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Day 50– Gerudo Desert

Promises are kept, food is made, and monsters resettle in their ecological niches. And so the arc comes to a close, with our heroes riding away into the dusty afternoon.

(End of the Lightning Arc)

(This totk au is called Familiar Familiar! It all starts when Zelda doesn’t get sent back in time and the butterfly effect devolved from there.)

((Wanna support me? Check out my patreon, with my throw away sketches and references! Remember to use web or android folks, apple charges 30 percent tax.))

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Day 49– Riju’s Guestroom

(Ambassador Rauru never meant to get attached to the twin chieftains. The one that becomes the Demon King accuses him of forgetting his own history— the other, concerned with her people’s safety, bitterly capitulates to Hyrule’s demands.

Perhaps a kinder peace could have been achieved, if only Rauru chased after Ganondorf like Naborus on that fateful day. It didn’t matter, in the end. Time has ground every decision into indistinguishable dust, until all that’s left is echoes and ghosts.)

(This self indulgent totk rewrite au is called Familiar Familiar! It all starts when Zelda doesn’t get sent back in time, and now has a whole new batch of tragic tragic lore.)

((Wanna support me? Check out my patreon, with my throw away sketches and references! Remember to use web or android folks, apple charges 30 percent tax.))

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Day 48. The Lightning Temple Remains

Well, that source of history’s lost forever, but at least the gibdos are shrivelling in the sun, the ghosts are put to rest, and Riju found a cool rock.

(“I put the future in your hands. Do better than us, little thunder bird.”)

(This totk rewrite au is called Familiar Familiar! It all starts when Zelda doesn’t get sent back in time and the butterfly effect devolved from there.)

((Wanna support me? Check out my patreon, with my throw away sketches, unfinished ideas, and references! Remember to use web or android folks, apple charges 30 percent tax.))

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Decided to write some oneshots! Less focus on Zelda and Link, and more on FAMILIAR FAMILIAR’s building blocks.

(Mineru and Naborus’s slow dance are interrupted by the horrors of war.)

(Fic under cut)

——— The First Act (Naborus)

Mineru seems to be actively trying to woo Naborus, and to her disgust, it works.

The zonai woman seems to haunt her steps, with a sly smile and cheeky wink. She slips next to Naborus during morning drills with foods meant to entice, and into evening bouts of paperwork with her little machines, fiddling and tinkering and always ready to help. Even her haughty hat she faffs around with is all but seared into the back of Naborus’s eyelids every time she closes them.

“You do understand,” she tried once, and only once, “that I am a gerudo chief and you are the last of the zonai, serving under the hylian empire.” She enunciates these hylian words as clear as she can, careful with this new language she forced herself to learn within four grueling months.

“Of course,” Mineru responded back in a heavily accented Gerudo. “But I still want to try.”

Naborus has always had a soft spot for fools. She doesn’t bring up their allegiances again, but Mineru redoubles her efforts. Naborus doesn’t explicitly accept them, but she doesn’t refute them either. She even finds herself automatically bringing two mugs of heavily steeped tea to her study one night. Mineru was waiting for her, eyes bright and ears perked.

It’s Ganondorf that ultimately cuts through the stalemate.

“You like her,” he accuses.

“I tolerate her,” Naborus grumbles. “She’s at most a desert lizard I water from time to time, so she doesn’t die.”

Ganondorf gives her a truly bombastic side eye. Naborus doesn’t mention his strange dance around Rauru, even though she’s tempted to point out his hypocrisy. Her soft spot for fools is a weakness.

“She’s working for the princess,” he warns. “We need time to ratify the treaty, and she’s a distraction.”

“She’s a guest,” Naborus responds, temper flaring. “And I don’t see you crunching the paper recently, little brother.”

They glare at each other, bristling like desert cats, before ganondorf’s shoulders slump. He’s been sleeping less and less lately. The dark circles under his eyes have been becoming more and more difficult to hide.

“It’s not safe,” he repeats helplessly. “There’s always a cost, with the hylians. You know this.”

“I know this,” Naborus responds wearily. “But Princess Sonia is different from her mother. Not because of any legends,” she adds, before her brother can protest, “but because she’s reaching out first. The zora and rito are perfectly happy. We have to trust the same amnesty will be given to us.”

“It’s different,” Ganondorf spits, “when their legends don’t constantly paint us as thieves and war mongers.” And Sonia, despite her stature, is part of that legend. That damned sword speaks to it.

The hylians want the great gerudo burial site. They want it for the precious minerals crystallizing deep under the sands, that glow green from the dead. They need it, for the war against the rising tide of undead monsters that threaten them all— gerudo, hylian, all the races of hyrule really. It already took most the zonai.

Naborus knows, deep down, she can not let the gerudo be the next.

But it hurts, to see their culture be trodden underfoot for this. And it hurts more, to hear Ganondorf’s urgent whispers that the Hylians will not stop.

Mineru and Rauru are the last of their kind. Surely there must be other zonai, hidden in pockets deep below or up in the sky, but the zonai (the only zonai) Naborus knows are her two guests. They don’t remember their mother tongue. They were raised by the Goron and Zora and eat hylian food and wear hylian clothes and practice hylian alchemy.

For all intents and purposes, they are hylian. They are what will lay in store for the gerudo, either it be through ganondorf’s terror of a slow cultural death, or naborus’s terror of a steady massacre.

And then Ganondorf finds those ruins, and it all goes to shit.

And then he tries to kill Sonia. Tries to infect Rauru with that malice. Becomes unknowable to her, and calls her traitor, as if he didn’t throw everything away for their shared dream.

Five days later, she arranges for a meeting.

Six days later, Sonia and Rauru show up at her doorstep.

“You can have the burial grounds,” Naborus says, and finds the dull ember of delight in Rauru’s flinch. Good. See him remember his own damned past, and let him know of his crime. Mockingly, she inclines her head to Princess Sonia. “At your behest, your highness.”

Sonia looks back. Implacable. Stone. She’s four heads shorter than Naborus, and yet her presence is crushing. Is this who you love, Naborus wanted to ask Mineru. Is this who you serve?

The rest of the negotiations is a blur. Rito will come help gerudo civilians escape the bombed remains of her city. Her people will find shelter along the coast, if they so wish. All Sonia needs is the Zonaite, and willing hands to take up arms and fight.

Fight who, she does not specify. But judging from her gaze flickering to the empty spot next to Naborus, it’s not difficult to infer.

When Mineru hesitates in front of Naborus’s door later that night, Naborus finally snaps. That dull apathy and shock suddenly becomes a monsoon of rage and betrayal, and she grabs the mug and throws it as hard as she can at the wall, an animal scream rising in her chest.

Mineru flinches back, ears pressed against her head. Naborus sinks, gasping for air, and curls into a wretched ball on the floor. Thin hands carefully encircle against her, and she leans into mineru’s chest, and weeps for her stupid baby brother, for her foolish naive self, for hoping for a beautiful future.

Tomorrow, the gerudo will have the war Ganondorf predicted. Tomorrow, Naborus will bow in front of the Hylian regency.

Mineru mumbles something into her hair, that she is unable to catch. But the zonai’s grip is tight, and she hums a song slow and low.

“What is that?” Naborus croaks, head still pillowed in Mineru’s arms.

There’s a shift of muscle under Naborus as Mineru readjusts herself into a more comfortable position, and then— “my mother taught me this.”

“Ah? I thought gorons are all men?”

Mineru laughs. “In hylian, yes they are called men. But no, I’m talking about my birth mother.”

“Oh,” and because Naborus has little filter, “what’s her name?”

Mineru went silent at that. Naborus feels a rush of self hatred. She shouldn’t have asked. She presumes much from somebody who isn’t even her citizen.

“I don’t remember,” Mineru says. She smiles at Naborus, eyes half squinted. “I just called her Mah. Zonai baby teeth give us terrible lisps, and young children don’t really know their parents as people, per say. Just protectors.”

“I’m sorry,” Naborus says. She wants Mineru to hum that song again, but doesn’t know how to ask.

“It’s okay,” Mineru says. “I don’t remember her. Its hard to miss what you don’t really know.”

“No,” Naborus protests. “It’s not okay at all. You shouldn’t have to-“ she back pedals, looks for anything to say at all, and settles on squeezing Mineru’s waist. “You deserve more than just a song.”

Mineru starts to hum again. Seeing Naborus unwilling to continue, the zonai sighs, cutting into the wound if the situation.

“You did the right thing.”

“Did I?”

“You want to save lives. There is no shame in that.”

“And what of the children who won’t remember their mother’s names?” Naborus asks, hurting. What of her people’s history?

“They’ll be alive to wonder, won’t they?”

Mineru’s voice sounded flat and far away.

And Naborus has nothing to say to that.

(Mineru tells herself this is for the best, and that she and Rauru turned out perfectly fine.

It’s a lie she’s grown comfortable with.)

———— The Second Act (Mineru)

When Ganondorf cuts her throat, she can’t bring herself to be surprised.

Scared? Yeah. But surprised? Not really.

She took his sister from him. She represents hylian royalty. She’s collateral to Rauru. A sort of message, if you will.

You took my sister. I will take yours.

Fucking idiot. Naborus will never forgive him now, and neither would Rauru. He has single handedly severed any remaining goodwill, any chance of recollection, with this stunt, and the worst part is he probably did it on purpose.

Ganondorf looks different. His eyes are tired. The infection from his arm has spread to under his jaw. Baby Dragneel’s been practicing magic, she sees. He reaches down and gently plucks the secret stone from Mineru’s neck, and suddenly it’s worse.

She’s never going to be able to tell Naborus her secret. She’s never going to be able to give that stone to her beloved. She-

A scream splits the night air. It can’t be from her, because all her air is being stolen from her throat before it can reach her tongue, which tastes like iron. It can’t be from Ganondorf, who’s mouth is clenched shut, secret stone (alchemist’s stone) shining in his hand.

Ganondorf is blasted back by a wave of light.

The world is greying. Mineru feels the burn of Sonia’s time magic entrap her, freeze her. It hurts. It hurts more then her throat. Everything is tinged yellow and Mineru can’t move, and this must be what death is— caught between a peaceful slumber and agonizing living. She’s suffocating slowly. She’s scared.

Rauru’s face comes in focus. His hands are shaking. She can feel him pressing desperately against her as in the distance, Sonia, still clad in her white dress, chases the shadows away.

Mineru’s eyes slip close.

When she wakes up, she is surprised she’s not dead. She tries to say something, but the searing pain stops her, and her muffled jerk causes the lump at her feet to quiver. Rauru looks up, eyes bloodshot.

“Mimi?” He asks, voice hoarse. Mineru tries to say something, but the pain flares and she settles for a thumbs up. Rauru’s eyes start watering, and he presses his face into her hands.

“Mimi,” he whispers, and mineru pets his ears, like they were children again. She didn’t mean to scare him. She waits for him to collect himself, and takes the chance to look around the room.

It’s a nice room. The architecture is distinctly zoran, with luminous stones embedded into the walls for light and kelp thread curtains for privacy. It smells like fragrant lotus root and medicinal herbs. There’s a small study in the corner, filled with papers and a single potted specimen of a sundelion.

Rauru’s study, she realizes with a rush of fondness. This must be his room, when he was apprenticing under that Zoran healer.

“I…”

Her attention snaps back to her brother. At her attentive look, he quails. It’s not right. Rauru rarely quails, and mostly preens, like a peacock. At her impatient look, he closes his eyes, and Mineru’s stomach sinks.

“Ruta’s afraid there might be complications,” Rauru continues in a rush. “You’ll be on observation for possible lung clots and brain damage and infection.”

Mineru breathes.

“We couldn’t save your throat,” Rauru confesses, looking small. “Ruta cleared up your lungs and I managed to stabilize you, but. We couldn’t, your.”

That’s okay, she wants to say. I’m alive. That’s more than I expected.

But she can’t say that.

With her nonanswer, Rauru bows his head. Mineru grabs on to his hand before he can flee, and squeezes.

After a moment’s hesitation, he squeezes back.

Mineru doesn’t take her new found muteness well. She struggles with hylian sign, and finds a near apoplectic rage in being unable to quickly explain her thoughts.

Writing isn’t the same, she wrote in harsh angry scratches with her chalkboard she’s taken to carrying around.

Naborus, bless her, has fashioned a straw for her with glass when they meet up for tea. Mineru used to haunt Naborus, enraptured by this woman and her no nonsense attitude and her unexplainable kindness. Now Naborus haunts her with bedding and sustenance.

They should be on the battlefield. The malice has overtaken another settlement, Mineru heard. But when she dug, she was sent away.

“More pillows?” Naborus asks, and Mineru holds up two thumbs for an aggressive agreement.

Can you get me construct f12, she writes when Naborus comes back wielding two cream pillows. Twinges, can fix, she slashes quickly at Naborus’s frown.

“You’re working?”

No time, Mineru scribbles. And at Naborus’s hesitant glance, she adds: bored.

“You should be resting.”

Can’t.

She will have nightmares again. Rauru promises the sundelion specimens he’s working on will stop the malice from taking hold, but she still dreams of that red pulsating mass, infecting her, burrowing into her.

She underlines Can’t twice, and hopes Naborus will get it.

Naborus drags a hand down her face, and exhales roughly. “Shit. Okay. I’ll go get your construct, but if you need any help at all you tell me, alright?”

At Mineru’s flat glare, she grimaces. “Sorry. I’ll get you a bell.”

The two sit in companionable silence after that. The construct mineru chose is a small, light weight thing. She is considering adding some sort of projectile weapon when she hears the low rhythmic hum of a song.

Oh, Mineru thinks. This is the song my mother taught me, and I taught you. Oh, Mineru thinks after suddenly overwhelmed with the realization— she will never sing her mother’s song again. She will never be able to join the chorus that was her last, remaining link. She will never-

Mineru wipes her eyes angrily. She can learn how to play a harmonica. Or a flute. The option isn't actually gone, just changed. She should just be glad she’s alive.

Doesn’t stop the tears, though.

When Naborus quietly holds her arms out, Mineru doesn’t fight the pull and slumps into her friend’s arms, and tries not to think of how Ganondorf stole not only her project’s notes, but her history from her too.

He’s Naborus’s brother.

She hates him more, for it.

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Day 47– The Lightning Temple

That giant unearthed mausoleum is rife with treasure! And horrors. Mostly horrors.

History is a wheel that spins slightly different each round.

(This totk rewrite au is called Familiar Familiar! It all starts when Zelda doesn’t get sent back in time and the butterfly effect devolved from there.)

((Wanna support me? Check out my patreon, with my throw away sketches and references! Remember to use web or android folks, apple charges 30 percent tax.))

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Day 46– Great Gerudo Basin

Road trip! One’s sleep deprived, one’s haunted by ghosts, and one’s hungry.

(This totk rewrite au is called Familiar Familiar! It all starts when Zelda doesn’t get sent back in time and the butterfly effect devolved from there.)

((Wanna support me? Check out my patreon, with my throw away sketches and references! Remember to use web or android folks, apple charges 30 percent tax.))

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Day 45- Gerudo Town

Riju gets jumped by two hylians with emotions. Zelda wonders if this is how Urbosa felt. Link is, somehow, the voice of reason.

(This totk rewrite au is called Familiar Familiar! It all starts when Zelda doesn’t get sent back in time and the butterfly effect devolved from there.)

((Wanna support me? Check out my patreon, with my throw away sketches and references! Remember to use web or android folks, apple charges 30 percent tax.))

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Day 44- GERUDO TOWN

Bug Zapper 9000 worked too well. Not only did we get the terrifying normal corpses, we accidentally found its brood mother that can summon localized sandstorms to protect its underlings.

At least it got chased away by Riju’s lightning. Big win.

This totk au is called familiar familiar! It all started when zelda didnt fall back in time and devolved into wild violence

((Wanna support me? Check out my patreon, with my throw away sketches and references! Remember to use web or android folks, apple charges 30 percent tax.))

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DAY 43- GERUDO TOWN SQUARE

Say hi to Riju’s Bagzapper 9000!

(This totk rewrite au is called Familiar Familiar! It all starts when Zelda doesn’t get sent back in time and the butterfly effect devolved from there.)

((Wanna support me? Check out my patreon, with my throw away sketches and references! Remember to use web or android folks, apple charges 30 percent tax.))

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Day 42– GERUDO SHELTER

Bularia’s irritated, Riju’s exhausted, and plots are to be had with the gutted insides of ancient war machines.

(This totk rewrite au is called Familiar Familiar! It all starts when Zelda doesn’t get sent back in time and the butterfly effect devolved from there.)

((Wanna support me? Check out my patreon, with my throw away sketches and references! Remember to use web or android folks, apple charges 30 percent tax.))

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Day 41– Desert rift

The desert flooding’s a bit of a misnomer— it’s more like the gerudo basin refilled with a mysterious source (most likely ground water being pumped up somehow) and is now puddling violently wherever the elevation dips below sea level, creating dangerous wells of quicksand. While sandseals can thrive happily in such watery conditions, other fauna of the desert aren’t as suited to the moisture.

Good thing gerudo town is built on lime rock.

(This totk rewrite au is called Familiar Familiar! It all starts when Zelda doesn’t get sent back in time and the butterfly effect devolved from there.)

((Wanna support me? Check out my patreon, with my throw away sketches and references! Remember to use web or android folks, apple charges 30 percent tax.))

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Day 40- KARA KARA BAZAAR

The Sand Shroud’s full of walking corpses, half the gerudo population said “f that” and is heading for the hills, and the other half is sharpening their spears and bunkering in gerudo town. The situation is a tad more fraught than our two heroes originally considered. (To be fair, they crash landed near the Bazaar’s lighthouse like two duelling eagles in a death spiral. Standards are low.)

(This totk rewrite au is called Familiar Familiar! It all starts when Zelda doesn’t get sent back in time.)

((Wanna support me? Check out my patreon, with my throw away sketches and references! Remember to use web or android folks, apple charges 30 percent tax.))

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Thought it’d be nice for ppl to see the sillies refs! They’re full of crimes and live hyrule like it’s a comedy action flick (meanwhile the rest of the audience is going through their horror drama era).

(This totk au is called Familiar Familiar, and is basically a self indulgent “what if Zelda doesn’t get slingshot back in time” art series, and then became “there is lore and i am about to make it everybody’s problem”.)

((Consider my Patreon! For two bucks, you can dig into the rest of my messy, messy sketchbooks like a raccoon diving through a dumpster. Remember to use the web or android version, since apple’s taxing 30 percent))

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Day 39– ARBITER'S GROUNDS

Weird Gross Skinned Things in the Sand that burn in the light!?!? The desert is WET? We are not off to a good start.

(This totk au is called Familiar Familiar! It all started when Zelda did not get whisked back in time and devolved from there.)

((Want to see behind the scenes and other sketchbook crimes? Check out my patreon!))

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Day 38– East Gerudo Chasm

“…You. I know you. You’re that zoran healer’s apprentice.”

(I known you. You healed my hands. I still wear ferns in my hair, because of you.)

Excerpt from Tauro’s Journal- “The Gerudo Kingdom, shattered under vicious attacks from the Malice infected, became a vassal state of the Hylian Kingdom around 20 BSE. Records have dissenting voices during that time— many argue that the Hylians took advantage of the chaos to enforce their policies upon the other races; more argued that vassaldom is a small price to pay for medical and monetary support, mandatory draft or taxation be damned. Either way, one thing remains clear: The Zonai were the first to fall to the Malice, but they were not the last. The Era of Alchemy is drawing to a close.

Interestingly enough, Sheikah records during this era did not explicitly mention Calamity Ganon until 100 SE. This implies Calamity Ganon the entity is not a direct correlation to the Malice infected.”

*BSE— Before Skyloft Era, SE— Skyloft Era

**Lifting of Skyloft 0 BSE, one of the few concrete dates available. See Ring Ruins and Tauro’s notes for more information.

(we’ve officially entered au territory! I mean, we already have with Familiar Familiar’s premise being a self indulgent totk au where zelda didn’t get whisked back in time, but now I’m going after the lore too. You’re welcome.)

((Wanna support me? Check out my patreon, with my throw away sketches and references! Remember to use web or android folks, apple charges 30 percent tax.))

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Day 37– Faron Depths

Link dropkicks frog children and steals spine residue. Zelda would have more of a moral foot to stand on, but she’s the one that suggested the “let’s ride an ancient dragon like a tram, nevermind if it’s possibly blasphemous.” Oh well!

(This totk rewrite au is called Familiar Familiar! It all starts when Zelda doesn’t get sent back in time.)

((Wanna support me? Check out my patreon, with my throw away sketches and references! Remember to use web or android folks, apple charges 30 percent tax.))

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Day 36- Necluda Depths

(The Skulltalos is a fan made boss monster designed by yours truly, because the lack of variety in the Depths saddens me.)

The depths are chock full of botanical wonders and amazing beasts! Sometimes too amazing. The Yiga clan and our two heroes may absolutely loathe each other, but the giant spiders really put your priorities back in order.

(This totk rewrite au is called Familiar Familiar! It all starts when Zelda doesn’t get sent back in time.)

((Wanna support me? Check out my patreon, with my throw away sketches and references! Remember to use web or android folks, apple charges 30 percent tax.))