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sciencelings-writes · 6 months

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Forever Changed

AO3 Link

WC: 8318

Ganondorf was gone, obliterated into ash that fluttered down on Hyrule Field, Zelda was back, a feat they had been convinced wasn’t possible, but that didn’t mean it was over. Or that life would ever be anywhere close to normal ever again.

Though it was a surprise that the princess could come back at all, it wasn’t much of a shock to Link when she returned with nothing between her skin and the open air. They had seen how she had transformed, even through the bright light radiating from her chest, how her form stretched and morphed into something new. Her dress and jewelry left hopelessly torn to pieces at the altar in which she sacrificed her life.

It wasn’t a graceful transition, the hero could still hear how she screamed, though out of pain or terror, they weren’t quite sure. How that scream turned into the roar of a massive beast that echoed through the walls of the temple and sent ripples through the clouds. The last drops of humanity left falling through tears to the world below.

By now Link was used to falling, diving through the air as it ripped through their clothes and hair, They were familiar with how to cut through it like a zora through water. Reaching their plummeting partner was a task they determined they would never fail at again.

Their teeth clenched as their arm reached for her, they forgot how charred it had been from Ganondorf’s first attack. Rauru’s arm wasn’t there to protect them from the injury any longer. The pain that arced through it over a simple stretch made their breath stutter from how overwhelming it was. It was hardly bearable, but Link had been through far worse and such pain had never been the thing to stop them before. Especially when they were this close to getting her back.

With an arm that quivered in agony and reluctantly moved like it was made of stone, they took Zelda’s limply outstretched hand. She was desperately pulled into their arms without a moment's hesitation. Link braided their legs together to protect hers from flailing behind them and held her securely against them as they dropped.

It was too much to try to think of a way to save them, on top of the blinding pain and the pure unfiltered relief that she was back in their arms. Safe and with a heart audibly beating against the artery their ear had pressed against as they buried their head in the crook of her neck. Not even the vicious wind could reach where their tears met her skin.

Link didn’t see the ground fast approaching, if they were really plummeting to their deaths, they preferred to enjoy the few moments left. After all this time all they had wanted was to get her back, at the very least they had that again.

The shrieking of the air around them crescendoed to an all-encompassing crash before a wave of silence surrounded them. As well as the sudden rush of cool water into every crevice. It seemed as though the goddess would grant them a single mercy by not allowing them to be killed on impact.

For a moment, they were knocked around and it quickly became difficult to tell what direction up was, even when Link opened their eyes, the movement of the water scattered light in all directions. It was only when their feet met the rocky floor of the pond that they were able to figure that they had completely flipped orientation in the chaos of the water.

They readjusted their grip on Zelda, holding her across their chest with most of her weight falling on their good arm. They thanked Hylia for the low gravity effect of the lake, it would’ve been nearly impossible to do in normal circumstances with how the pain in their arm was only growing.

Link kicked off the ground with enough force that it didn’t take too much more swimming to get to the surface. Thankfully the edge of the pond was nearby and the hero was able to stumble out of it before they could collapse in exhaustion. Though they weren’t that injured from the fight, the agony that shot through their arm at every slight movement sapped the little energy they had left from battlefield adrenaline.

Their knees hit the grass as soon as it transitioned out from a bed of sharp gravel. Their corrupted arm gave out the moment the tremor from nearly falling to the ground reached it. Link’s breath hitched and stuttered as the torturous feeling electrified their nerves until there was nothing left of them.

Catching their breath gave them a moment to notice that they weren’t the only one left irreparably changed.

Iridescent white scales lingered in patches around the princess's body, curling from under her breasts and trailing up her back to her shoulders in an imitation of armor. They led down her waist and hips, down to the side of her thighs, and got bigger the closer they got to her major joints. Beginning at her forearms and calves were black scales that covered her limbs like elegant gloves and stockings, leaving bright opalescent nails that were shaped more like talons, though were still flat.

Horns protruded from her hairline, wrapping around her nearly luminous golden locks like waving branches from a tree. Her hair was mildly tangled in her new wild crown that shifted between the blue of a tropical sea and rich cold violet that would be rare to find amongst the most beautiful of flowers.

Link felt the large golden scales going along her spine, intermittently being disrupted by a segmented crystalline spike, the shape of which mirrored thin flower petals and flattened when pressed down on, like a cluster of sparkling hedgehog quills set in a mosaic of shining metal.

She had yet to awaken, yet the hero had a feeling her eyes would flutter open any second now. They braced themselves with an inhale before forcing their charred arm to move once more, controlling the movement as much as they could with their upper arm in an attempt to mitigate the potential agony that was sure to return with vigor.

They managed to unhook the Purah Pad from their belt and gently tap on an icon in their inventory. A folden piece of cloth appeared at their side, though it was meant for a paraglider, it would also work as the easiest way to prevent Zelda from waking up completely naked. It acted as a large cloak that she could wrap herself in, at least temporarily. They were pretty sure she wouldn’t love waking up from an eon’s long coma without a single shred of cloth to cover her. Even if Link was the only one that saw, and even if they had seen it before.

The fabric had barely covered the princess's shoulders when the strain made Link’s vision white out for a moment, and leave them lightheaded. They begged for the sensation to pass as they squeezed their eyes shut. It was impossible to focus on anything but the flaring agony but they tried anyway. They tried to count their own heartbeat that rapidly pulsed in their ears or feel the cool wind against their wet skin but it was no use.

Just a little longer, they just had to hold out a little longer. It took more effort than it should’ve, but they managed to force their eyes open again.

At least the fight was over this time, the world wouldn’t be doomed if they keeled over. If they lost the battle against their own consciousness or their grip against the pulling force of death was weakened and crumbling, ultimately it wouldn’t matter. Zelda was back, and the dark evil was dispelled.

Perhaps that was how it was meant to end, it certainly sounded enticing. Link knew firsthand what a relief death could be. When all they knew was agony, death had been a temporary blessing. A comforting darkness where no physical pain could follow, where terror faded and all the pressures of life released into the ever-growing nothingness.

Death sounded pretty nice, but Link kind of wanted to survive this. They had just gotten Zelda back after so long and it might be a selfish thought, but all they wanted to do was enjoy their princess's return. They wanted so desperately to hear her voice and see her smile again after letting her fall from their grasp and losing her to more than just the pit of shadows.

“Link? How did- Are you-” Their eyes flicked up to her face from where they had landed while they had tried to focus on not collapsing.

They thought they had identified all the changes that had been made but one more grabbed their interest. Her irises, once a solid lush green were separated into two rings. The inner ring was that familiar emerald but the outer one reminded them of their own eye color, a seaside blue that nearly dipped into a ghostly aqua. They had a feeling most people would be disturbed by the princess's new appearance, but Link couldn’t help but simply find her even more beautiful than before.

“It’s okay, we did it,” Their voice was quiet and strained, like their throat was being squeezed by a large ghostly hand that refused to let them go.

“It’s really over?” she asked, sounding somewhere between hopeful and desperate. She didn’t break eye contact as she shifted to sit herself up, as if she wasn’t believing what was in front of her eyes. Link knew the feeling.

“You’re back home now,” they avoided the question, they had a feeling they wouldn’t come out of this completely unscathed.

In a moment, Zelda had sprung up and thrown herself into their arms, well, arm. They couldn’t bear to move the right one anymore. Her makeshift blanket dropped uselessly to the ground. Despite having forgone her mortal form for countless thousands of years, she was far more sure of her movements than Link was.

“Oh thank Hylia, I was so sure that I’d never see you again!” Her relieved laugh was near hysterical, the way her breath hitched hinted at the emergence of a sob.

Her arms were so tight around them, they had never felt so safe and secure in their life than when she embraced them. It was the same pair of arms that engulfed them after nightmares, forcing the residual effects away and replacing them with something far kinder. It was her arms that squeezed them so excitedly when she had been freed from the calamity and wrapped loosely atop their shoulders when joyful music found a reason to be played.

Maybe that’s why Link let go. There was no more reason to cling so desperately to life when they were already so sure that they were safe. It wouldn’t matter if they fell because there was already someone there to catch them.

Link couldn’t hear how her voice turned worried or how she frantically checked their pulse and seemed afraid to even touch their arm, like it could crumble to ashy pieces if she so much as felt it. She called their name, but the darkness had won its battle yet again. Once more, Link trusted their last remaining moments of life to her. Perhaps one day she will forgive them for it.

***

No one seemed to know what to do with themselves once Link had departed to fight the so-called ‘Demon King’, it hadn’t been officially announced but Purah had made sure that everyone was aware of what was going on in Lookout Landing. They were the closest crumb of civilization to where the mummy guy had chosen to hide himself away and if it was anything like last time, they were right in the middle of its warpath.

Many chose to hide in the royal family's emergency shelter, it was already set up to be a sturdy bunker and it was the safest place to be if something decided to emerge from the crater that once held most of the castle.

The brave were still above ground, anxiously waiting, not daring to try and occupy their time in any significant way. Many of the warrior types had convinced themselves that they could be of use, in case any creepy creatures came crawling out of the castle's crevice, but really, they were hoping to catch a glance of something legendary.

Time passed so slowly when there was a potential apocalypse on the horizon, but no one wanted to waste the time they had left working some meaningless job if they were all about to be decimated. It seemed like weeks had passed before anything seemed to happen.

The whole time Purah had been glued to her telescope, pointing directly at the hole Link and the Sages had disappeared into. At some point, she had convinced herself that the sight of the telescope was too limited so she climbed up into the mechanisms that kept the damn thing stable and freed the massive scope from its prison. At least now it could point at more than just the castle, with enough additional strength of course.

She wasn’t used to the settlement being so quiet. It wasn’t a populous place by any means but the last few hours had muffled its background chatter into an uneasy silence. She fidgeted with her recorder for a moment before jamming her face right back into the glass. Her eyes burned from refusing to blink, just in case she missed a single thing.

Sometimes she could swear that she heard the ground rumble, like there were massive beasts deep within the depths that had decided that they wanted out. But even in the quietness, she could never be sure. Her mind could just as easily be playing tricks on her, convincing her that something was happening, making up an imaginative story to fill the empty space.

At some point, she couldn’t blame her own delusion, the vibrations sent through the ground caused the lanterns lighting her guard tower to tremble, the wood making up the whole structure to creak and groan like it too was afraid of the coming minutes.

Purah didn’t let the tremors break her focus, not even when her parasol dropped from the tower and bounced off of the roof. Dust from the castle was starting to crumble into the scarlet chasm. Dust and pebbles became chunks and boulders, grumbling rock became something far more akin to an unearthly roar. It was only getting louder.

The scientist only whipped her head away from the lens when all she could see was a blur of dark smoke and blood-red fur. It was as if the whole settlement had all gasped as one, a chorus of horror rippled throughout the few that remained to see the spectacle, some voices were louder than others.

She didn’t let the shock stop her from furiously turning the telescope skyward, she needed to know what in demises name that thing was. She cursed when she could finally find its face.

“By the shadows, Link’s in its mouth!” She exclaimed loud enough to be heard over the fading dragon cry. She could barely see them struggling to escape its mighty maw before the sky thundered once more. Not from the demon that was nearly eating their hero, but from the other side of the sea of thick clouds.

Her Highness erupted from the fluffy barrier that stood between her and what was left of the demon king. The light dragon had always been so docile, floating around at the edge of Purah’s vision at all times, but not now. Now, she was a great divine guardian sent to protect the one thing she refused to lose again.

It was then that she knew for certain that there was still a little bit of Zelda in there, even after thousands of years in a form that destroyed all sense of who she was, she was still alive, fighting. Returning when Link needed her most. Catching them as they tumbled from the mouth of the demon who released him only to let out another terrifying roar.

There were a few moments when the battling serpents were still low enough to see, though they had passed the limits of Purah’s telescope, why couldn’t they have the epic fight a little closer? It felt like such a wasted opportunity, she had to remind herself that her friends were up there fighting for their lives, this wasn’t some form of entertainment meant to amuse the royal court. However, she still thought it would be useful for future generations if the moments were documented in some capacity.

Her friends… it hadn’t been just Link and Zelda who had gone to confront the demon king. Link may have gotten an expedited exit with the dark dragon but that meant that the Sages were still stuck down there. Any one of them could be injured or dying with no way to get back up to the surface, and just because she wasn’t in the front lines herself, didn’t mean she wouldn’t be of use.

“Alright! No more slacking off! We need a rescue team headed down that hole pronto!” Purah shoved herself away from her scope and hollered down to the crowd below her. She had to remind herself that she was the leader of this outpost and she couldn’t just laze around. She blew a shrill two-toned alarm from her recorder, part of a communication code she had developed for the lookout landing project. She didn’t carry that thing around everywhere to play a jaunty little tune whenever she felt like it.

“Let’s go people! Half of this kingdom's leaders are down there and they’re counting on us to get them out!” She slid down each ladder leading up to her tower, not bothering to use the steps. Her heels slammed against the wooden floor and she immediately sprung into action, untying the balloons they took to traverse the depths and most importantly, get out of them. She also had to make sure Josha did not sneak onto one of them, because even though it was highly likely that Link cleared out all the monsters in the way of Ganondorf’s little hidey-hole, there were still sure to be oceans of gloom in the way. It wasn’t exactly the peak environment for a child, even if she was a prodigy.

Buliara was the first to join the search team, she wasn’t shy about being protective of the young gerudo chief. A handful of warriors of all races followed her without question, one of Purah’s scientific colleagues got to work preparing the balloon for flight and everyone seemed to understand the gravity of the situation.

Purah’s gaze kept being drawn towards the sky, though she couldn’t see the dragons anymore. Even the smaller spyglass she snatched from Muzu did little to help. She just had to hope that Link hadn’t dropped the master sword or anything.

The rescue team departed in record time and as many precautions as she could spare were available. A group of Rito were sent to keep an eye on the dragon battle at a safe distance, though even they couldn’t fly that high. She had made sure that there were medics ready for anyone to arrive in critical condition, they prepared medicines out of sundelions and the strongest healing elixirs they had the ability to make.

Time seemed to resume the moment she found work to do, while she was ultimately still just waiting for the battle to be over, this time she was running around making sure that everyone knew the plan for the worst-case scenario. Which was to get into the emergency shelter as fast as possible, or really any safe little corner.

That plan nearly came into play when the sky turned a vibrant gorey red. The air around them became heavy with gloom like when the blood moon reached its peak. It burned her eyes but she knew that rubbing them would make the sensation worse, not everyone had that same foresight.

“Baracade the entrances! We don’t want any monsters paying us a visit!” Purah ordered after a short urgent melody on her whistle. She ran to the eastern wall before she pulled out the little telescope.

The dark dragon seemed agitated but she still couldn’t determine if this sudden atmospheric change was a good thing or a bad thing. She hoped it was the demon serpent putting everything into its final attack before plummeting to the ground. She wondered if she could get some samples of the scales it would leave behind or if she would have the rare opportunity to find out what dragon meat tasted like.

Of course, it could also be the demon king rallying his monstrous forces upon the land he promised to rule in eternal darkness, but that wasn’t a very fun option. She didn’t like it nearly as much as the first one.

A speck of golden light caught her eye, a flash of yellow among the sea of smoldering scarlet. It seemed to originate from the great beast's head, or at least she was pretty sure it was his head, if the gnarled thorns that surrounded the sight were his horns.

At first, it had started out as a brief flash, but it quickly grew into a bright star. The serpent seemed to writhe while the glow overtook its entire face. Purah would swear that she saw the shadow of a humanoid figure, thrusting their mighty sword into its forehead. But it could’ve been her imagination or her hope for some epic conclusion convincing her that any tiny difference in colors was something consequential.

The distant dot disappeared into the sky, the light dragon swooping in where it potentially could’ve landed. The dark dragon fled straight up into the clouds, no longer caring about its fated foes, who kept their distance from it.

Beams of white light broke free from the beast's long body, like it was being struck by a hundred sequential arrows. It seemed to let out one last scream before it erupted in a bright blast. Purah was sure she wasn’t the only one who was forced to cover her eyes when it happened.

It was only as the bloody sky began to fade into a soft rosy pink that they were hit with the impact of the explosion. She was barely able to grab a nearby pillar to keep herself from hitting the ground from the shockwave. The ray of beautiful light only shrank in size, never getting any dimmer until it was just suddenly gone.

Purah raised her telescope to the sky once more to search for the surviving dragon and her passenger. She ignored the triumphant cheers from all around her, relieved laughter, and the many who were nearly, or completely, brought to tears. But she didn’t join in. Not yet.

The other dragon, Zelda, the princess was just… gone. There were no clouds to hide behind, though it seemed hard for a creature that size to even be able to hide. In the midst of the light show that was the decimation of the demon king, her friends had disappeared. She had gotten them far enough away from the blast… right?

Everyone was too busy celebrating to notice how the leader of their little settlement wove between them to get back to her tower, maybe if she was higher, she’d be able to see something, anything proving that the light dragon and her rider had not been vaporized. Her ears rang, from the explosion or from the shock of her friend's second disappearance, she couldn’t quite pinpoint.

Purah was deaf to the joy of the people around her as she searched the skies over and over and over again. There had to be something she was missing, a dragon couldn’t just… vanish into nothingness. She just witnessed what it took for one to be destroyed and it was not a quiet affair. So… where could Zelda have gone?

Thankfully, she wouldn’t have to wait longer than a few minutes to get her answer, though it didn’t turn out to be the one she had been expecting. She had continued to scour the clouds, almost mistaking some distant floating island for the dark talons of the light dragon.

“Director Purah,” A voice broke her concentration and suddenly her view through the telescope lens was a fuzzy dark gray. She pulled away from her scouting in mild annoyance until she saw who was speaking to her.

“Get crowing Harth, I hope you have some good news for me, other than that we survived another almost-pocalyspe.” She delicately shortened the spyglass before folding her arms as authoritatively as she could.

“Something was seen falling into the lake to the east, right under the battle. No other debris has been spotted and we have reason to believe that it was Link.” The black rito informed her with a curt nod. Perhaps she would’ve noticed a splash if she hadn’t been so focused on the sky, she nearly cursed herself for it.

“I need you to take me there, we have no idea what condition they’re in,” She tried not to make it sound like an order, the worry in her voice seemingly helped with that. Harth landed on her lookout tower and knelt down before her wordlessly. She wasted no time climbing onto his back and with a quick flap of his mighty wings, they were in the air.

With a rapid set of subsequent snaps, her telescope was back into its extended form and scanning the green hills that surrounded the nearest lake. A couple of tiny monster camps here, some ruins there, but it was a white figure that caught her eye.

At first, Purah thought it was some sort of deity, there was an inhumanness about it. She was decorated in colors that shimmered in every shift of the light and seemed to glow golden and vivid blue at the same time, like a yellow sunset through Lurelin's clear waters. As they grew closer and the image became more clear, she was able to see the truth.

It was Zelda. Bare as the day she was born, her nakedness was only covered by the hero she had cradled in her arms, who also seemed to have slightly more skin showing than usual. Thought she was sure that Link wasn’t unfamiliar with walking right up to their princess in reasonably revealing clothing. She was sure that if her grand-niece were here, she would be blushing hard enough to pass out.

More concerning than the princess's odd new appearance, Link was obviously not doing well. Their arm was barely recognizable, stiffly tucked into their chest, its coloring dark and ashy like they had dipped it into lava, or something worse. Their head was resting on Zelda’s collarbone and even from high in the sky Purah could tell that they were completely unconscious. They were so unnaturally still and pale in the princess’s arms that she immediately began to fear for the worst.

Purah lept to the ground several seconds before they had even landed. She nearly stumbled over her own shoes in the grass in her frantic sprint to get to her friends. She knew the moment Zelda spotted her, the godly stoic demeanor she wore faded into something far more human. She was afraid, her eyes were wide as she jogged to Purah, she looked to be on the very edge of bursting into tears.

“I don’t know what happened, they just… collapsed-” The princess's panicked words stumbled from her mouth breathlessly.

“We have medics on standby at Lookout Landing, all we have to do is get them there,” Purah promised, “We’re so close, you’ll see once we get up the hill.” The scientist wrapped her arm around her friend’s back, between spikes along her spine that she was just noticing. She hoped that the gesture came off as comforting and steadying in the midst of the intense emotions that the princess had to be feeling, Purah knew her abrasive personality could come off as offputting, she could never really tell how much was too much. Though Zelda had leaned into her supportive half-hug so perhaps there was no reason to overthink it.

“I can’t- goddess it’s happening again isn’t it…” Zelda whimpered as Purah led them away from the pond.

“We aren’t going to lose them, this is different.” She replied firmly, “We’re prepared, help is only a few minutes of speedwalking away.”

She turned to Harth, who had a dark wing politely covering his eyes.

“Hey feathers, I need you to make sure they’re ready for an urgent arrival. I don’t know how safe it would be for you to fly them ahead of us, now I’m not a medical doctor but I have a pretty good understanding of hylian physiology and I’m almost certain it would be a bad idea to jostle our beloved hero around while they’re in such a sensitive state.” Purah reasoned, partially to herself as she did have the thought of sending Link earlier than them but decided to put a bit of consideration into it before making a decision like that.

“I’ll see to it.” The Rito didn’t hesitate to take off back into the sky, the flaps of his wings seemed a lot more rapid on his return trip.

“I was wondering what that zonai arm was hiding…” Purah muttered as they made their way towards the settlement. At a closer glance at Link’s arm, it was easy to see why it had to be ‘replaced’ in the first place. The burns were deep and dark and outlined in an unnaturally vivid scarlet. She had the feeling that if she touched it, what was left of the skin would either flake off like pieces of used-up firewood, or it would feel like cold solid stone. The sight worried her greatly, Would there be anything they could do to fix it? Had it been a lost cause from the very beginning?

“Zonai arm?” Zelda asked, with each step, she seemed to be more steady on her feet, and more able to walk at a swifter pace.

“Yeah, they said some ghost gave it to them, something about how theirs was too damaged to be healed. I couldn’t really tell if it was like some kind of glowing magic prosthetic or nifty bandaid, just covering up what was wrong without being able to do much about it.” They had managed a few dozen rapid steps more before Purah drew her arm back to check Link’s pulse. There was still a bit of color to their skin but it was hard to see if they were even breathing on top of the movements created from their purposeful jog. Their speed slowed just for the moment it took for her fingers to meet the hero's throat.

Purah let out a relieved sigh, it wasn’t strong, it wasn’t even at a steady pace, but it was there. Immediately noticeable and persistent in continuing to beat. She only needed to give Zelda a quick nod before they were back to rushing through Hyrule Field.

The eastern gates of Lookout Landing opened as they approached, a couple of knights in training carried a stretcher between them, meeting the trio halfway. Zelda clearly didn’t want to let Link go, her iridescent claws nearly dug into their skin before she accepted that she had to release them from her grasp.

Purah’s long outer robe found its way around the princess's shoulders while she stood frozen in place outside of the settlement's walls. The coat’s owner pulled it carefully around her body, where usually it was balanced on the edge of her shoulders, It was wrapped more snuggly around the princess, for the sake of modesty. With the way Zelda’s cheeks turned pink, Purah made the educated guess that she had only just now realized the state her body was brought back in.

The medical team rushed to the fallen hero’s side before they had even been carried through the gate. The most qualified doctor they had on-site, and realistically one of the best in Hyrule, instantly went to examine Link’s charred arm. She was a gerudo physician with extensive experience in battlefield injuries and had been overseeing the effects of gloom-infected wounds. She knew better than anyone how to deal with the stuff and she didn’t look terribly hopeful when she lifted the hero’s alarmingly stiff arm.

“Come on, let’s give them a moment to sort everything out, and get you into something more comfortable,” Purah led the princess toward her own dwelling, she seemed reluctant to leave Link but there was a reason a patient's relatives were usually not allowed in the surgery room. The scientist pulled out the tablet she named after herself and trusted it to the princess's trembling fingers.

“I can guarantee that they have a better assortment of clothes than I do, I know that there’s at least a backless dress in there that could work with your spine spikes, last I checked it was dyed a real pretty purple,” Purah filled the silence as she entered her quarters. It was still covered in loose papers, though even if it had been perfectly tidy at the beginning of the day, it still would’ve ended up a mess after the recent earthquakes that had nothing to do with shifting tectonic plates. Neither of them even attempted to step around the chaos, messing up piles of papers just didn’t seem very much of a worry at the moment.

Instead of her quite logical suggestion, Zelda chose the outfit Link first appeared from the sky in, a tunic made of loosely wrapped cloth in a rather ancient style. With a little bit of readjustment, it seemed to work just fine for the returned princess. She still looked like some kind of timeless god of the wild but now she was a little less focused on hiding her skin.

Purah was untangling Zelda’s hair from her horns when one of the medics knocked on her door, she hoped that because they didn’t barge in frantically, Link was likely not dying or something. Or perhaps she was just being too hopeful.

“Princess? Director Purah?” The voice was muffled by the solid wooden door. Zelda sprung up instantly, nearly sending her friend flying.

“Yes, yes, come in, tell us everything!” Purah whipped open the door and motioned for the young man to enter, though she couldn’t recall his name she remembered that he had become determined to become a doctor after one of his parents succumbed to gloom sickness before anyone even knew much about it.

“Good news, their vitals are stable and we were able to stop the infection from spreading, at least, temporarily. Bad news… the damage sustained to their arm was too severe, Dr, Nanoa said that the best thing to do is amputate. Even the greatest Zora healer wouldn’t be able to revive a dead limb.” He explained quickly, sensing the urgency of his message.

“That gives me an idea! They have healers at the domain, how long are you guys able to keep him stable?” Purah glanced at the large map hanging behind her.

“Not long enough for a road trip…” the medics assistant muttered.

“The Purah Pad can transport multiple people at once,” Zelda uttered after being unable to speak since entering the settlement. “I can take Link and the doctor with me, will that leave enough qualified medical staff here?”

“I believe so, they’re definitely our top priority right now,” With Purah's acceptance, Zelda was renewed with a new wave of determination. Her back straightened and no one could stop her from heading out the door.

The Director wanted to go with her friend, of course she did, but she was the leader of Lookout Landing, and just like Link and Zelda’s battle hadn’t ended with Ganondorf’s defeat, neither did hers. The sages were still being recovered from the depths, and Purah was determined to meet them the moment they arrived at the surface. She knew she could trust Link’s life in Zelda’s hands, they were safe and accounted for, but she needed to focus on the Hyrulians who weren’t.

Yet.

***

The skies glowed a serene soft champagne yellow, the air carried a chill like she was at the top of a grand mountain, but the long golden grasses around her seemed to generate their own gentle warmth. She couldn’t help but want to sink into the rippling strands and bask in the quiet melancholy that this world seemed to be filled with.

“Link?” The princess called out into the lonely field, they should be here somewhere, this was their dream after all.

Getting to this point had been a blur, she had used the Purah Pad to transport the unconscious hero and the Gerudo doctor to the shrine beneath Zora’s domain and had ignored the reaction to floating to the main structure of the Zora city without a passing glance to the ladders that seemed far less convenient.

With Link cradled in her arms and a set destination in mind, she made her way to the infirmary, Nanoa scrambling behind, she didn’t have the luxury of taking a shortcut directly through the air. Her vision swam with fuzzy splotches of blue as she refused to even perceive the civilization around her. Most of the people in her way managed to dodge her firm path, but she did end up bumping into a few less fortunate Zora.

She could barely hear Lady (Queen?) Yona’s worried voice over her own slightly distracting internal screaming. Thankfully by that point, Nanoa had caught up and willingly explained the situation to the domain's lead healer. Since the moment she arrived, Zelda was a single solitary stone in a stream of moving parts that she could barely keep up with. The only thing that stood still with her was the unconscious swordsman in her arms, their grievously injured arm bandaged in warm yellow salves and sundelion petals laid in a way that mirrored her own scales.

At some point, they were swept up in the storm and she found herself laying her protector's limp form on a stone bed and standing near their head. She vaguely registered that the healers worried that Link would wake during the procedure, as they weren’t awake to be given an oral anesthetic.

Zelda didn’t know how she knew how to do it, just like she didn’t realize she could float above the ground when she just followed instinct to get Link where they had to be. Without much thought, she placed her pointer and middle fingers on the hero's temples. She was well acquainted with projecting her voice and her memories into their mind, there was a door that she sent things through, but never thought to enter herself.

Somehow she knew that with her unexplored connection to their mind, she could keep them asleep for as long as they needed it.

Now she woke up in a heavenly pastel world that failed to resemble a single place she had ever been, though somehow, it still felt oddly familiar

She was about to call out their name once more when she noticed a discrepancy in the long grasses. A slight smudge of darkness as if something had bent the stalks to hide there. She wove through the soft grass until she found what she was looking for.

“So that’s what Purah was talking about when she said Zonai arm…” Zelda sat next to the dazed figure mostly hidden by the lush golden meadow. They didn’t look fully awake, they were making the face they usually made when their princess woke them up too early on a day she was teaching and they just wanted to sleep until noon. Their eyes were a little unfocused and took a moment to really see her.

She took their strange hand in hers and immediately recognized it as Rauru’s. The deep gray flesh beneath the strange metal and turquoise ornamentation was soft like velvet or the dense short fur of some kind of semi-aquatic mammal. The fur thinned out near the palm of their hand and the underside of their fingers, leaving coal-black callused skin and long dark nails that grew to a point.

“Are you real? Is this a dream?” Link rested their head on her shoulder, reluctant to escape from their state of semi-consciousness.

“Both can be true, I’m here to keep you company for a little while,” She was reluctant to fully divulge their condition, she knew she would have to warn them before they woke up from the surgery but no version of her bringing it up seemed tactful enough. How does one tell someone that their dominant limb had to be cut off? How does one tell a swordsman that they would never be able to wield a sword comfortably again?

“That bad?” the hero asked, Zelda did her best to not react, both to Link’s acceptance of their fate and the stinging smell of medical alcohol reaching her nose from the waking world.

“Yeah… our first encounter with the demon king had some… long-term effects. We-we had to… to make a difficult call to… um-” Her voice stuttered and if she had been more than an extension of her consciousness projected into her knight’s mind she would be sweating right through the clothes she had borrowed from them.

“It can’t be saved… can it,” Link moved their borrowed arm, flexing their fingers and squeezing her hand while they still could. By then, the metallic smell of blood had started to seep through into the dream, pungent and inescapable. Thankfully her protector didn’t seem to notice, but they did have a particularly well-practiced poker face.

“No… it can’t,” Zelda sighed, “Even if we could reverse the damage caused by the pure gloom, your body has already stopped providing blood to the area and shut off all the nerve endings. Two-thirds of the arm is already dead, you’d just be carrying around a zombie limb which carries its own set of dangers from my understanding.”

“I-I get it,” They muttered, “When I first woke up in the sky, Rauru told me my arm was too damaged to be saved, so I’ve thought about what would happen once he took his arm back, if there would be anything left of it.”

“I’m sorry. if it makes you feel better, I can work with Purah and Robbie to make you a prosthetic, I think they were experimenting with incorporating sheikah technology into Hyrulian-controlled automaton, obviously, we’re hesitant to make them fully independent…”

“I’ll think about it, it feels like a bit of a waste to spend our first conversation since we lost each other on my stupid arm though,” Link’s voice came out weary, like they were falling asleep. Zelda remembered that their consciousness could only exist in one place at a time, and if they fell asleep now, they would wake up in the Zora’s Domain in the middle of getting their arm cut off. Which was not good.

“I wanted to get it out of the way, it seemed a little important,” She knocked their head off of her shoulder as she began to stand. Without letting their hand go, she rose from the pale golden grasses. They didn’t seem too enthused to be involuntarily pulled to their feet, their vivid blue eyes wandered lazily across the bright landscape but ultimately lingered on her.

“Do you recognize this place?” the hero prompted, it sounded too hopeful to be just a simple question.

“I’m not sure, it feels like I’ve been here before but only in a dream. It’s so peaceful,” Zelda replied after breathing in the crisp mountain air.

“I came up here a lot once I figured out what happened to you,” Link admitted, “Every time I saw the light dragon floating in the sky, I couldn’t help but find the most efficient way to launch myself up to visit,” Zelda’s eyes widened as the unusualness of the world around her began to make sense.

The long soft tufts of grasses weren’t foliage at all, but thick blond hair that floated through the wind without the burden of gravity. Though it had no physical effect, she could still detect the lightness of the air, higher than any floating island she had visited before swallowing that cursed stone. Even the thin atmosphere carried a profound quiet sorrow. She couldn’t tell which one of them the feeling had originated from.

“I missed you too, that’s why I did it you know… any price was worth paying to get back to you.” She smiled.

“Even if there was no guarantee you’d ever be yourself again?”

“I’ll always be myself, the state of self is always prone to change. Even if that change comes in the form of an eternally living dragon who can’t speak and whose consciousness is debatable. I don’t think I was ever really lost, just… asleep.” Zelda swung Link's hand in hers, like they were taking a casual walk through a flowering meadow or strolling through the autumnal forests of Akkala.

Link seemed to have other plans however, they pulled her into their arms a little frantically, and though it wasn’t the first time they had embraced since her return from the mindless dragon form, it was the first where they were both awake for it. Perhaps she should’ve started their real reunion with something like this…

The dense ball of mind-numbing fear that had made a home in her chest ever since the hero went limp in her arms was finally beginning to lose its grip. She had done her best to ignore how much agony she had been in, it was no use paying any attention to it while Link was dying and her world was falling apart. But now they were in her arms, in a glowing sky that was proof that they were still alive.

“We’re going to be okay,” Zelda vowed through a whisper in Link’s ear after a moment of silence that could’ve lasted anywhere between a few minutes to a few eons.

Time passed and they refused to let each other go. As the air around them seemed to turn red with the smell of blood which eventually thinned out and stopped altogether. It didn’t matter how long it took, she never got tired of hugging him. She should’ve gotten bored of the stillness and the lack of conversation but it was perfect just knowing that they were there, that the worst was likely over. The silence that should drive her insane by now was surprisingly more of a comfort than she had expected.

It was tranquility, there was still a long road ahead, one that wouldn’t be easy and Zelda was surprised to have so willingly accepted that. Even if she had a choice in the matter. In swallowing that stone, she had prepared for an ending, but it was nothing of the sort. Life continued on, and it would always bring new challenges.

It scared her, that everything was so prone to dramatic change, but she knew that she was never alone for it. She would always have Link as an anchor, a goal to rush toward in crashing tides, to hold her in the dark nights when her memories taunted her like vengeful ghosts. The world would go on and even if they were apart, she was never left alone. Maybe that was why it was so easy to make peace with it.

Eventually, they would return to the world outside of Link's mind, they would see what remained of their arm. As much of it that could be saved, was. Nearly black gloom-scarred skin surrounded the newer incision, though enough Zora healing power had been poured into it that there wasn’t much left behind other than a thin line.

Link would want to go home, but that wouldn’t be wise, and they would be too weak to fight the unamused glares of two queens and one Gerudo warrior. Their friends would arrive after hearing about the hero's condition, even though they sported their own wounds. Save for Mineru, who was still a robot and couldn’t really bleed. She would refuse repairs, as there would be no need to have a working body with her purpose finally complete.

After several slow days of recovery, the sages would make one last journey together. The final Zonai that remained in the land of the living would leave behind one last gift. A final piece of her people, into the outstretched hand of the hero. The sage of spirit would live on, and with the fall of the old kingdom, a new one was destined to rise, just as it has many times before.

Finally then, it would be time for them to go home, a swordsman unable to wield a sword like they used to and a Hylian queen who could barely be considered hylian anymore. To the mushroom and fashion-obsessed village, across a natural bridge, to the cottage they shared at the edge of civilization. Everything was just how they left it.

Their lives didn’t end with the calamity, or when Link’s life literally temporarily ended, they didn’t end when Zelda was irrecoverably stuck in the past or when she sacrificed herself to become a dragon with no expectation to return, and they wouldn’t end now.

It hadn’t been an ending or even a new beginning. Life continued on, just like it always did. It would be difficult, and it would be different, but what a pleasure it was to experience it at all.

#totk spoilers #zelink #fanfiction #dragon zelda #tears of the kingdom #amputee loz link #totk #trans link #nonbinary Link #loz #loz fic

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sciencelings-writes · 6 months

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My tLoZ and LU Masterlist

UPDATED 11/19/2023

Of Dubious Sophistication: 6/? posted chapters, Wild meets the chain on a day when he has to act like an important person and decides to fuck with their initial misconceptions of him. Mostly formatted to give each of the Links to come to their own conclusions about Wild, a Compilation of oneshots with a vague overarching plot.

Another Second Chance: 2/? classic Wild gets pulled into the AOC timeline and is tasked to help prevent the calamity. But he looks different enough from his counterpart that he doesn’t reveal his true identity. He accidentally parallels Astor in the whole mysterious sorcerer/ seer vibes as he both knows the future and popped out of nowhere in a dramatic cape and ancient technology. Lots of interaction between Wild and the champions and there is both angst and hijinks. There’s also stuff about the new champions as most of it follows the plot of AOC. Also Wolfie is there because I thought it would be funny for him to bop around the baby egg guardian.

The Silence of the Knight: BOTW pre-calamity fic that’s mostly an introspective fic about why Link went silent and how everyone around him reacts to his lack of outward emotions. I just saw the concept of people seeing him as not quite human because of his refusal to show any emotions and wanting to catch a glimpse of how/ if he reacts when tragedy strikes, just to see if he has the ability to feel anything at all.

Heavy in Your Arms: Wild hated getting his memories back. They could be triggered by seemingly anything, they forced the entire group to stop or have someone stay with him until he got over it, which mostly ended up being Twilight, and he tended to end up feeling terrible. Even the good ones were bittersweet, when he saw glimpses of a family that was long gone or a fleeting moment when his life wasn’t destined to be a nightmare, only to open his eyes a century later having lost everything.He knew it was starting to become a hindrance on their quest and the last thing he wanted to be was a burden. (part of a series focused on the Wolf Trio)

I’ve Seen Hell (But This is a Bit More My Style): BOTW Fem!Link fic focused on how being the first female incarnation of the Heroes Spirit would be treated with a little bit of Zelink as a forbidden relationship. Link is angry and all of her past lives are just as pissed as she is. She’s seen as a harbinger of the calamity rather than the hero sent to stop it. And she’s seen as a mistake of the goddess and proof that the 10,000 years of peace was now at an end. General woman problems you know? (Sequel incorporating LU in progress) also please mind the tags.

Swordcrossed Lovers: Fluffy oneshot of the above au, Link and Zelda go to Gerudo Town and flirt while sword fighting. Zelink Week 2022 prompt: Sparring.

Champions Possessing Wild Oneshot Collection: The champions possess Wild sometimes, it leads to some shenanigans

The Unironic Magical Properties of True Love: totk role swap, Zelda find where Link has been hiding since being stuck in the past.

*NEW* Forever Changed: post totk zelink, where they both come back a little differently and have to deal with the immediate aftermath of... everything.

Requests/ short oneshots:

The Idiots of the Wind: Wind makes friends with the spirit of Revali and they team up to mess with Wild, mildly traumatizing him in the process.

A Waste of Pretty Faces: Wild and Warriors bond over something they didn’t expect (mind the warnings and tags)

To Kill What’s Already Dead: Set after sunset pt.7, Wild deals with not being allowed to see Twilight and with the very real possibility that his mentor is dying.

A Mosaic of Broken Glass: Link has a lot of scars, they don’t like them very much. Zelda is determined to help them work on loving themself. Non-Binary BOTW Link and I accidentally made Zelda asexual.

On Top Of The World: Day 1 prompt for Zelink week 2022- One Last Look, Link and Zelda reunite after the final battle with the calamity. Idk what to say it’s just pure fluff.

Frightful & Delightful: Wintery LU fic that is Hyrule-centric for a secret santa. Hurt/comfort, but mostly fluff.

3 Sentence Fics: Lots of short fics in one place, including LU, botw Zelink, and my own AUs!

The Many Duties of the Princesses Appointed Knight: Fluffy pre-calamity zelink hair braiding, not me basing a whole fic off of a vague idea...

The Caretaker of Holy Things: OC fic made for a zelda creators collab, the Priestess of the Temple of Time remains at the great plateau while the calamity rages around her, unfortunately, she’s due to have visitors.

Whumptober 2022:

Prompt 2: Nowhere to Run: Aryll from my priestesses AU meets the Fierce Deity for the first time.

Prompt 5: Hypothermia: Link and Zelda from my Golden Priestesses AU journey up to the Temple of Nayru to the spring of wisdom.

Prompt 9: Caught in the Storm: Zelda spends one hundred years fighting the calamity, even though he’s slumbering in the shrine of resurrection, Link still finds a way to help her keep her head above water.

Prompt 10: Whipping: Wild from my Fem!Wild AU has to reveal some things about her past after having a panic attack post-battle. Kind of a rewrite of part of the comic where Wild throws himself in front of Wind during a fight, you know the one.

Prompt 15: Emotional Damage/ New Scars: Wild visits the forgotten temple after the events of LU, he mourns.

Zelink Week 2023:

Day 1: Yearning: All In Good Time: Fem! Zelink AU during the events of LU, Wild misses her Princess.

Day 2: Forbidden: The Ballad of Frost and Flames: Fem!Zelink AU, pre-calamity while Link is still in hiding, they meet at a masquerade ball.

Day 4: Hand in Hand: The Fable of the Dragon and the Phoenix: MAJOR TOTK SPOILERS, Zelda makes and eternal choice and Link learns to rise from the ashes.

#zelink #fic rec #fic masterlist #masterlist #totk #zelda #tears of the kingdom #botw #breath of the wild #fem!zelink #fanfic rec #andromedas fic masterlist #loz #tloz #fanfiction #finally got to the point where the old post wouldn't update so here's this I guess

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sciencelings-writes · 6 months

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Main Quest

~Find Link~

Complete

Fic: The Unironic Magical Properties of True Love

WC: 2561

Zelink heavy reunion fluff

Alternate versions (and LORE) under the cut!

First image without all the chrysalis effects, yassified master sword

No sword oh no, also better look at the clothes for fun fact time: I based his outfit on an Indian sari and just want to let you know that out of view they collect at his angles into some billowy pants. Everything else was me messing around and vibing. That amputated arm needed a pretty sheer sleeve yk?

Now, about the phoenix-ed Master Sword… idk she deserved a redesign and I adore Phoenix imagery and symbolism and the master sword already has some vague wings on the guard and I really wanted to lean into it somehow. I just liked the vibes idk.

#there’s a fic here too so I guess I’ll put it here lol #srb #sage of time link #totk roleswap au

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sciencelings-writes · 10 months

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Lightly bully u into please next chapter of Another Chance. I just found it and got hooked. I’ll even continue mine if u do yours. Plz

LMAO I'll try, I'm at kind of a weird spot with it, where I have a bunch of the major moments planned out but I'm struggling with all the in-between stuff, and with the release of totk taking up a lot of my creative brain power, that fic hasn't been extremely high on my priority list. Though it also seems to be more well-liked than my other long multi-chapter fic so I could see myself working on it before that one at least lol.

I'm also really unsure about having to stick with the timeline/ events of AoC for it, that game has some weird shit going on and idk if I even want to deal with it all. That and I may have to replay it or at least the cutscenes to refresh myself on its story but that feels like a bit of a chore. I'll probably just mold it into my own beast and not worry about the order of things in AoC. or have Wild be doing a whole lot of bullshit on the side while the events happen slightly away from him lol. That could be fun.

Anyway thanks for the interest, I'll try to work on it a least in the planning stages to get the story where I want it.

#ask andromeda #not writing #not fic #ask #Another Second Chance

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sciencelings-writes · 10 months

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The Fable of the Dragon and the Phoenix

Day 4 of Zelink Week: hosted by @zelinkcommunity

Prompt: Hand in Hand

WC: 4003

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/48558865

Summary: In Chinese culture, the dragon is a symbol of divinity, power, and royalty, they are immortal creatures with the natural forces of the earth at the tips of their claws, the phoenix is a symbol of transformation and rebirth, the beautiful rulers of the skies, the majestic weaver of flames. Together they are the perfect symbol of lovers, together they are balanced and whole.

Zelda makes an eternal choice and Link learns to rise from the ashes.

Link dreamt of death. For a century he had experienced the relief it provided, the reprieve from the fear and the stress that was so intertwined with his life that not even sleep could shield him from the experience. Every waking moment was spent chasing visions and killing monsters, every moment he managed to sleep was filled with nightmares of fiery eyes and a world covered in blood.

He wanted to blame the gloom clinging to his veins, ever since his body was corrupted he had been consumed with an emptiness that could only be compared to a freezing-cold depression that no fire could thaw. But the same moment had also been the one that he failed to save Zelda. Whatever the cause, they had a similar compounding effect. One that sent him spiraling down a familiar path.

Spiraling like the beach, whose center held the final tear that he had been dreading to collect. Though he knew the vision he would be given would not be kind, he scrambled to the location the moment it had been revealed to him. He was desperate to see a glimpse of her, one that wasn’t an illusion made to take advantage of his love for her.

There was no use running now, the constant allure of adventure had died in its tracks. What was the purpose of visiting shrines and exploring caves when the one thing he wanted to save was already lost? How could he even consider continuing his search when it was uncountable thousands of years too late?

Link’s mind numbly acknowledged his knees hitting the sand. The white, nearly blue glow illuminated his loose hair that fell free in front of his eyes as his head hung low, fixating on one of the many flowers that had appeared in front of him. His name being among her last echoed so loudly in his ears that he was surprised he could hear anything else.

He had cautiously hoped that the worst-case scenario would be that she would be unable to escape the past, but would still be able to live a long happy life, even if he would never get to see her again. She deserved that much, after everything that she’s been through. He never imagined that he would witness her functionally commit suicide only for a sword. To win a fight he couldn’t even bring himself to care about.

Would beating the demon king fix anything? Would it miraculously bring her back? Would a single thing that he has lost be returned to him? Would he ever be free of this curse? It was too much to hope, wasn’t it. That the death of one man held the key to turning everything back to how it was.

Even with Ganondorf dead, what would be left? Zelda would still be gone, he wasn’t sure he would be able to stand the countless reminders of her influence across the kingdom. She was so known and so loved and he had been so happy to simply be referred to as hers. Wherever she wandered, he had always been by her side, to the point that seeing them separated was nearly unheard of. The most frequently asked questions ever since he had emerged from the castle’s crater were always ‘Where’s Zelda? Why isn’t she with you?’

Before he knew it, his cheeks were wet and his eyes burned so badly that he had to squeeze them shut. His chest spasmed as sobs clawed their way to the surface, strong enough that he didn’t even attempt to hold them all back. His tears dripped off his chin into the basin that seemed to be created just for that purpose.

For once, the control of his emotions slipped through his fingers without trying to stop it, he had held strong for so long to reassure everyone else that he would get their princess back, and everyone was convinced that he could do it. There wasn’t really anyone left that he felt like he could express himself with, whether that be because he didn’t want to be a burden to them or he just wasn’t close enough to them to be comfortable with it.

He had so many people on his side, cheering for him from the sidelines, but not a single one deserved to have to deal with him like this. A perfect swordsman now crumpled on the ground in a puddle of pitiful tears.

Sometimes he forgot that he wasn’t what everyone said he was. The valiant hero who defeated the calamity, as if he didn’t nearly die again a hundred more times just to get to the point where he could approach a guardian without his sword arm shaking from sheer terror. Some hero he was, he could never save what mattered the most to him.

A thunderous roar interrupted his thoughts, sending waves of force crashing into him purely from the sound of it. The water around him rippled from the vibrations and the loose sand blew in clouds away from the sound's origin.

Link’s head whipped upwards towards it, and he saw her, or what remained of her. Her scales shined gold and iridescent in the afternoon sun and even in the bright daylight she clearly glowed with a divine power he had only been blessed enough to witness a few times. She was still so beautiful, but he far preferred her in pants stained by grass and ink, with a smile that burned brighter than whatever magic she had sacrificed herself for.

A rock conveniently plummeted down between him and the one he had been searching for since she fell. He had started running at it before it had even landed. He desperately needed to get up to her, he nearly tripped face-first into the water as he scrambled to his magic elevator. He ignored a cut he got from the stone as he tried to climb to the top of it as furiously as he could.

Link was rarely impatient, but the boulder rose from the sky far too slowly. He itched to throw himself at her but he knew if he lept prematurely he wouldn’t be able to make it. So he waited, tapping his foot at a speed that resembled the beat of a hummingbird's wings. Finally, he launched himself into the air and flew onto her back.

He could immediately feel the power radiating off of her, it was a warm and intensely comforting energy that wrapped itself around him like a blanket. For now, the agony of what happened to her seemed to diminish, though not totally, and not forever.

His boots thumped quickly against her scales as he made his way to her head. Even his natural inclination to get distracted by the fragmented pieces of her spikes, which if she were any other dragon, he wouldn’t even hesitate to collect. He didn’t even wonder what they would do, all he could think about was getting to her face.

Maybe he could still fix this. Maybe he could wake her up. Maybe she would recognize him. Maybe it wasn’t too late.

He climbed through her mane of golden hair and passed by the master sword fused with her forehead without a single thought, he already began to lose the tiny drops of hope he had managed to come up with as she didn’t even notice him standing right on her nose.

“Zelda? Hey Princess, can you hear me?” He asked after clearing his throat from the thick feeling coating it. He pushed through how it burned from his grief, and forced a pleasant tone of voice, as if this day of chasing her tears weren’t the worst day of his life, even surpassing the day the calamity rose or the one where he died.

Her ear didn’t even twitch, her eyes continued to dart around the empty sky, focusing on nothing in particular. She did nothing to acknowledge that Link was standing on her nose, that there was anything different about her life at all.

“It’s okay,” he lied, “I’m sorry it took so long, I need to stop making you wait for me.” His hastily placed mask of pleasantness was quickly crumbling, as he was already unable to stop the stuttering gasps one has before breaking into sobs.

“I’m sorry- I’m sorry I didn’t catch you,” He sniffled, “I wish I didn’t send you the sword, I wish you could’ve lived, I bet you were having a blast watching history unfold before your eyes. I bet it was cool to see everything before all that was left was ruins. I bet you got everyone to love you back then too.”

When there was no response, Link found himself sitting on her snout, straddling it like it was the back of a horse. His head low from the weight of everything until it met the short fur between her eyes. He had already cried so many tears, yet more kept coming. He never seemed to run dry.

“I love you, I know I haven’t been able to put it into words, but I hope you knew. I hope you could tell. I’m sorry I didn’t say it when you could remember me. If- when I fix this, that’s the first thing I’ll tell you. You deserve to hear it even if I have been too much of a coward to say it before it was too late.” The ache became too much and what weight he was sustaining with his arms sent him collapsing into her. He instinctually folded his arms to shield his face from the rest of the world.

“I love you when you’re a scientist and you cover our walls in diagrams and notes and you can’t stop talking about whatever is interesting you that day, I love you when you’re teaching the kids and you struggle to simplify complex concepts and end up teaching them about theoretical physics derived from sheikah technology, I love you when you’re gardening and you braid the flowers you had to prune in my hair because you hate just leaving them in a vase. I love you when you decided to reclaim the throne even though it was hard and it scared you, I love that you love your kingdom more than they could ever realize, I love that you can get anyone you meet to love you.”

“I even love you like this, because I know that there's still a little bit left of you in there, even though you’re not rambling about the latest book you’ve read or about how your flower hybrids are coming along, I can feel you in there. You’re still the light that freed me from death and I still feel that light now.”

Link wasn’t sure that he could turn her back, all that he knew about draconification was that it was permanent. People far smarter than he was had likely studied it so many thousands of years ago and banned it for how it destroyed one's mind. It was impossible to say if there even was a way to reverse it, even if there was, any scraps of information that they’d find about the forbidden magic were unlikely to include a cure. It seemed like even Minaru had been convinced that there was no way to undo what had been done.

He would try, of course, he would try, but even now he was already mourning a failure. He would try, he planned to search the depths and dig for any stone tablet that mentioned dragons on it, but he was almost sure that it wouldn’t be enough. He was pretty good at doing the impossible, but this was a curse from a people that had gone extinct so long ago, and he had a feeling he wouldn’t just be able to hold up his hand and ask Rauru about it. The world was never that kind to him.

Link didn’t know how much time had passed before he heard a different sound ring in his ears. It was the metallic song of an object he had started this tragedy by neglecting. The sword was the thing that tied them together, whose broken state was ultimately the reason Zelda chose to sacrifice everything.

For a moment, he despised it with all of his being. From the moment he had been led to pick up the holy blade, his life had been set on a path of misery. Its consequences broke him beyond what any blessed magic could fix. It stole his voice and stole his life and stole his memories and stole countless lives of people he was born to protect, and worst of all, it stole her. It stole the years of life she had left and convinced her to curse herself eternally. Just so a stupid sword could make itself strong enough to kill a stupid guy who killed simply for the promise of power.

It wasn’t the sword's fault it broke, it wasn’t the sword's fault that he was chosen to bear its burden. He had someone with more reason to be angry at, and directing it at a soulless blade was a waste of the burning rage that suddenly coursed through his veins.

When he finally stood, he looked towards the tendrils of scarlet that surrounded the castle. Horrors left behind by a vile creature who believed he could conquer the world and mold it to his own desires.

The Calamity had felt more like a divine force, a scourge of nature with motives far bigger than what could be understood by the likes of the mortals that lived above it. Ganondorf was far simpler. As many times he hailed himself a king or a god, it did nothing to change the fact that he was just a man.

Link had been through things far more terrifying than a mummy with a craving for power. Though neither the calamity nor the experience of death had been as malicious towards him specifically, neither of them toyed with him by parading the ghost of the princess he was chasing or puppeted her around when he was so desperate to find her. Neither of them spoke with her voice to get him to abandon all reason to distract him.

However, not one single part of that scared him. None of that compared to how quickly the castle and its adjacent town were consumed in smoke, or how one by one the divine beasts glowed magenta, turning into moving sepulchers before his eyes. None of that could be compared to running for their lives away from the beast they were born to defeat, or realizing when one injury would be the last one he could take. Ganondorf’s ploy was nothing compared to waking up alone with nothing but a name and having to take on a broken world he knew he had failed.

Link knew fear, and there wasn’t a trace of it when he thought of the so-called ‘demon king.’

His hand wrapped around the hilt of the Master Sword, it was so familiar, so reliable, so filled with golden light that it felt more like Zelda than whatever it had been before. Just like he had done so many times before, he pulled.

What wasn’t like every other time he had released the sword from its pedestal, was the reaction of the ground beneath his feet and the horrible roar she bellowed. His immediate thought was that he had to let go, he was hurting her, how could he hold on when he was hurting her! He forced his grip to stay steady as a violent whip of her head knocked him off his feet.

He clenched his teeth together as she screamed in agony, the pit in his stomach grew even as he found his footing again and continued to force the blade from its home of ten thousand years. He never wanted to hurt her, he couldn’t imagine even trying to justify it, but he had to get his sword back or her entire sacrifice would’ve been a waste.

For several minutes, the sword was nothing more than a handle for him to grab so he wouldn’t be flung off into the sky, he was rarely ever balanced enough to truly pull it like he was meant to. All the while his ears were filled with her deep sirens of pain that he was directly responsible for, and the deafening wind that tore into him physically just as deeply as Zelda’s screams did psychologically.

All at once, the chaos stopped. The light dragon's shrieks grew silent and the force trying to divide them vanished as she led them up into the sky above the clouds. Up there the whole world was golden, with sparking rays of sunlight glowing on the fluffy layer that separated them from the kingdom below. Link was tempted to reach his hand out to touch it, if only to see the water vapor swirl between his fingers and give any movement to the heavenly skies that seemed so still. Between the sudden calmness of the dragon below him and the lack of wind, it was difficult to determine if they were even moving at all.

One more time, his hands positioned themselves on the darkness-sealing sword. He didn’t even have to pull. The spiraling tendrils of fur loosened their grip on the glowing blade and fell back to their origin. She was giving it to him. She was letting it go.

He held onto it as petals of warm light bloomed from the blade's recovered form, he was a little disappointed, the gold was rather pretty. It left behind a bright metal that shined in the pattern left behind when it had been damaged. Perhaps it was fitting that the sword be left with scars just like her master.

Link brought the flat of the blade to his face, so he was looking right at the symbol of the Triforce. For a moment, he bowed his head as if he was sending a prayer to the goddess. He had no words to give her, he didn’t need her quiet well wishes or luck where he was going. Even if Ganondorf’s army was filled with King Gleeoks and armored silver Lynels, it wouldn’t be enough to keep him from tearing that bastard down.

Even demon kings died, and Link took a little bit of pleasure in knowing that he was the one born to do it. Perhaps that would be enough to temper the fury within his bones that shielded him from the grief of Zelda’s sacrifice. Killing him wouldn’t fix everything, but it might.

There was only one way to find out.

***

Link felt like he had come back from the dead, which was a little odd, because he couldn’t remember dying. He could feel his spirit still settling back into his body, like dye slowly mixing with water, starting from his chest and slowly gaining feeling in his arms and legs. He felt heavy, something was pulling at him, but he couldn’t figure out what. He knew he must’ve been dreaming, or… something. There were the ghosts of recent images in his mind that he couldn’t quite decipher, just golden light and ghostly turquoise clouds.

He forced his eyes open and made the discovery that he was falling. With a gasp of thin air, it all came back to him. Rauru and Sonia, being filled with blinding light, turning the slumbering light dragon back into the person he had been chasing this entire time.

Link jerked his head around, searching for her, ignoring the fact that he was plummeting head-first toward the world below. She was nearly a speck of white in the distance underneath him. Immediately, he dove for her. He reached his arm out long before he was even close to grasping her again.

She drew closer and closer until he was worried about diving too fast past her or into her and risking hurting her. He carefully leveled off his body as quickly as he could bear before grasping for her hand that limply trailed in front of her in her unconsciousness.

He was inches away. One more desperate push, and finally, his hand was in hers once again. He immediately pulled her towards him, wrapping his arm securely around her shoulders. The other made its way to the back of her head, threading his fingers through her hair. He could’ve claimed it was to protect her as they dropped, but in reality, he just needed to be close to her again.

The wind swept away the relieved sob he couldn’t help but let slip out as he tucked his head into her bare shoulder. He had done all he could to convince himself that it would be hopeless. He knew how much more it hurt to cling to hope when there was no reason to. He chased memories that were doomed to never return and people who had died so long ago that weren’t lucky enough to linger if only for a single conversation. There was safety in accepting that it was too late, that all attempts were all for nothing.

But she was here, in his arms. Alive and breathing, the sound of her heart beating rumbled steadily beneath the ear he had pressed near the artery in her neck. If they weren’t plunging through the air faster than a burning comet of fragmented stars, he could’ve imagined waking up in their bed in Hateno as entangled as they were.

Link wasn’t afraid of falling, he never hesitated to leap off of high places the moment King Rhoam first gave him his paraglider. He loved the feeling of floating weightlessly in the air, seeing the full majesty of the kingdom he had sworn to protect. He rode the air currents of the dragons without a worry of falling too far, but he had never felt like he was flying.

Now, while plummeting through the skies, he had never felt more like he was soaring. She was his wings, her return was the only thing keeping him from sinking so far into the darkness that there was no hope he could make his way back up to the surface. He had gotten so used to the gloom that infected his veins and the refusal to hope that he would ever see her again that he had forgotten what it had felt like for everything to be right.

He should’ve worried about landing, or about thinking of a way to pull out his paraglider while being able to keep his hold on her. He should’ve at the very least brought his eyes out from their hiding place in the crook of her neck. He didn’t. He trusted that some divine force would save them, perhaps they had earned just one more miracle.

Link held her through reaching terminal velocity through the air, through the sudden impact and submersion into a body of water, through yet another fight for their lives and their world, and even when they were safe on the surface, he hesitated to let her go. Even though his muscles ached and the emotional whiplash had mentally exhausted him, he held her close to his chest and prayed for her to wake up.

Eventually, his exhaustion won and he had to let her down gently into the grass before his legs gave out and she was given a less-than-romantic wake-up call. It took a moment, a second of feeling a steady stream of water transfer from his soaking wet hair down his bare back, of ignoring how the white fabric of her dress had turned partially transparent and clung to her thighs.

In the golden light of the sun, pouring through the fluffy clouds, Zelda’s eyes began to flutter. After countless thousands of years, she was finally allowed to wake up, and Link would be there by her side to wish her a good morning.

#zelink week 2023 #hand in hand #zelink #totk #totk spoilers #tears of the kingdom #totk fic #zelink week #tears of the kindom spoilers

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sciencelings-writes · 10 months

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The Ballad of Frost and Flames

Day 2 of Zelink Week 2023 hosted by @zelinkcommunity

Prompt: Forbidden

WC: 1,178

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/48498928

Another part of my Fem!Zelink AU, takes place during the time Link is in hiding from the king, what better place to hide than right under his nose at his own masquerade ball.

Link adjusted her horned headpiece in the mirror once more before fastening her scaly white mask to her face. Her fiery orange lips were barely visible under the dragon's snout but she was still glad to have taken the time to let Urbosa paint them on. She had spent so much time trying to reject her femininity to appease other people that she had nearly forgotten that there were parts of it she enjoyed sometimes.

Her clothes were a stunning display of warm tones and flowing fabrics, shining gold embroidery and scarlet beads. Surrounded by the ashy colors of smudged makeup, her ocean-blue eyes nearly glowed beneath the masquerade mask.

She couldn’t help but grin nervously at her reflection. Urbosa had told her not to worry, that there was no way that the king would recognize her but she still felt the need to hide a few small blades in her clothes… just in case. She didn’t have to work too much to fit a few scimitars beneath her thick furry belt.

The ballroom was a chaotic mess of vivid colors and elaborate costumes, it seemed like even the wealthy enjoyed some form of enrichment, and Rhoam would do anything to raise the general mood of the population, considering that their hero was in hiding and their princess had yet to show signs of divine power.

They had been told that Her Highness would be forgoing the event to focus on her prayers, even the king had been convinced of this, knowing that his daughter wasn’t much for parties anyway. The trusted sheikah advisor had been assigned to her protection all day, and she would never betray the king's trust, right?

Urbosa had refused to tell her what the princess would be wearing, but she had made the educated assumption that it would match her own in some way. She wasted her time speculating on whether it would be leaning into the same element as hers was or inspired by something completely opposite but still somehow related. She had heard tales of both different kinds of fire and water dragons before, perhaps it wasn’t even a dragon at all, but some other beast only found in stories. But Link wasn’t creative enough to come up with a solid idea without snatching a book from the royal library.

Link meandered casually through the masses of sparking gowns and vivid displays of fashion design, freezing in place nearly every time she saw a pair of green eyes, though she was always disappointed. Thankfully she didn’t need to identify a certain set of eyes to know when she saw her Zelda.

She was crowned by a cluster of shimmering pale crystals, and wrapped in a cool blue dress that left skin exposed at her shoulders and risque slices above both of her thighs. Her white dragon mask was nearly identical to Links, though under it her lips were painted a blue common among the gerudo. She had a feeling that by the end of the night, they would turn a little more purple.

Her eyes met a pair that resembled a patch of lush grass bursting out of a layer of snow and suddenly the overwhelming noise of the people around them blurred into the background like they were really a mile away. Her scarlet lips attempted to pull themselves into a giddy smile, but she managed to tame them into something more of a playful smirk. She wanted to seduce the princess, not look like an excited puppy, and she really didn’t want to disrespect her elegant outfit by acting like a doofus in it.

“And I thought I would have the best costume here…” Link said once she cleared her throat after she caught herself staring a little too long at the slits that showed off the smooth skin of Zelda’s hips. She didn’t have to wonder how soft the princess felt beneath her callused fingers, but the thought of it still sent her heart racing a little faster than it had been a moment before.

“You could use a little more skin showing, but I’m not complaining, I think you look quite handsome in red, have you ever thought about dying your hair?” Zelda smiled as her hand grazed the sash that was tied across her torso.

Later they would discover that there was a third dragon-themed set of clothes that showed a lot more skin, but Urbosa thought that Link would be more comfortable with the Dinraal version. She was right, of course, but that didn’t stop Link from asking to borrow it for more… personal use.

“Perhaps if I ever need to get more covert with our meetings, I wouldn’t be opposed to it…” The hero went to place her hand on Zelda’s back, to innocently lead her to the dance floor, only to delight in realization when her palm met bare skin. She was liking this dress more and more, especially when she felt her princess shiver beneath her gentle touch.

Link couldn’t help but wonder if anyone would notice any suspicious red smudging on the princess's back, or if her waterfall of golden hair would be able to cover whatever evidence of her hero’s lips being there she would leave behind.

One night, that was all they could manage.

One night in the public eye, one night without having to worry too much about being discovered, one night to pretend that they were both normal and not failures of destiny. A night like this one was unlikely to ever repeat itself again. They had to take advantage of it.

Before the sun rose, Link would have to sneak out of the princess's room, in a stealth suit provided by Impa, knowing that their time together would never feel like it was enough. There would always be one last kiss before the long spans of not being able to catch a glimpse of each other. One day a sweet goodbye pressed on the lips of the princess may be her last, one day the end would come for them and as the whole kingdom knew, they would fail to defeat it.

But for now, the spirits of ice and fire danced. They laughed and spoke with their heads so close to each other that they could breathe each other's air, though the snouts of their masks prevented them from getting any closer without some seriously strategic movement.

Perhaps if things were different, if Link had been born following how the legends wrote she should’ve been, or if Zelda wasn’t a princess born to continue a legacy that was mandatory to the safety of the kingdom, If her father could manage to allow her a single reliable relationship that brought her endless joy, if the end of everything weren’t approaching at an unknowable pace.

But that wasn’t the world they lived in, and someday, they won’t be able to hide anymore. At that point, it was unlikely that there would be a happy ending. However, their odds were already pretty terrible, what was one more risk?

#zelink week 2023 #zelink #zelink community #fem!zelink #Lesbian Zelink AU #botw #this one is a short read but i hope you guys like it anyway

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sciencelings-writes · 10 months

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All in Good Time

Day 1 of Zelink Week 2023 hosted by @zelinkcommunity

Prompt: Yearning

WC: 6072

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/48491140

Part of my Fem!Zelink AU, this is also the only one (this week) that incorporates LU

Wild couldn’t sleep. Despite being in an insulated room inside of an actual house after weeks of dealing with rocky ground and late-night monster attacks, despite feeling like she was closer to home than she had been since she had left her own time, despite the chorus of deep even breaths and the occasional snore that would normally lull her into the comfortable darkness, she just couldn’t sleep.

The entire day had been wonderful, she had spent a good amount of it enjoying the luxuries of an actual kitchen with appliances rather than the simple fire she was used to dealing with. Cooking was one of the few typically feminine hobbies she found herself drawn to and she was sure that if she were born a man, she’d still like the activity just as much. It was far more pleasant than cleaning the sables and the cucco coops and hauling hay around all day.

Lon Lon Ranch felt so close to home, but at the same time, not nearly close enough. It had the same smells and ambiance as her home farming village of Hateno, she could so easily hear the mooing cows on the way to Purah’s lab and the clicking of horseshoes against the stone pathways. Even the melody Malon hummed absentmindedly to herself felt so familiar.

But it was missing the most important thing. Or, she supposed, the most important person.

It had been an ache she had felt since stepping through the first dark mysterious portal, every time she pulled out the Sheikah slate to take a picture of something that didn’t exist in their time, every time she spotted a frog or listened to Sky’s melancholy harp serenade, the emptiness in her chest intensified.

It was such a sappy thing to admit, but she missed Zelda with her entire heart. Every moment away was an unending physical pain that she never seemed to get used to. For years they’d snuck through the shadows to see each other, even if it was unlikely for anyone to figure out what had truly been going on between them. They’d already been separated for a century, Wild balancing on the very edge of death and her princess fighting to keep the embodiment of hatred from destroying the entire kingdom. Being thrown into another adventure had been reopening a wound that had only just started to heal to tear them apart once more.

Not even Warriors snoring was loud enough to drown out the thoughts she found herself being drawn towards. She tortured herself with imaginary sensations of her lover's fingers combing through her hair, commenting through a smile about how long it had gotten. How she never flinched away after touching the myriad of scars that branded her skin when the princess herself possessed nothing of the sort despite fighting for far longer. How her voice rang in Wild’s ears when reading a new book out loud, desperate to share her most recent fixation with the one person who was delighted to listen.

It was impossible to lure her thoughts away even when the backs of her eyes started to burn, no attempt at distracting herself would last for more than a few seconds and she very easily gave up on trying, but she knew that she couldn’t carry on her session of wallowing for much longer before there was going to be consequences. And though the rancher could sleep through Warriors snoring directly in his ear without a single issue, she was sure that Twilight would snap awake if she even sniffled. He seemed to have an extra sense for whenever someone was even mildly distressed.

Perhaps it was a good idea to get some fresh air.

Even though the room was pretty large and could fit eight heroes in it pretty easily, it didn’t leave a whole lot of floor space between them. The slight anxiety of tiptoeing between each slumbering body momentarily delayed her insomnia-fueled spiral of yearning, at this point, it would’ve been pretty inconvenient if Four woke up because of a slightly creaky wooden floorboard next to his head.

At least the door was quieter, as long as she turned the nob at an unbearably slow pace. She resisted the urge to rush her exit knowing it would make too much noise, but only barely.

The moment she was confident in her success, she padded over to a nearby tree, paying no mind to the fact that she was barefoot, only focusing on the chirping of the crickets hidden in the foliage. She leaned against its trunk and slid down until she had landed in a sitting position on the cool soft grass.

The sheikah slate flashed to life in her hands as she instinctually swiped to a familiar screen. Her gallery of photographs. She ignored the stunning landscapes and the, in her opinion, hilarious images, one of which was Wolfie trying to pick up a Stalnox bone that was far too large for his mouth. She tapped on a recent image that she always found herself being drawn to.

Zelda had just cut her hair, she couldn’t stop grinning about it. She had to agree with the Great Deku Tree on this one, her princess's smile was easily comparable to the sun. It almost blinded her but she never even considered looking away. She was blessed to witness it, and even more blessed to capture it in the memory of the slate, knowing that her own could be unreliable.

It was a beautiful image, but Wild didn’t spare a thought at the natural lighting of the sunny day, or the backdrop of the hills behind their home, not the spring flowers blooming all around her or the vibrant glimpse of blue from their pond. She could only see Zelda’s freckles, a feature she had developed since spending every daylight moment outside if she wasn’t holed up in Purah’s lab. Her sparkling green eyes that Wild swore had flakes of gold in the right lighting. How ethereally gold her hair was, as if she was forged by the most skilled Gerudo artisan.

Ever since she’d been freed from the Calamity, she’d resolved to abandon nearly every responsibility of royalty, becoming someone free from the burdens that had nearly drowned her before, knowing that even attempting to rebuild the empire that fell was not the job for a teenager who wasn’t even quite an adult yet. Perhaps that was something she could devote her time to later.

Wild could admit, the wind in her hair and the machine oil staining most of her clothes were far more charming than stuffy dresses and heavy jewelry. But it was really the fact that she smiled and laughed far more often that really made her appreciate the decision. It was easy to forget that though Link was the Hero of the Wild, her counterpart was also deserving of the title, it was where they both thrived after all.

Zelda would likely say something about how every action there was an equal and opposite reaction, which is what looking at the photograph while being so far away in time from the subject felt like. She loved her princess with such force that the, hopefully temporary, loss of her was just as debilitating. The perfectly warm soft memory of holding her princess in her arms was just as much a source of comfort as the lack of the action being unable to be repeated after months of wandering was soul-crushing.

She forced herself away from the image and back to the inventory screen. She tapped the icon for her beloved's favorite flower. In a flash of ancient swirling blue light, a silent princess appeared in her hand. She wiped a bit of moisture with her sleeve before it could escape her eyes, squeezing them together in a failed attempt to keep it all in.

She hoped that her exponentially building sobs were being drowned out by the lively nighttime sounds, but she was never that lucky.

The grass rustled with the nearing steps of someone she was definitely not expecting. Her head snapped up to the intruder, maybe Time had spotted her through his bedroom window, or she hadn’t been as successful at sneaking away as she had thought and Twilight had come to investigate, but it was neither of them. The pale light of the moon reflected off of a disheveled head of blonde hair with a distinctive streak of pink. It was easy to imagine him wearing a long floppy sleep cap, with an old brass candle holder that has a little handle only big enough for a single finger, on top of the nightgown he wore to sleep when they weren’t paranoid about the possibility of a midnight ambush.

“Champ? You okay?” The veteran’s groggy voice was only barely loud enough to be heard over the natural night sounds.

For a moment, she considered lying, dismissing his concern knowing that he was the least likely to pry into her mess of feelings. But she had been holding it in for far too long, and she knew for a fact that he would understand. Perhaps if it were in the daylight, when she could fully see his face, when she felt far more exposed, she wouldn’t have said anything. But the nuances of her expression were hidden in the darkness, and the exhaustion from the day wore on her judgment.

“I miss her.” She started simply but once she took the first step, she found herself tumbling down the metaphorical stairs. “I thought… after a hundred years, it would be over. We would be together and we wouldn’t have to hide anymore. We would get a chance to figure out what we wanted to be without the meddling of fate, but I guess I was being too optimistic. If dying couldn’t get destiny off my back then why would the defeat of some monster.”

“I know that it’s more likely than not that she’s safe and healthy and it’s far from accurate to say that I’ve lost her forever, it’s not like she’s dead or anything. She’s just so unimaginably far away that not even letters can reach, and I miss her. It feels silly to worry about that when there are mutated monsters trying to kill us at every turn, but no matter how much I try, my thoughts always return to her.” Wild continued, deliberately keeping her gaze away from Legends.

“For the record, I don’t think it’s silly,” He sat alongside her, joining her in resting his back against the tree, its curvature keeping them from having to look directly at each other, it was much more comfortable for both of them that way. “But if I knew how to help you I would probably be a lot more mentally healthy myself.”

“I wasn’t really expecting some uplifting pep talk, you’re not Twilight. I’m just tired of pretending that I’m fine all the time. It’s worse here, I didn’t expect to be jealous of the old man reuniting with his wife. They’re just too cute with each other, I can’t stand it.” A fraction of a smile found its way onto her face, though it had no correlation to how happy she was.

“I bet he’s cuddling her right now, the selfish bastard,” Legend spat, causing a surprised huff of laughter from his companion.

“How dare he, just look at the way he openly adores his wife! What an asshole!” Wild matched his mock outrage, folding her arms indignantly, the sheikah slate sat abandoned on her lap.

“The audacity of some people, honestly. Who gave him the right to be happily married within my view.”

“There should be laws against this. We should talk to his Zelda about it.”

“I’m sure she’d hear us out, I doubt they’re even less shameless in front of the queen. It’s probably annoying to her too,” The veteran reasoned.

“It is decided, I’ll write the proposal in the morning.” Wild slumped her head on Legend's shoulder as the exhaustion of the day left the stage of depressive spiraling and into actual weariness. The sensation of heaviness on her eyelids far outweighed the feeling of developing tears that had overcome them only minutes before.

She unfolded her arms and lifted up the glowing flower into her direct view again. The silent princess lazily spun between her fingers, its luminous pollen sprinkling off into the gentle breeze like fairy dust.

“Can you… not tell anyone about this? I don’t want to worry anyone,” The champion muttered after several minutes of blissful quiet.

“Just as long as you don’t tease me for being a softie again.”

“Then stop pretending that you don’t curl up and use Wolfie as a pillow every other night.”

“Shut up,”

In the morning they would be found unmoved from their spot under the tree, the silent princess would be braided into her hair, and the tears would’ve long since dried.

By the time Time awoke and would decide to check on his incarnations, and thinking of a fun way to wake them up, he would notice a blanket covering the separated duo, and he would decide to allow them a few more minutes of sleep. Though it wasn’t entirely out of the kindness of his heart, he knew they’d both complain about soreness when they woke up from sleeping in such an odd position.

It’ll serve them right for talking behind his back.

***

Sometimes it was easy to tell where the portals had taken them, they were a group of well-traveled heroes so there were many ways to determine when they had ended up. Whether that be from obvious landmarks or foliage only recognizable in one era or even just stumbling across people one of them knew directly. Hero-ing came with plenty of opportunities to network after all.

This was not one of those times.

Even if any of them could see further than a few feet ahead of them in the dense blizzard, it wouldn’t do much use. The snowy mountains all looked the same and not a single rock formation was enough for one to pinpoint their location.

Normally the group's goal would be to find civilization and ask about strange happenings, but right now, their main objective was to avoid freezing to death. Their resources were already spread thin, not all of them had been prepared for the extreme change in climate.

Four and Wind rode on Epona's back, accepting that the snow was far too deep for them to walk in without much in the way of protection from the elements. Legend and Hyrule had given up bundling themselves up separately and now shared both of their blankets in an attempt to retain whatever heat they could in the storm. Warriors scarf had migrated from his neck to being wrapped around his mouth and nose, and his hands were firmly being pressed under his armpits in an attempt to keep them from growing too cold. It turned out that fingerless gloves were only practical in more temperate environments.

Even Time had to forego his heavy armor in favor of as many layers as he could dig out from his pack, his jaw set stubbornly in place to keep them from chattering together in the unyielding chill of the wind. Unfortunately, it was a battle he would end up losing, though he put on a valiant effort.

Wild led them from the front of the group, as what naturally tended to occur when the world around them was treacherous and unknown. Though they were all seasoned adventurers, she had an instinct for wilderness survival that had saved their lives on many occasions.

For several hours she had feared that she had led them in circles, the eternal blinding fog from the storm made it feel as though they had stayed stationary the entire time. While they hadn’t made many turns it felt as though the boulder they had passed was the same one from an hour ago.

At first, they tried to spend the trek amusing themselves in one way or another, Wind tried to teach them a sailor shanty he had learned and was lucky enough not to understand the full meaning of, Hyrule started a very short game of i-spy that fizzled out once he realized that the only thing they could see was snow and the occasional tree. Four tried to quiz them on all sorts of knowledge but it turned out that what he knew was very different than what everyone else knew.

By the end of the day they traveled silently, quietly begging for even a hint that they had made any progress in their journey, and like a trail of light from the goddess herself, they were given something even better.

For a moment the blizzard eased up enough to see the valley they had just begun to enter. They were at the top of a familiar slope lined with balls of snow that had once been used to solve a puzzle. It took only a single glance for Wild’s hope to be reignited.

“Good news boys! I know where we are!” She forced more enthusiasm into her voice than she had energy left in her body, “There’s a cave at the bottom and it’s not even a boring one!”

Wild forced herself to slowly make her way down the valley to keep everyone in her sights, for the first few cautious slippery steps she was excited. She was home! She was finally in the same time period as Zelda, theoretically. Time travel could be weird but they never appeared just outside of anyone’s eras. Yet. So while recognizing a snow-covered slope wasn’t complete confirmation that Zelda was finally within arms reach, Wild decided to remain hopeful. Until she remembered how far away the hebra mountains were from Hateno. Or even just anywhere that her princess was likely to be. She couldn’t just expect that Zelda would remain stationary just because Wild wasn’t there to follow her around.

Her heart sank in parallel with the group's descent into the ice. She had no idea where Zelda would be, the shrines had been offline for a while, it was still several days hike to get to any form of civilization and it was more than unlikely that the first people they came across would just have happened to have seen the princess wandering by.

It was best to focus on her current task instead of letting herself hope like that. Get everyone to safety. Get out of the storm. Attempt to transfer all her useless emotional energy into something she can actually use, like cooking an astronomical amount of food, or hitting something really hard with her sword. She could pretend that exhausting herself in one way or another would help but knew deep down that it probably wouldn’t.

Soon the rectangular manmade opening was visible through the snow, Wild stayed at its edge to count each Link that made it there, hoping to Hylia that no one got lost in her haste to get to safety. Two on a horse, one leading the horse, two in a bundle of blankets, one trying to give his sailcloth to another who was shivering pretty hard, and one at the end making sure no one fell behind.

“Ready to see a really big skeleton?” Wild patted Time’s bicep as they entered the ice cave.

“Is it prone to reanimating?” The man grumbled, and the champion nearly laughed.

“Nope, it’s just a leviathan. Apparently, they used to be gods, but I think that anytime people see something big they say that.” Wild moved to help Wind off of Epona, normally he could jump off himself, but the ground was a little slick and it would not be fun to slam into it.

“That is a pretty big skeleton…” The old man's eye widened microscopically, for some reason, it was hard to impress him. She hoped to manage it someday.

“Link?” almost in unison the whole group turned their heads towards the voice, but none faster than Wild. She probably could’ve snapped her neck at the speed her head spun. If she had been holding anything, she would’ve dropped it without a thought.

Between them and the great skeleton was a modest campsite, only consisting of a fire and a bedroll, a little stool to hold a modest notebook while a white horse stood nearby, though it was none of those things that caught Wild’s attention.

Dressed in a mix of her royal wintery whites and insulating Rito fabrics, was the one person she had been yearning to see since the moment she left. Who, only moments ago she was mourning the lack of likelihood of being able to see again any time soon. Whose absence she had cried over and whose presence followed her wherever she went in the slate that sat at her hip.

Without making the conscious decision to, Wild was suddenly running, in moments that passed so quickly it was hard to tell if they happened at all, she had landed in her girlfriend's arms. The momentum caused them to stumble a bit but Wild somehow managed to keep standing, despite the weakness in her knees that wasn’t there a couple seconds before.

“Hey princess,” her voice was hoarse, and she was acutely unaware of the fact that she was surrounded by her brothers. It was like they had just disappeared and she hadn’t even noticed. She could only focus on the warmth in her arms and the smell of Zelda’s hair and nothing else existed or mattered.

“I hope you haven’t been getting into too much trouble,” Her princess teased quietly in her ear, Link could feel her smiling against her skin.

“I think you know better than to hope for that,” Wild backed away and loosened her hug, but only a little bit. Only enough for Zelda to squirm her arms to cradle her lover's face before pulling her in.

Her kiss was magic, or maybe it was just her. Link had spent so long holding onto the constant quiet sadness of missing her that it felt like a miracle when it evaporated from her being. She could hardly imagine knowing what sorrow was now. She could just be being dramatic, but her love for Zelda was enough to defeat a great beast made of hatred, it was a reasonable assumption to make that it was a powerful thing.

Link was so caught up in the euphoria of seeing her princess again that she had nearly forgotten that she hadn’t come alone. Thankfully when she was able to drag her eyes away from Zelda, her brothers had all made an attempt to give them some privacy. Some of them were better at pretending to set up camp than others, Twilight just stood at Epona’s side and smiled in the way he did that made her nervous about what stories he had in mind to embarrass her with.

At least while Hyrule was working on building a fire, he only let his curiosity draw his eyes toward them a couple of times. The others were somewhere on that spectrum of trying to give them a moment while also snooping with various rates of noticeability. Warriors was definitely just fidgeting with one of the bags on Epona’s back and not planning on actually unpacking. She could tell that Wind was just itching to meet Zelda and tease Wild about their obvious PDA.

She would’ve been nervous about their reactions, but she had hinted about her relationship for a while and they always seemed very casual about it. It had gone from agreeing with some of the others that girls were pretty, to practically stating outright that she was in a relationship with a woman. Though she never discussed it very in-depth, she still struggled with holding onto her emotions a little too tightly.

Wild took another lengthy moment to enjoy Zelda’s closeness before she’d have to start introductions and explanations, but for now, she was exactly where she wanted to be. Zelda’s gloved thumb whipped a tear from her face, with a look so fond she just might have gotten a cavity from it.

“You missed me that much, huh?” The princess's voice was borderline teasing but there wasn’t a hint of genuine malice in it.

“What can I say, I’m tired of being taken away from you. For some unimaginable, crazy reason, I’m just happier when you’re around.”

“It’s almost like you love me or something…”

“How absurd, it’s not like you’re the smartest, most beautiful, not to mention most strong and ambitious, princess in the history of forever. Now that I’ve done some time traveling, I can actually confirm that fact.” She tried to sound serious with her voice perfectly level but she was a little too high on emotions to have that kind of control. Thankfully Zelda didn’t seem to mind that she stumbled over her words a little or that her voice was a little hoarse.

“That’s not fair, you know I’m bad at taking compliments you…hero…” She patted Wild’s grinning cheek as a replacement for bumping her partner's shoulders or giving her a light playful punch to her perfectly solid biceps, but her limbs were being squeezed in a hug so the best she could do was pout and slap her cheek with only a few inches of built-up force behind it.

“You could also work on making up better insults for me, but I guess we both have our faults,” the hero laughed, her princess was easy to catch off guard when it came to sudden bouts of nice things being thrown her way, even more so when it was so clear to her how genuine Link consistently was about it. Zelda was trained to always search for someone trying to manipulate her or have ulterior motives, and it didn’t help that she spent so long without much kindness being granted to her at all.

“One of yours being that you’ve been ungracious to your travel companions,” the princess turned to the group of eavesdropping heroes, “I truly apologize on Link’s behalf, I’m sure she didn’t mean to neglect you all.” At the prompting, Wild loosened her embrace and allowed the princess to free herself, though she still kept an arm wrapped around her waist, it still felt too soon to completely let her go.

“Fine,” Wild rolled her eyes, “Princess, these are my spiritual predecessors, Link, Hylia’s first chosen hero,” She pointed at Sky, who managed a little wave, “Link, the small one,” She pointed at Four, “Link, the hero of time, I think it’s his dark counterpart that Kilton was obsessed with, I think he’s the only one with such dramatically middle parted bangs like that…” She gestured towards Time, who raised an eyebrow but stayed silent.

“Link, my favorite person to get lost with,” She pointed at Hyrule who smiled at his description, “Link, the pink one with too many titles and weird adventures so we just call him the Veteran,” She passed over to Legend.

“Link, the one whose horse I legally share custody of due to magic timeline weirdness,” She gestured toward Twilight, knowing that she would have to give her girlfriend much more information on that one, but it would have to be later. There were still secrets that should be kept.

“Link, the sailor who would be a pirate if he was less of a wuss and would let me peirce his ears,” Her smile towards Wind was not well received.

“Well, maybe if you wanted to do it with something other than the dagger you use to skin rabbits I’d be more interested!” He defended himself valiantly, but Wild just grinned as she moved on to their last member.

“Finally, we also have Link, the only one I don’t think we have records on but I’m still pretty sure he’s in the late era of myth.” Warriors performed a dramatic bow when Wild’s outstretched finger finally reached him. “Everyone, this is Zelda, the genius who is somehow crazy enough to put up with me. Now that that’s all dealt with, what do we want for dinner?”

***

For the first time in months, when Wild was able to settle down in her bedroll, she was fully at ease. She knew she would sleep easy and that she wouldn’t spend hours awake, desperately trying to lose consciousness. She was glad to not have to rely on pure exhaustion to get her to succumb to the darkness, that she wouldn’t have to find some quiet way to spend as much energy as she could whenever she wasn’t allowed to take first watch.

For once, she couldn’t wait to settle in and not be afraid of the potential nightmares that rejoiced in haunting her. Zelda had that kind of effect on her, erasing the recurring terror that refused to leave her mind, comforting her when no other person could. When normally she tried to hold out on sleeping as long as possible, she was nearly excited to lie down on a bed that was little more than a cocoon of cloth on a surface of ice and stone.

Zelda’s skin was smooth beneath her fingers, her hands had wedged themself between the soft warn tunic that she used as a nightshirt as if mere contact with her was a healing force. Though, Link supposed, it very well could have a power like that. It certainly felt like it.

The bedroll was large enough to fit both of them, just as long as they were cuddled tightly together, which would’ve only been a problem if they were stuck in Gerudo Desert or Death Mountain. But sharing heat was no issue, quite the opposite.

Their legs were intertwined like a messy braid, their bodies offset slightly so Wild’s head rested comfortably on her princess's chest. Short nails grazed through her hair in a calming rhythm that caused her to melt into Zelda’s form even more.

“I missed you Aryll.” her voice was soft, hushed enough to keep the name from reaching anyone else's ears. It was like a secret between them, her true name. It wasn’t as though she didn’t like the ones she was more openly called, Link or Wild, she was happy sharing a name with the heroes. She loved how it connected them and how it turned her from a person to a force of nature. It united them and showed that no matter how different they looked, they were the same in the ways that mattered.

But Aryll… that was the name that had long died off, that only a select few had the honor of knowing. It was who she was without the baggage of being the hero, free from the chains of fame, it was the name that wasn’t whispered among gossiping townspeople below the castle who scoffed at her accomplishments. There weren’t many people left who knew of her true name, a few Zora who still used the hero's name despite knowing she had another.

Link was the name of someone great, someone powerful and courageous that people would tell bedtime stories to their kids about, she was proud to be one of them, she wore the name like a badge of honor when it was once a row of chains. Link was the name of someone blessed by the love of the goddess and born to fight an impossible evil and even though it was a heavy burden, she knew that she could carry it and it was that name that led her to the one she loved most, whos breath she could feel rustling the hair on her scalp.

Aryll was a closely held secret, one she was reluctant to share with even the brothers she had grown so attached to. She trusted them, of course she trusted them with her life, but she already felt different from them, it was nice pretending that she was as much of a hero as they were. Deep down she knew she was separate from them, not just through her gender but through time and her failures, the name was just one more thing proving that she wasn’t really one of them.

She liked being one of them.

“I’ve missed you since the moment I left, it’s nice to be home.” Wild, Link, Aryll muttered into her princess's collarbone.

“We’re still pretty far from Hateno, nearly as far as we could get without leaving the kingdom,” Zelda commented.

“That’s just where our house is, as cliche as it is to admit, I feel more at home with you than some house I bought to keep from being demolished.”

“You’ve always been the sappy one, but I suppose home hasn’t been the same without you getting flour all over it. At least when I’m rambling at you, you usually hum or make some kind of noise to show that you’re at least pretending to listen. Hateno is a little lonely without your voice.” She uttered wistfully.

“That sounds pretty sappy to me. You know you don’t have to hide it, I bet there’s a journal full of poetry of your flowery words about me, I bet you could write about my countless clumsy trips down the stairs and make it sound like the kinds of songs Kass would sing. I know you have a magical way with words that have been lost with all of the bastards who poisoned the court. I’m sure you could make me do anything with those lips of yours.”

“Not in the same cave as your predecessors darling, you’re not very quiet on normal nights but this place has outstanding acoustics.” Zelda smiled slyly above Wild’s reddening ear.

“You know that’s not what I was trying to say… but I guess we should try to find some time alone at some point, I’m sure I could set the boys loose on Rito Village, I don’t think most of them have seen a Rito before. It’ll keep them busy for long enough for me to slip with you somewhere, just like old times.”

“I can’t say that I miss the paranoia of being caught, but I suppose there was a certain thrill that came with it. I’m sure we can find some dark corners to pull each other into.”

“I’m looking forward to it. I’ve also been looking forward to this, to being with you again.” Though she was weary from traveling and the months of yearning left her exhausted when she finally had no reason to do so anymore, though she had finally found an overwhelming sense of peace that weighed her down like a hefty worn blanket, she fought to stay awake, just a moment longer. It seemed like such a waste to spend her time with Zelda sleeping when she knew all too well that it would be limited.

“Close your eyes, my dear hero, I’ll still be here in the morning, if anything tries to take you away from me until then, they’ll be sorry.” Zelda seemed to read her mind, though it wasn’t as if this was the first time Link had remained awake in her lover's arms, as if they were about to lose each other at any moment. Perhaps she just wasn’t that hard to read.

“Hylia help any poor soul that tries to get in your way,” Link huffed a silent laugh, though she still took a moment of hesitation before closing her eyes. There was still a drop of uncertainty. There was still a chance that when she awoke, her princess would be gone. Whether it be because this whole miracle had been a dream, it surely felt like it, or because the pursuit of dark monsters required a more rushed investigation.

“Sleep Aryll, you know you won’t be able to resist for long anyway,” Zelda rested her chin on her swordswoman's head and tightened her grip around her shoulders just a little bit tighter.

Aryll enjoyed a slow deep inhale, relishing in her princess’s aroma that she had longed for, the only faint reminders lingered on the clothes she had brought with her but the scent had faded into nothingness. Now she was here, totally and completely consumed by it and her warmth once again.

She couldn’t imagine wanting a single thing more.

#zelink week 2023 #zelink week #yearning #zelink #fem!zelink #linked universe #lu wild #lu flora #lu legend #linked universe fic

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