Chapter Text
For a while now, he’s seen the way it was supposed to go every time he closes his eyes.
The Demon Dragon is gone. Smoke curls around the tail end of the explosion, marking the spot where a war thousands of centuries in the making ended.
Link braces himself against a horn of the Light Dragon, Master Sword in hand, silver still burning white as the wind wipes tears of relief from his eyes.
We did it, he thinks and tilts his head back, releasing something between a sigh and a sob. I think we actually did it.
He thinks he’s dying when he starts to float. He’s bloodied and bruised and broken in several places from the battle against the Demon King, so it makes sense. The taste of metal in his mouth and the sinking feeling at the base of his skull are familiar enough…only, everything is bright…too bright. And the Light Dragon is still with him, suspended in some peaceful stasis in the air a hundred meters below him.
From what he remembers about dying, you do so in darkness and completely alone.
The cool breath of afterlight is on his neck, and he knows it’s them without looking. Another dead king of Hyrule, a Zonai this time, and his fallen queen. He still wears the king’s magic arm, fused where his own was lost—or taken. He was never entirely sure what happened to it.
No matter, it’s gone, and Rauru has saved him more times than he can count.
The tattooed parts of his skin begin to glow, signaling the dead are summoning magic into the clawed fingers of Rauru’s hand. They point the arm at the Light Dragon and begin showering her in light. He can feel the energy passing through him, how it binds to every scale, every horn, every fang. Everything burns, but he grits his teeth against the pain, willing himself to endure it because the Light Dragon is shrinking. It grows smaller and smoother until it isn’t a dragon anymore.
It’s her.
Zelda’s eyes remain closed as she turns, slowly, gently, onto her back in the air, so she’s poised and ready to fall away from him. Her arms are outstretched the same way they were the day he lost her.
He’s been given a second chance to get it right.
He stretches out his hand, fingers wide and desperate to make it to her this time, and when he does, he grabs her wrist and pulls her into him. He’s holding her so tight he’s afraid he might hurt her, but doesn’t dare lessen his grip because she’s right there. In his arms, falling back to the earth.
They are falling back to Hyrule together, and it feels so real. Like how it should have been.
But as they crash into the water, his arms are suddenly empty and cold. He plunges deeper and deeper into the dark, holding onto the devastatingly heavy anchor of nothing. This is usually when he wakes up. Drenched in sweat, breathless. Alone.
So, what really happened that day?
It starts the same. The Dragon Demon evaporated into nothing and Rauru and Sonia appeared, but instead of turning the Light Dragon back into Zelda, they healed Link and hurled him back down to Hyrule like a shooting star fragment.
Rauru’s magic arm was gone when he emerged from the water. What was left of his own tapered off above the elbow, skin stained black where Zonai sorcery staunched the Gloom that once threatened his life.
Zelda was nowhere to be found. The Light Dragon continued along her path above his head with a groan, divine and detached from the world she gave all of herself to save.
What really happened five years ago was exactly what Mineru had warned Zelda about. Forbidden things cannot be undone so easily.
So her sacrifice remains.
But so does he.
—
The beds at the Shuteye Inn aren’t the most comfortable, but they are cheap and usually available no matter what time you roll into Kakariko. The innkeeper, Ollie, has a pretty severe case of narcolepsy and would’ve probably lost the job a long time ago if Kakariko wasn’t geographically secluded from the rest of Hyrule. That and there are few who will risk cheating a business nestled within a village of shadow warriors.
The red rupee Link placed on the books when he claimed a bed well after midnight is still there as he moves past a snoozing Ollie to the door. Paya has told Link his money is no good in Kakariko, so whether or not Ollie ignored it or just never woke up is up for debate, but Link refuses to let a debt pile up no matter how generous the hand.
They always end up reaching for him eventually.
Kakariko is bustling in the cool morning air. Koko is already setting out her flower wreaths. A few children play tag by the frog statues near the inlet of the goddess statue. Cuckoos wander mindlessly near the general store. He pulls his hood down over his face and walks with purpose across the main road. The Master Sword strapped to his back is a bit of a giveaway, but it’s never been a weapon he could wear on his hip.
Link pauses at the base of the stairs to Town Hall and looks up. Sunlight peers at him through the Ring Ruins looming over the valley. The scaffolds came down last summer. The research team is focused on the sky islands now, mainly the caves surrounding the refinery on the Great Island. Kakariko still gets the occasional visitor hoping to see the floating slabs of rock that once held secrets from the ancient age, but the spectacle has largely worn off. To most, the Ring Ruins and the sky islands are as much a part of Hyrule now as landmarks like the Duelings Peaks or Death Mountain.
He hurries up the stairs, away from the curious whispers stirring behind him in the village, and lifts his hand to the door. There is a muffled shuffling from behind it before it quickly, yet carefully, eases open.
Tauro greets him with a smile.
“Link!” He creeps around the edge of the door onto the porch and then shuts it behind him. The fact he’s wearing a shirt is almost as startling as his behavior.
“I didn’t know you were in town. I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages,” he whispers.
Link shifts the weight between his feet. The morning sun is already starting to warm the dark of his cloak. He would much prefer his short cloak or none at all, but Hyrule takes the sight of his face as an invitation to ask for anything.
“How long are you staying?”
It’s always been a little challenging not being able to see Tauro’s eyes behind his thick bangs, but Link has learned if he waits long enough, people eventually fill his silences with a best guess.
“Only passing through?” And thankfully, Tauro usually gets it right on the first try.
Link nods.
“Of course, you always are,” Tauro sighs and sets his hands on his hips. “I suppose you’re here for my research notes?”
Link glances past Tauro to the closed door and tilts his head.
Tauro follows his gaze. “Oh, well, okay. You can come in, but you need to be quiet.”
Whatever silver of his face visible from under the hood must show offense because Tauro reacts immediately.
“Sorry! Just- just be extra quiet. Paya is still sleeping. She hasn’t been feeling well.”
It’s like a scroll unfurls in Link’s head. There has been a lot of rain in the valley lately. Viruses like to spread whenever people hunker down. He can boil some bone broth and garlic for fever easily, if that’s the case. There was an outbreak of illness in Hateno a few months back that turned out to be bad meat in a communal stew. Unfortunately, there is little you can do for that other than throw out the stew and double down on the fluids.
Link reaches for his pouch and starts fishing for herbs, but Tauro sets a hand on his shoulder.
“Oh no, it’s nothing like that. She’s fine. It’s, uh, well, we’re having a baby!” he whispers excitedly.
There is a whistle in Link’s ear. High and piercing. Like when he accidentally sets off a bomb flower in close quarters.
“It’s still really early, but they say how Paya’s feeling is a good sign the baby is already strong,” Tauro adds.
It’s bizarre, he thinks, that words can feel like an explosion. But it’s usually not the words themselves that cause this he’s learned. Rather, it’s the memories tied to them. Some remain clouded and dark from before he woke up, while others, from a later time but before the Upheaval, are crystal clear.
Those are the ones that feel like they could be from another time. Another life.
The school is nearly finished. They are cutting it close, but Zelda insisted the playground be built first so the kids could enjoy it. He’s convinced her to pause for lunch, which he’s got waiting for them back at the house, when she slides her hand into his and smiles.
“Do you think you’d ever want children, Link?”
The memory dissolves into nothing as quickly as it surfaced. Link blinks a few times and looks down at his empty hand, feeling oddly disconnected from himself and exhausted even though he just woke up. He starts to sign mechanically, but Tauro interrupts him.
“Oh, sorry,” he says gently, “Paya has been meaning to teach me, but we haven’t…”
Link lowers his hands and concentrates on pulling his voice into his throat. It’s rusty and foreign. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you!” Tauro bursts and then lowers his voice again, hunching his shoulders. “Thank you. We are excited. Really excited. Feels like the right next step for us, you know?” He claps his hands together and then turns to the door. “Alright, so yeah, come on in.” He eases the door open just enough so the two of them can slip inside.
It’s much cleaner than the last time he was here. All the research they collected after the Upheaval is condensed neatly against the right wall. The Sheikah heirloom, or a replica of it, is polished and back on the pedestal by the stairs. There are blueprints for a festival, something about Sahasra’s Pass, and traditional Kakariko red paper lanterns sit ready to be hung. The focus is back on Kakariko. Dorian must be pleased.
“I’m afraid there wasn’t much I could salvage from the Royal texts you brought me.” Tauro pulls out a small leather notebook and flips it open. Although the King’s study was spared the elements during the century Calamity Ganon swirled around the castle, the Demon King’s Gloom was corrosive. Vengeful. Once it took over the castle, not even the bones of it were left untouched. The plan, last Link heard, was to salvage and preserve what they could before they tore it all down. There was no mention of whether or not they planned to rebuild.
No one’s bothered to ask him for his opinion on the matter, but he hasn’t exactly made himself easy to find.
“There was nothing about Secret Stones, no real surprises there, but I did find something interesting about the temples.” Tauro settles on the page he was searching for and hands it to Link. He lowers his hood. “We know about the four elemental temples: water, wind, fire, and lightning, each with a corresponding sage—”
Sidon, Tulin, Yunobo, Riju. He sees a flash of the final battle under the castle, all four united at his side. He can’t remember the last time he’s seen any of them. A year, maybe?
“—and then there is the Spirit Temple and its sage.”
Mineru is long gone. While she was helpful and connected to Zelda, Link didn’t really know her and made little effort to do so when she joined him. He summoned her the least and when she left, finally departing the realm from the Great Sky Island, he’d planned to take her Secret Stone, until—
“It appears these temples have played an important part in eras of the past,” Tauro continues, “and there have been other temples. Other sages.”
Link looks up from Tauro’s notes and tilts his head. While he’s come across many places and puzzles that feel similar to a temple, the mention of other sages grabs his ear.
“Right?” Tauro grins. “Let’s start with what we know. The Temple of Time had a sage…”
The Sheikah tapestry hangs to his left. Link glares at the center where the Calamity is depicted. Time is Zelda’s power. And the fallen queen’s. That stone is gone with the Demon King.
“We haven’t found the Temple of Light, but I have a theory that the Temple of Time in the sky was previously called that.”
And Rauru was the sage. His stone became Zelda’s and the Light Dragon carries it somewhere inside her just as the Demon Dragon did Sonia’s. Tauro isn’t telling him anything he doesn’t already know. Seven sages for seven temples. He had been hoping for something fresh; something to sharpen his eye before he went back into the ruins again.
“Then there are the Spirit, Lightning, Wind, and Fire Temples. They might have been known by other names over the ages, but it’s all the same, and their sages we know, past and present. But one more temple keeps coming up in the text. Here,”—Tauro points to the bottom of the page—“the Shadow Temple.”
A shiver crawls across Link’s skin.
“Sounds real warm and fuzzy, right?” Tauro chuckles.
That’s a new one. And the name is familiar. Link lifts his hand and points to one of the banners bearing the Eye hanging from the ceiling.
“No, I wondered that, too. Paya doesn’t know anything about it. Feels like something important Impa would have shared with her before stepping down, you know? Perhaps it was once tied to the Shadow Folk, but it isn’t anymore, as far as I can tell.”
The air tastes bitter. Like there is magic in her name. Impa has been as much of an enigma as Link lately.
“Do you want to stay? I can make some breakfast and we can brainstorm like old times?” Tauro says. His face is innocent and hopeful. He doesn’t remember that Link was never involved in this part. The staying. It was always Zelda. It happens a lot.
More evidence he shouldn’t be the one Rauru and Sonia saved.
—
Impa is waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs. She’s abandoned her signature hat in favor of a smaller, more travel-friendly model. Her third eye is visible and fixed on him. Unblinding and captious. He once imagined it was something he could trick, perhaps get it to spin round and round until it rolled back into her head and disappeared. But she’s not an enemy or a temple puzzle he needed to thwart. Supposedly, she’s the oldest friend he has.
It’s been harder to remember that without Zelda.
“You’re looking thin,” Impa says. She starts walking up the winding path that leads to the woods overlooking the village.
‘You’re looking old,’ he follows and signs without looking at her.
Impa laughs. “You know, for the first time in my life, I actually feel it.”
The footpath is overgrown. They are trying to discourage people from going into the woods. Although the Gloom is gone, the cavern to the depths remains, and it’s a tragedy waiting to happen until they cover it. The decision was made to prioritize the chasms in more frequented areas along the trade routes and major cities first. A few chasms in Central Hyrule and Death Mountain have covers designed to be opened from the surface as needed, but the rest are scheduled to be permanently blocked off at some point.
Kakariko must be low on the list. Another caveat of remaining secluded: your problems tend to wait. Unless you find someone you can hand them off to.
“Have you been to it?” Impa asks him. He stops and waits for her to elaborate, allowing his irritation to settle visibly into his shoulders. “The Shrine they built for her? Zelda would have liked it, I think. Maybe she’ll send us some Silent Princess as a sign of her blessing.”
Impa’s talking about the pond he fell into after the battle with the Demon Dragon. They erected monuments of Zelda’s story in luminous stone and built a statue of her at the center overlooking the water. People travel from all over to see it. They call it a memorial, but it looks oddly like a goddess statue with Zelda’s face on it to Link, which makes it more of a Spring. And Zelda would hate that.
‘Is there something you need from me?’ he signs.
Impa doesn’t say anything. She looks him over slowly, paying particular attention to the long braid over his shoulder.
‘If there is nothing, then I’m leaving.’
She doesn’t budge or break eye contact. She just stares at him with worry slowly spreading across her face.
Goddess, now he understands why some people find him so infuriating.
“You are angry,” she finally says. He rolls his eyes.
‘I’m busy.’
“You’ve been angry for a long time.”
He lowers his hands, hoping she’ll take the hint he’s not interested in having this conversation again.
“I fear this anger will poison you if you do not let it go.”
He scoffs and turns from her to face the cliffs. If he takes off from here, he’ll sail right over Telta Lake and pick the road up again at the base of Sahasra Slope. He can grab a horse at Riverside Stable. If the weather’s on his side, he’ll be at the Great Plateau before nightfall.
“I loved her, too. But—”
The word does something to him; summons something black and smoldering from deep inside his chest. He whips around and glares at her, his voice ready behind his teeth.
“I love her.”
Impa doesn’t back down from the maw of his rage. “You have spent the last five years in ruins.”
Faron, Typhlo, the surface labyrinths, an entire year floating from sky island to sky island. He’ll do it all again too, armed with the new information at the Shadow Temple.
“I’m not going to stop looking for a way to bring her back just because Hyrule has decided she’s g—” his voice cracks, a dying fire, and disappears back into his throat. All he can taste is sorrow and ash.
“It cannot be a coincidence you are the only one who can see her, Link,” she speaks to him gently, like he’s a thing to be pitied. A wounded animal.
‘That’s because I’m the only one who is looking!’ he signs and then turns from her, pulling his glider out in front of him. Purah’s latest model springs open from a single, slender piece he can wear across his back like a shield. Two giant yellow eyes stare up at him from the violet fabric. Many have told him how unnerving this particular design is. He doesn’t know why, but it brings him comfort. Sometimes he thinks he hears questions in his head when he stares at it long enough; questions about friendship and his true face and happiness.
“How far are you willing to take this?” Impa continues from behind him. “Have you asked yourself this? You must be able to recognize your limits. There is much we don’t know about the past. That we will never know. Important people, places, symbols, all of their true meanings have been lost to time.”
That is the real problem. It is too much time gone by. They can barely recall the history of a hundred years ago, nevermind thousands of centuries. It’s why Zelda founded the research team; why she built memorials for those lost to the Calamity; why she insisted on building a school in Hateno—safeguards. A means of ensuring important details, like those that might stop a Calamity or reveal the hiding place of a Demon King and the weapons vital to vanquishing them both, would never be lost again.
If only something had been left for her. Something that could have spared her from making such a terrible sacrifice.
“What we do know is what happens when a soul is drenched in shadow. When someone tied to destiny is unwilling to move on...”
He’s glaring at the castle in the distance. It’s quiet, almost peaceful, sitting still on the horizon line where the Demon King left it. Then, with a flash, his mind takes him under it. The world shrouded in darkness, his lungs choking on thick swirls of miasma. The light from Rauru’s slowly unraveling arm catches the gold bangles woven across a chest of decayed flesh stretched far too thin. A cage of ancient bones and a gaping mouth.
“…it bends, and it twists, and it changes. We must be the ones who choose to move forward.”
The darkness around the corpse starts to grow and swirl, squeezing through the cracks in the ceiling. Link’s eye follows it as it crawls up, burrowing through the earth, up into the walls of Hyrule Castle, all the way to the Sanctum until it bursts from the stone and flies high above the castle. Another wide, gaping mouth that spews rot and oil and rage high into the sky.
“I’m not giving up on her,” he signs.
“If you do not wish to lose yourself to this pain, you must accept it.” She steps close to him and sets her hand on his chest. Right over his heart. “I’ll ask you again: how far are you willing to go for love?”
It’s a stupid question. A pointless one. How far will he go? Hasn’t he already proven his love for Zelda is unwavering? That he can lose himself and still manage to find her?
There is no grave capable of holding his body down while she still exists.
“I’m not giving up on her!” he shouts and pushes Impa’s hand away. She recoils and finally pulls her gaze off him.
It’s no way to speak to a friend. Certainly not the oldest one he has. Zelda would be disappointed in him if she were here. Then again, if she were, this conversation wouldn’t be happening. He would let Secret Stones and the Zonai disappear into history where they belong. Maybe there would still be a shrine by the pond and he and Zelda could avoid it together. Maybe she would cut his hair and grow hers long, and they could get back to the question she asked him outside of Hateno School and eventually have news to share. Or not. It would be okay with him if they came to the decision together.
But she’s not here.