only ever had that show up in rare moments in the past few years. Maybe once or twice before, when he'd nearly missed a skullkid on the planet itself.
It didn't help him now. He hissed and jammed a finger into her eye until she let go with a laugh and a small whine, leaving him to stare unhappily at his bitten hand.
The bite stung. He pointed irritably back up the hallway. "C'mon! I need to show this to Koume, to get it cleaned. Sorry Anju—"
Anju just laughed, worry in her eyes but his calm had spread to her: he meant it to. She was heavily pregnant, only a week or two from delivery. She didn't need to know how terrifying this was.
Majora sighed and rolled her head on her neck. The black had spread over the past few years, from a knot at the base of her skull to a band lining her spine and spreading out over ribs and abdomen, her skin swallowed by black tendrils that had begun to wrap themselves around her tail. Her wings and arms remained clear, but they'd begun sprouting in her hair too—and all of it seemed to not bother her one bit.
When Link trotted off up the hallway, she followed on nearly-silent feet and he held his hand close. He wished he could make his heart slow, make it stay put just as she'd bitten him but he was too far from the offices. He couldn't ask just anyone to treat this: it was too dangerous.
If nothing else, at least offering it to Kotake got immediate response. She hissed and scolded Majora, as if that would have any effect but to make the skullkid grin at her final success. The doctor cleaned and debrided the wound while Link braced himself and bit his cheek.
It was only a few small puctures: a snap that had caught skin. It was clean within the hour. He should've been fine.
That night, he dreamt of a purple-tinged darkness. He woke, unsure where he was; unsure if he was fevered or not. He thought to get up, to tell someone but something pulled him back under and he slept, his body heavy in his bed.
He wasn't well the next day, but he chalked it up to the antibiotics Kotake had given him to kill anything the cleaning might have missed. Majora was waiting by his door, eager to shed the double guard she had in favour of his company as she always was. She was almost weirdly affectionate, arm around his shoulder and the tendrils tried to cling to his hand anytime he was too close. He shook off the fatigue to focus on her, on keeping her company and busy—
She was almost too careful not to bite him today. He was weirded out by it: she'd played at nipping him for months now. To suddenly stop now was strange. Sometimes his vision felt muddy, like the colours he could see were wrong but that couldn't be right. He made a face at her and at himself and resisted the urge to drop into the waters of the park, even as he kicked his feet in it. The wound wasn't closed.
Majora seemed almost reluctant to leave him to sleep in his own rooms, for all he was desperate for the relief. He fell into bed and didn't even seem to be asleep before he was dreaming of that darkness all over again. He hated it; he wanted to fight, to flee from it but the screaming in his head was fading every minute. He fought to pull out of the dream, but nothing seemed to be enough. It was simply too much.
Even his own marking's colours seemed dull that morning. He walked out on an eager Majora and shook his head, waving her to follow him back to Kotake. She went reluctantly, but it was fruitless: Kotake and her sister were in a meeting all morning, and Link didn't think it was urgent enough to interrupt them. He left, feeling a pounding headache in his temples and Majora solicitously led him to the park, then to where there was grass to lay down in at the base of a tree.
"Tired," she said, in the little speech she'd learned. "Sleep?"
Maybe if he slept during the day, he'd have less awful dreams. He curled up, and Majora curled up with him, the tendrils something he was far too used to to care about now and her presence too familiar to ring as a threat.
That was wrong: she definitely should've still rung as a threat but somewhere in his exhausted mind he had forgotten and he drifted in and out of darkness until someone called out his name. Link woke, startled and surprised to find Majora draped across his lap. She hissed at the interruption but just licked his hand hopefully—no further attempts to bite him—and got up.
It was one of Kotake's aides. "They told us you'd come to see her? She's free now."
"Thanks, yeah," Link groaned and tried to get up. He staggered and Majora caught him.
Her nails scraped his skin, no longer as protected by fur as it once was. He hissed at the pain and she started to pull back before she stopped and instead pulled his arm close. Link turned to snap at her and saw his arm.
Saw the blood welling, thick and black from his skin.
Saw Majora turn brilliant orange eyes to him, as something hissed in pleasure in his mind.
The clearing light with brilliant, purple light and it wasn't just coming from Majora: it was coming from him, his blue and red markings swimming with contaminated colour—the same colour as hers. He could feel it washing out around them, the world encircled and scooped out of space and time and dropped—
—Dropped into his dark nightmare, a world where the distant light of stars outside the park had simply gone out.
We can make it all quiet again, he heard, and Link walked past Kotake's terrified assistant to stare out the glass dome above and see for himself what had just happened. To see the mixed darkness of the empty sky.
What did you do? he begged, without even thinking of it. Far too aware of her in his mind. He felt her hands on his shoulders, her head leaning against his hair, like she could mark him with her cheeks. He wondered if the black tendrils were growing inside him now, too.
I made it quiet again, she repeated, clear in his mind in a way she had never achieved in words. There is too much in the universe, and I like none of it. I want to eat it all. You will help me.
Link whirled on her then, hand up and slapped her away. He pulled at the anger, the force he'd brought to bear once before but felt it like an alien thing, half-strangled by her power in his veins. He found some anyways and with it reached for more time as he'd used it before.
What he grabbed was a fistful where he was used to yanking a single thread. He pulled on it anyways, desperate to see this undone—
—He staggered in the bright hallway and froze, eyes wide with shock. He looked at the station, lit by standard, normal lights and checked his hand.
No bandage. No marks. His own markings remained blue and red as before.
Only a fragment of noise warned him of the danger.
Link bolted down the hallway, heading towards—where was he?—the maternity gardens. He'd been on his way to talk to Anju he remembered now, and behind him Majora keened her dismay that her prey had dodged her lunge.
Had she tried that, that day? He didn't think so. Did she remember what he'd done?
He looked back at her pursuit and swore, darting down another hall as the aide following them shouted for them to stop.
He was suddenly very sure she remembered. He almost wished he didn't. The black blood welling in his arm—
Well. He was just going to have to not get bit this time.
IIII
He got bit again and even insisting on stronger treatment, nothing Kotake or Koume did worked that time or the next, or the next. Doing nothing made it come on so much faster he wound up before he'd been the time before: woke up back in bed.
It gave him a headstart, that time around. He found Koume and Kotake's manager, Agent Dotour, in charge of the facility. He tried to explain.
Majora is a Deity like me. Majora can destroy the station. You have to get people out.
Dotour didn't believe him. Majora caught up with him. Majora killed Dotour.
Link caught up with Majora.
He failed.
A bite at the back of his neck, apparently, was a lot faster than on the hand or arm, and his vision swam with purple darkness before she ever let him up. He seized the time under him, finger's digging into hard soil until he felt sure he'd wake with dirt under his nails—
There was nothing. Just an empty room, and the knowledge Majora knew where he was.
He tried again. He tried again. He tried again.
Sometimes Dotour believed him. It was easier, if he was bitten to convince him, but if he was bitten they didn't have time. Eventually, he realized he could bite himself. If he bit himself—if he was bleeding—if he seemed to have lost control—
The fights got worse. Majora was angry; she was frustrated with him. She slammed him into the wall (he was so dazed he wasn't sure how long after she'd dropped them into darkness he pulled time back)
It was nearly dawn when he woke. It was night. It was midday. (Where was Anju? Was she safe? Did he leave her somewhere? Worse: did he dare check and lead Majora there—)
Dotour believed him. Dotour died. Kotake asked him to stay in the lab. Kotake's skull was shattered across the wall.
The walls broke. His arm broke. The glass broke; the gardens poured out into the open sky. The alarms were blaring, blaring, blaring—
There was a bite on his arm, and Link didn't know if it was his teeth or Majora's, but he did know one thing:
She was dead. He was still here.
And there were still stars in the sky as the gardens bled water that froze in the open air.
IIII
Link was on Zelda's ship, leaving New Hyrule for the first time in over a year. She was calling herself Lullaby now—now, since she'd vanished on her father. Now, since she'd pretended to be his former military handler for three years… but she wasn't still pretending to that anymore, not since he'd been officially killed a little over a year ago. He tried to recall the man's face and… couldn't.
He wasn't even sure he remembered his name. It hadn't been important; it still didn't matter. That man was finally officially dead, and his duty to report was now officially Lullaby—formally named Sheik of Kakariko, who had never been to the place—within the Kingdom military.
There was a new war brewing. A new assignment, after a year and a half idle after…
He pressed his hand to his face. The self-castigation over Sahasrahla was on the edge of his lips, but it faded faster than he feared. I should have known; I should have seen the signs they'd lied. I could have asked—
Asked a man who had never once looked twice at the bruises on his face, or the heavy sedatives he took on missions with him. Asked a man who had more than once told him to shut up and do as he was told; who had threatened to sedate him further if he kept talking. Asked someone who had never cared for a human life before… Asked, through the burden of sedatives muting his reason he hadn't been free of for a decade by that point.
The door to his room hissed open, and Link looked up from where he lay on the floor at Zelda without feeling much at all.
After the past year getting used to not being constantly sedated, it was honestly a relief. The wild emotional swings had been… difficult.
"…Why are you on the floor?" she asked. She leaned casually on the doorframe and he was struck all over again by how tall she'd gotten. She was an imposing woman, with broad shoulders and a heavy chest.
If he stood up, he'd be just as tall as she was, and that was far stranger.
"Just thinking about the past," he said, and he kept his voice low. He looked over his hands and wondered when he'd stopped having fur—when he'd fully lost his tail. He knew his wings had been gone somewhere between killing Ganondorf and leaving New Hyrule for Termina but…
He swallowed hard and dug one nail under the other, struck all of a sudden by them being small and flat. Even if he grew them out, they'd never be any use clinging to a tree and it bothered him—
"When did I change like this?" he asked, and he heard Zelda try to hide her sharp inhale. He closed his eyes but…
What was the point? He could pretend he was okay, but after a year screaming at her while she helped him struggle through tapering off an insanely high dose of sedatives, there was none. He wasn't okay, and she knew that very well; perhaps knew that better than he did. He licked his lips and spoke before she tried to answer.
"I don't remember… much of that. Becoming like this."
"Becoming tall like you are, or becoming Hylian?" She came into the room, and he heard her sit on the bed, one hand gently resting on his shin where his feet laid on the bed. He tilted his head to stare up at her and smiled.
"Both," he breathed. "It's been bothering me more."
She inhaled hard and swallowed. "How much do you remember?"
Link closed his mouth. He closed his eyes too, reaching over to rest his own hand on her ankle and felt the disconcerting way it was—he was large enough to cup that joint in one hand. It felt wrong. So much of his body felt wrong… (He'd hoped it was the drugs disconnecting him from his body; it clearly wasn't. He'd been completely sober for nearly four months, now.)
"…I remember leaving to go to Termina Station," he breathed. "I remember meeting Majora. I know we were—she and I were… close. I was her watcher, her guard for some time until she bit me. Then… I don't remember how it ended. Just that it did."
Zelda swallowed audibly. "Do you remember Kakariko?"
He didn't dare look at her. "…pieces of it. I know they… there was a room. They called it the Well. I learned what my power felt like, there. And a girl… I named her after Anju. Then they gave me to the Military after that."
She didn't ask how much he remembered of that; he imagined it was obvious from the records, from her having to spend a full year bringing him down from the drugs. It was nearly criminal to render someone so helpless, except the military could do a lot of things if they justified it to themselves.
"You were in Kakariko for ten years," she said, and Link winced and turned his head away. "Do you really remember so little…?"
He didn't answer. He didn't need to. She took one long, slow breath in and sighed.
"Don't worry about it," she breathed and her hand squeezed his shin on the bed. "I'll find out for you, so you don't have to wonder anymore."