#and there's a part about him refusing to call her Zelda when she asks him and later he accidentally calls her Zelda? and has to

[cherry-chaos-cola]

Love Ghirahim(& or /)Zelda(& or/)Link where Link sees Zelda as just Zelda, just his friend who did nothing wrong ever, but he still blames Hylia for putting them through hell and manipulating his friend opposite Ghirahim who only sees Hylia, who cannot forgive her, who knows he was wrong but thinks Hylia is worse and places all the blame on the girl that is now Zelda.

But a lot of fanon forgets the part where they're both right and wrong. It needs Zelda who is both and neither, who is "still your Zelda" but now has memories that aren't her own and has magic she doesn't know how to use outside of throwing a harp across a pit and sealing herself in a crystal. Who feels guilty that she used Link and maybe? towards how Ghirahim ended up depending on his backstory, but also she's Zelda and she didn't do anything he says she did, and she was innocent too and doesn't deserve to die like he wants her to.

So much ghiralink hinges on the two of their opinions and emotions surrounding Zelda/Hylia, who becomes nothing more than an idea or symbol. Her personhood is taken away and she gets no say in the narrative she's supposedly pulling the strings for. And I'm not saying it's always a bad thing in fic, but I wish more fan content incorporated her into the story. But then a lot could be solved if they would just talk to her

[aheathen-conceivably]

🎶 Love is Complicated 🎶

Zelda left New Orleans one brisk morning in the final days of 1928. Antoine accompanied her to the docks where her steamer boarded and no further. They had barely spoken since the day she received the call that her mother was dying and he refused to accompany her to England. At first, she had merely been swept away in preparations; but as Antoine grew more guilty and withdrawn, their initial fight settled into a gaping divide filled with nothing but silence.

Zelda had tried to compensate for his lack of support with her own quiet reserve; avoiding his spiraling morbidity in the face of her own despair, hoping that he would realize that she was the one who actually needed his strength. Yet the day she boarded the ship he avoided her eyes, keeping his hands near his side until Violette came to tell him goodbye; then he held her until the whistle blew and watched them walk away without a word.

Their passage over the Atlantic was only six days, most of which Zelda spent confined to her cabin. Violette had been incessantly seasick, only coming out of her stupor to ask Zelda where her father was. At home. Zelda would tell her. He’s at home. Then her bleary eyes would close again, seemingly disappointed that only her mother was there to comfort her.

But suspended above the sea, surrounded by nothing but open water, Zelda thought that perhaps she was sailing home, that England was where she was always meant to be. It was where her family and her history were; and in an increasingly fearful thought, where she and her daughter’s futures were as well.

As she looked down at her sleeping daughter Zelda couldn't help but think of how much easier Violette’s life would be in England. The stares in the streets of New Orleans had grown no less frequent; and they were only worse any time the three of them tried to go in public together.

Of course she knew Violette would face prejudice wherever she went, but at least in Henford she would have Wally and her older cousins, who had all gone through life in similar circumstances. There, Violette would be free of the stigma of her unwed parents or the decision every minute of every day as to where she should sit on the bus or which water fountain to drink from.

When Zelda truly tried to picture her life in England, one thought continued to haunt her mind: Antoine. She knew that she couldn’t leave him there, alone in the club without his daughter, just as she knew he would never go with her.

But as the boat sailed further out to sea, she only became more aware of how distant he had become. For years she had tried to deny it, but Zelda knew that he had been lying to her: lying about the state of the club and where his money was coming from. He was unwilling to plan for the future or even acknowledge the slow decay of their home all around them.

Then in the moment when she needed him most, he had turned inward and offered only his own guilt and trauma. Zelda knew that it was in part who he was, to remain seemingly unbreakable in the face of so much; but she felt like less and less of his partner, and more and more vulnerable to the ever changing tides of the world without his honesty or support.

Yet as England drew closer, the prospect of a life there seemed even more hollow, the way it had after her father and sister died. It had been impossible not to think of Rosella on this voyage, to wonder if she perhaps sailed over where her body rested. It kept her awake at night, picturing the shards of fine China and wrought iron at the bottom of the sea, slowly breaking into ever smaller pieces as the salt and waves claimed them as their own.

But what Zelda was truly the most afraid of was what she knew she would find in England: her sister’s room, her father’s grave, and most unavoidably of all, her mother on her deathbed. She sailed to England to face the same pain that she had left to avoid, and she didn’t know if she could handle it, or if she would run again.

(As a little note for all you lovelies, when you see a 🎶 at the beginning of a post, it means that you can click on it for musical ~vibes~ to accompany the story. My many, many thanks to the marvelous @theplottdump for inspiring this idea. Anne’s legacy is all the vibes and I cannot recommend it enough).

[wutheringmights]

With Spirit being a serial dater, what kind of exes does he have? What were his breakups like? If he was attracted to Jean for his stability, what else was he attracted to in his partners? And who is this Warriors-like exe? 👀

Ooooooh boy. Strap in because I am ready to info-dump so much about Spirit's horrendous love life.

Spirit's serial dating didn't start until a couple of years after he returned back to New Hyrule. His relationship with Zelda had a slow, painful death. He lashed out at her a lot because he felt like he wasn't being heard. Zelda was upset that he betrayed her trust while feeling terrible that she was making his pain about herself. When Zelda had to start thinking about political marriages, Spirit finally decided to put them both out of their miseries and end things.

They're still friends. Spirit still loved her. But the moment the relationship ended, Zelda seemed to brighten up and become her old self again. She was so much happier, and that hurt.

Spirit tried moving on too, but he really couldn't get over Zelda. This was also around the time that his lashing out and moodiness was starting to reap consequences. Alfonzo fired him. A lot of his friends lost contact. He was gaining a reputation for being hard to work with. He was as famous as ever, and no one liked him.

He didn't set out to date a lot. There were plenty of people who wanted to date the famous Link Macaryll, so he was never short of options. He was looking for a partner, but in the sense that a partner was going to fix him. He felt abandoned. Unlovable. He just wanted to find someone who would stay by him.

If you asked him what his ideal partner was like, he list generic traits like humor or kindness. In reality, his ideal partner was someone who liked him. He would mold himself to be whatever they wanted so that they would stay and never abandon him.

But of course, that's a terrible foundation for a relationship. Nothing progressed past the first date because it was so obvious that Spirit didn't really like the people he was going out with. This was a chore, and he didn't really enjoy himself. It hurt every time he was refused a second date.

Jean was probably the first person he dated because he actually liked them.

At this point, Spirit had been weaving in and out of Jean's life. Spirit was friends with Linebeck, who was friends with Jean. They ended up getting drinks together sometimes. They probably first met on the day of Jean's accident, the one that led to his leg being amputated. They got closer after Linebeck and Spirit opened their own garage in Trading Post, with Jean being one of the first employees. This is where they started to become friends, albeit with the occasional discomfort whenever they realized that Spirit was Jean's boss.

Before Spirit dated Jean, he was in a pretty terrible situationship with a character I have not named yet (vote now on your phones).

This character was the son set to inherit his father's lucrative trading company. Until he did, he captained a prominent trading vessel. In New Hyrule, job titles are used in place of names when possible (ie: engineer) (somewhere in CTB, Spirit has a line about being used to just being called the engineer vs his name...). So this character is often just referred to as the Captain.

So when Spirit meets this handsome asshole called the Captain, he's first more than a little weary. But the Captain loved the hunt, and pursed him endlessly. And, well, Spirit wanted to be loved. That this guy resembled Warriors quickly went from disquieting to kinda attractive.

They never officially dated, but they did hook up and spend a lot of time together. That the Captain was a terrible person and was terrible to Spirit was an added bonus. Spirit liked how familiar it was. A part of him wanted to bring some part of his experiences in the war to New Hyrule so that people would understand him. Another part was so lost as to why his life wasn't fixing itself the way he wanted to that he wanted a problem he knew how to cope with. He even insisted on calling him by his job title as much as he could, because he wanted to be fighting Warriors again.

Everyone who knew Spirit was worried about him, but no one could get through to him. Zelda, Niko, Linebeck-- they all tried to sit Spirit down and gently tell him that he needed to cut this guy off, but Spirit would only dig his heels in deeper.

Which takes us back to Jean. One thing about Jean is that he never looked down at Spirit. For all his intelligence, Spirit was infamously terrible with people. When it came to social cues, his friends and family tended to get a little condescending about it. Not Jean. After a couple of months of this bullshit and reaching his breaking point, he sat Spirit down and talked to him about it.

Jean wasn't condescending, so Spirit didn't throw his defenses up. Jean's questions forced Spirit to actually reflect, and he had a moment when he realized that he didn't want to put himself through this anymore. Finally, he cut off the Captain.

That was a turning point. They became closer friends and, after a few weeks, Spirit realized he had a crush. He tried to hide it, but wasn't too subtle. Jean tried to ignore him for as long as possible, but Spirit eventually did ask him out. Jean ended up agreeing, and they dated for six months.

As a character, Jean is the pinnacle of stability. He's calm and even headed. He wasn't prone to getting upset. He was thoughtful, hardworking, and a grade A older brother. He's the type who asked a lot of questions before making a judgement, which gelled well of Spirit's irrational behavior-- by asking Spirit why he was upset, he would accidentally deescalate. If he had a flaw, it's that he's not the most romantic guy. Rituals like buying flowers and going out to dinner seemed a bit pointless to him. He'd rather stay at home and not waste the money. But over all, he was a real catch.

Spirit wasn't used to stability. He couldn't shake the feeling that everything was going to go wrong again. Jean was going to hurt him because everyone hurt him. Subconsciously, he believed that if everything was going to go wrong anyway, he might as well do it himself; he'd rather be the problem than be another victim.

On top of that, Spirit was a terrible person to get into a disagreement with. Everything had to turn into a high stakes argument. He was defensive, and often got mean when he was upset.

They lasted six months. Jean couldn't handle Spirit anymore. He broke up as gently as he could, but Spirit was still crushed. He had half the idea to apologize and try to win Jean back, but Jean started dating someone else-- someone a little older and as steady as Jean was.

Spirit was only 2-3 months out from the break up when he was pulled back into Warriors's era. It's still fairly fresh, and he was in the middle of lapsing back into his worst self when he wound up in the Temple of Souls.

Bonus Facts:

Spirit realized he liked Jean when he saw Jean playing with his younger siblings on the beach. Was watching him build sandcastles and was like "aw, fuck"

Jean got Spirit to quit smoking, which lasted up until Spirit ended up in Warriors's era

Jean didn't have a crush on Spirit when they started dating, but Linebeck swore that Jean was so bothered by the whole Captain thing because he was a little jealous (Jean's reoccuring complaint was that Spirit deserved better)

Linebeck didn't know they started dating until a couple of weeks in. Then he sat them both down and did a joint shovel talk that amounted to: a) Jean if you hurt Link, I will kill you, b) Link if you hurt Jean, I will kill you, c) Jean if your boss takes advantage of you I will stop it, d) Link if your love affair endangers this business I will kill you

Spirit liked that Jean was older, both because he felt better understood and that Jean was someone who he could depend on to take care of him; but Spirit was also constantly anxious that Jean thought he was immature

The last straw in the Captain situationship was Spirit getting a black eye

Spirit probably met the Captain at a royal function, while he was moonlighting as Zelda's guard

Zelda didn't know anything about the Jean relationship until it was over; Spirit didn't trust her after how badly she reacted to the Captain stuff

Even when he was with Jean, Spirit never really got over Zelda; while he does sincerely love her, she also symbolizes a point in his life when he was sincerely happy that he aches to go back to

[skyloftian-nutcase]

Febuwhump Day 6 - "You Lied to Me"

I decided to try something different today, and I hope y'all don't mind. Introducing Link, the Hero of Power—predecessor to Captain Link, the Hero of Warriors—and Queen Zelda, the Sacred Diplomat. Together, these two legendary figures, alongside Gerudo Chief Hemisi, split Ganondorf's soul into pieces and sealed him away across time and space as a permanent way to end the ageless curse (before that got reversed in Hyrule Warriors). Anyway, here's a little angst with them!

X

The water was almost too hot as it bubbled against his skin. Link sighed, trying to relax into it, accepting this odd vacation he and Zelda had been given. The Gorons weren't unfriendly by any means, but it was strange that they had invited the monarchs to their hot springs for some time off.

Did the former king's death have something to do with it? Was that mourning customs for the Gorons, to go on vacation after? It wasn't as if...

Well, it was just strange.

Stranger still that Zelda had accepted.

Link glanced over at his queen as she bathed in the water, her figure wavering in the heat as it lazily drifted up from the surface. He was still curious why she'd agreed to come. The pair had never taken time off willingly, and most certainly never together alone. This was a bizarre move, and it made him slightly uneasy, given everything that had happened recently. Although it felt beyond freeing to leave the castle, he missed his children. Relaxing like this was a foreign concept to him at this point.

What are you up to, Zelda? he wondered.

He decided to try his luck, swimming over to her. She turned in the water as he approached, face imperceptible as usual.

"Why are we here?" he asked softly, cautiously.

"The Gorons invited us," Zelda answered simply. "I wasn't going to refuse such kindness."

"Because they would view it as a slight, or because of something else?" Link pressed. When Zelda watched him a moment longer, he continued, "We've... been married for years, my queen. I imagine we can speak plainly to each other by now? It's just you and me."

Zelda's façade cracked, her lips twitching, gaze falling to the water level. "You can call me Zelda, you know. Please. You do that, sometimes, when we are being intimate. You said we can speak plainly with each other."

He supposed he did. And he supposed this was a moment of intimacy and vulnerability. "Then what's this about, Zelda?"

"I just..." Zelda faltered, showing uncharacteristic hesitancy. It reminded him of how she'd acted at her father's funeral, when it had just been the two of them, long after the crowds had dissipated (and after she had left). "I just wanted you to have something nice. I... I wanted us to have something nice."

Her voice grew so quiet as she added the last statement, nearly shriveling into the water. Link could understand why. She wasn't exactly responsible for giving him anything nice for a long time.

Well... aside from their children. But even then...

A bitter part of him let her look this small and defeated, demure and timid and so penitent. A part of him was angry that she was even trying.

You had promised a brighter future for all of Hyrule, that voice snapped. You lied to me.

It wasn't a lie, though, and he knew it. Just because he had sacrificed his happiness and his life didn't mean the rest of Hyrule wasn't thriving. This was an old, tired argument, only briefly resurfacing because his haggard mind was finding things to be angry about while he was getting progressively antsier.

Link sighed tiredly. Despite all the hurt between them, he still didn't like to see her like this. It wasn't as if he was the only one who had sacrificed everything. He leaned forward, pulling her close, letting her rest against him, his finger absentmindedly tracing the green paint that adorned her arms, watching it slowly trail off her pale skin. "That's... considerate of you."

Zelda's own hands traced a scar on his chest, and he swallowed, feeling his heart start to race. She pulled away, though, calming his rushing blood and making him curious again.

"I figured I'd... try," she said quietly, refusing to make eye contact. "After... we don't do this much. Spend time together."

Why would they? This marriage had just been one issue after another beneath the veneer of fate binding them together. He'd hardly spent enough time with her to create an heir the first year. Though in the years after that, he'd used her as his escape as much as she'd used him as her political toy.

So was she using him now? Or was she being genuine? He remembered she was capable of being kind to him. The last few years she even rarely was genuinely trying to help. However, her kindness often came with an ulterior motive.

Was she lying to him now?

"Is this some sort of favor to the Gorons?" he finally asked, letting himself be candid. She'd requested as much, anyway. "Creating a child in their homeland? Would they view that as some sort of honor?"

"This isn't--this isn't about that," Zelda shook her head. "I just wanted you to be able to relax. Back home, you... you're usually taking care of the children more than me."

"Then why did you come along?" Link questioned further. When Zelda winced and swam back a hair, his wariness died down, replaced by guilt.

She really... she just wants to spend time with me?

Oh.

She was lonely.

Link huffed, looking away. Goddesses above. He really was being absurdly self-centered. Her father had been brutally murdered (by me, I'm a monster--) just a few months ago, and they hadn't spoken to each other since the funeral. She had to be lonely.

"Well..." he trailed off awkwardly, not really knowing what to say. They'd gotten so close to trying to have a normal conversation before everything had fallen apart again, he was nearly downright terrified to attempt it again. "I suppose it is possible that you can finally admit to needing a break."

Zelda smiled a little forlornly, still looking into the water. Honestly, it was quite the miracle for her to actually be doing this to take a break. She never did that.

This was a genuine attempt after everything that had gone down, and this time he refused to be the one to mess it up.

Link moved towards her again, letting his body sink into the bubbling warmth so he could look up at her from where her gaze had stayed. He rose up to her with an inviting kiss, and she let him lead.

Though the act was nothing new, it held a bit more tenderness to it than ever before, a sort of mutual pain that emanated between the quiet couple as they sought comfort in each other. Typically after the fact the two would go their separate ways, but this time they basked in the heat, letting themselves dry off on the volcanic rock, draped in towels. Neither had anything to say—at this point what could they say—but they stayed, and Link settled into a nap that was more restful than he'd had in years.

[gaylactic-fire]

One more thing. Another argument I see in favour of this alter-ego Princess Zelda who's mean and entitled and Totally Canon You Guys, is saying that she has a a position of power over Link, therefore abuses it / him. Which is.... an extremely odd and honestly false takeaway from BOTW's story, imo. Yes, she is royalty, in a literal sense she does have a higher societal status than Link. But to say that she has any true power over Link is just?? Wrong??

Link was assigned by the king first and foremost. He's following the king's orders. He is NOT there to cater to Zelda's every beck and call. He's there to protect her and accompany her to the springs. And Zelda does NOT like this (at first) but she knows as well as him they both have no choice in the matter.

Still, she does give him orders. When she tells him to return to the castle and to stop following her in an early memory. But Link doesn't listen, because he's under command from her father, not her. And later on in the final memory, Zelda doesn't command, but rather begs for Link to run away and save himself rather than her. Again, he refuses. Which you can argue at this point in time is just as much about wanting to save her as it is having a dutiful obligation. But I think these two points speak for themselves. At worst, the most Zelda asks of him is to accompany her to certain places (very evil and abusive).

A core part of Zelda's arc is realising how similar she and Link are, despite wildly different upbringings. It's about realising that at the heart of it, they are two stressed out young adults with all eyes on them to save Hyrule from the impending calamity. She very quickly learns to confront her preconceived notion that Link is everything she's failed to be, and she very quickly apologises for the behaviour that notion caused in her. She makes an effort to get to know him, so much so that the man who forced himself into selective mutism talks to her on multiple occasions off screen, obviously by his own choice.

So when Zelda is portrayed as this entitled prissy princess who's pushing around her little slave boy Link, I get the distinct feeling those peddling this idea hated Zelda from the very beginning. Which y'know.. fine I guess. But it's weird you then decide to come up with these so obviously false and over the top "observations" about her character to justify said hatred. That, or these people have gone too far down the fanon rabbit hole and refuse to come up for air.

This isn't even touching on TOTK and how Link obviously stayed by her side by choice. But this post is already long enough.

[novantinuum]

3, 7, 8, 17

Thank u Fwex uwu

_

~CHOOSE VIOLENCE ASK GAME~

3- screenshot or description of the worst take you’ve seen on tumblr

Okay so this isn't a tumblr thing, but I HAVE to describe this absolute chaos I saw on reddit once-

Basically there was this like... mega BotW Mipha stan who was super into Mipha/Link, and somehow by the end on one reddit thread I briefly glanced through ended up deciding to headcanon that Sidon was ,,, I GUESS??? Mipha and Link's secret love child which-

H-how... does that even work lmafo. I am scared. It just CAN'T work, because Sidon is like... toddler shaped by the time the Calamity in Breath of the Wild history happens. (And Zora age slower than Hylians anyways, so for all we know he'd been alive for like 10-15 years already.) It'd certainly make for... uh, a wild AU I guess, but it was definitely a convo that I was thinking This about as I scrolled past it:

7- what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them?

So I don't think fandom has made me outright HATE a character, but there's definitely characters or ships that have been soured for me because of fandom tomfoolery. I think the notable ones here are...

-I kinda am like, really ambivalent about the Tenth Doctor (Also the recent Ten Take Three going on rn, who I refuse to call the Fourteenth Doctor lmafoooo) because of years of being sick of everyone being all "omggg the show just isn't as good now that Ten isn't there," and shitting on the Doctors who came after. Like, I used to LOVE him but now I'm just. Eugh. Whatever. It's almost as if I feel it's my duty to be absolutely neutral about him to balance out all the tumblr girlies screaming about how Tennant being back now is going to "save" the show or whatever.

-So very sorry, as I WANT to like it as a chronic multishipper, but Link/Sidon is a ship that has been utterly spoiled for me after all the drama that came from Sidon getting a canonical wife in Tears of the Kingdom. I simply do not want to be part of a shipping community that is that bitter when canon doesn't go their way- like, yeah we all want Nintendo to give some gd representation crumbs, but what else did you expect? Like after a certain point you really do just have to acknowledge that certain pairings are never going to happen bc of company bias and just enjoy your own headcanons for your own mental sanity. And the raging misogyny that came out of people about Yona was disgusting.

-Tragically, Fiddauthor (Stanford Pines/Fiddleford McGucket) was tremendously soured for me due to a loud fringe group of shippers who were very hostile to anyone who dared have headcanons about the two characters that weren't: they are both trans and gay. Like you dare to headcanon Stanford Pines as asexual and aromantic? You want a nonbinary Ford? You dare to headcanon Fiddleford as bisexual instead of gay? Death for you. Hate anons for you. It just got so suffocating that I had to basically drop the ship, which sucked because it was one I was SO passionate about back in the days.

8- common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

Hmmm...

King Rhoam is not a good father, nor an abusive monster, but a much more tragic, nuanced third path right down the middle where he and Zelda were close once but he decided to sacrifice his relationship with her in order to campaign for what he believed was more important- the survival of Zelda and all of Hyrule through the activation of her sealing powers. Aka I believe he had to choose between being a good father and being a good king, and in an ironic turn failed at both at once bc he simply didn't have all the knowledge he needed to make the right choices. (His wife wasn't there to provide council to Zelda when it really mattered, and he literally had NO understanding of what she needed.)

To be fair I understand why many in fandom choose to vilify Rhoam in fic, as he does provide a notable moment of antagonism in the Breath of the Wild memories, and it is VERY easy to project one's own personal "bad parent" trauma on such a character while making fan content, but I am wholly of the opinion that making him a one note "shitty father with no redeeming qualities" is perhaps the most narratively boring option as far as canon interpretations go.

17- there should be more of this type of fic/art

Gen fic. This is my answer for every single fandom I've been in. There should always be more gen fic.

Also porn that involves tentacles. This is a wholly self-serving request. Yes, I AM in fact a rapidly swinging pendulum. I want either gen fic or HARDCORE PORN and there's zero in between.

[aurathian]

so ao3 is down. again. Here's the full chapter:

Long Ago was so far away that the Hyrule of Now couldn’t place it in time. Too much had come to pass that they couldn’t decipher whether it was centuries, millennia, or eons, so instead they called it Long Ago. The Hyrule of Now was wary of the Hyrule Long Ago, a Hyrule deemed dangerous and riddled with fragile legends. Parents told their sleepy children bedtime stories of the monsters from Long Ago, history books dared not to address it out of fear of manifesting what had once been, and the Royal Family kept its closely guarded secrets about that time so Long Ago. Long, Long Ago, the king and queen of Hyrule faced a great threat. Its princess was tasked with an insurmountable feat she determined to be the only just solution. Long Ago, she

“sacrificed herself.” The Sheikah tutor rounded the table with a glum look. “In order to drive back the Demon King and support the Hero of the Long Ago, she forfeited her being.”

A small hand rose. The tutor gestured in acknowledgment.

“How?” asked the young, bright-eyed Princess Zelda of Hyrule, blonde curls settling as she tilted her head.

“An ancient mural indicated the princess of The Long Ago became a dragon. Such a feat is not expected of you in that regard.”

Zelda didn’t understand why Impa always looked so sad. When they played in the gardens together (after some begging), her teacher looked perfectly happy. Maybe she just didn’t like the classroom, disproportionately large for only two small desks, one each for the Princess and her Hero. The walls were lined with educational banners–literature, numbers, famous quotes–and one bore a giant chalkboard which Impa rarely wrote on. Princess Zelda wondered when they would finally learn arithmetic like all the other schoolkids.

Another little hand, another gesture.

“Where is she now?”

The voice was very quiet so that even from right beside him, Zelda could hardly hear Link.

In a voice almost equally small, Impa replied, “We don’t know.”

Maybe Impa was embarrassed or ashamed that she didn’t know–shouldn’t teachers know everything?--but Zelda also thought that maybe she was lying. Casting a sideways glance at Link, she knew he agreed. In an effort to change the subject, Impa rifled through some of the papers on the desk beside her only to smack them down and sigh.

“What’s wrong?” Zelda piped up.

“These lessons…” her teacher hesitated, glancing around and rubbing her temple between her fingers. “Some of these are beyond the scope of what you can handle right now.”

“I can handle a lot,” the little princess protested. “I’m double digits now.”

“And me,” Link included.

Zelda wished Impa would brighten up a little. Every lesson was always so difficult to sit through, because she would spend a long time rewriting her lesson papers and scribbling things off and mumbling to herself. What couldn’t she and Link handle? They were the Princess and Hero, destined to save the world! That much she understood. In that context, she should be able to handle anything; even sacrifice. But Zelda didn’t think she’d have to do that. Impa hadn’t said so, anyway.

Link and Zelda knew something bad would happen while they were alive. They’d heard of the Demon King or the Calamity or whichever one it was supposed to be this time and how they would have to fight it and save all of Hyrule. They’d heard of Heroes and Princesses from before and after Long Ago that had done the same, and the world lived happily ever after. Such a victory seemed guaranteed, given the sheer amount of legends about it. They knew their purpose.

What they didn’t know is what would happen to them after they fulfilled it. Every time Impa approached that part of a lesson, her storytelling became vague and she refused to answer any questions. Instead, she would say, “We don’t know,” and then move on. Just like today.

“I’m dismissing you for the day.” Impa sounded defeated. “I feel a headache coming on, and I would not be able to teach effectively.” Without protest, her students left the room.

Books clutched at their chests, the young Princess and Hero walked down the large, echoing hallways of the castle. The classroom was the only one of its kind within the great structure. Other high-profile students took classes at the Academy in Castle Town, but Zelda and Link were not allowed to attend there.

“We rarely ever finish class,” Zelda mumbled with disdain.

“I know.”

“What do you think the kids at the big school learn?”

“Interesting stuff. Like science,” Link mused. “Bugs and stuff. Maybe cooking.”

“I want to go,” she remarked. “They told us we can’t because it’s not safe. Well, I think that’s a crock of bokowash.” With her hands on her hips, she turned to Link defiantly.

“But we’ll get in trouble.”

She liked Link. She really did. She had to–it was part of the evil-banishing princess job description, and thankfully, it was one of the easier parts. But sometimes, his obedience, his sense of loyalty, really got on her nerves. Sometimes, he just needed to

“liven up a little. Have some fun.”

Link’s lips quirked up in a little smile and he shook his head. Zelda hoped he liked her too. He was her best friend, and sometimes she worried she annoyed him too much, but he didn’t seem to mind.

“We can use my mom and pop’s cloaks,” he offered in a whisper. “I know how to get there. I’ve gone with my pop.”

“You have?!” The little Princess’s eyes lit up in a sparkle, jaw dropping. “What was it like? Was it huge? What did they teach? Do you know? I heard they do experiments, like with frogs or potions and stuff and they have a class about the Sheikah technology and that you can eat lunch with a whole table of your friends and then go play outside and that they have pretty uniforms and parties and dances and real exams where you sit down and fill out a paper–”

“I don’t know,” he interrupted dejectedly. “I had to wait outside with the horse and wagon.”

“Oh.”

They made their way through the opulent Hyrule Castle halls, gray with black metal details, lined by pillars and arched windows through which the bright Central Hyrule sun gleamed. Zelda didn’t know of any place more magnificent–probably because she had never left. Hopefully the Academy could outdo her home.

“Link,” Zelda chirped as they rounded a corner. “What’s your favorite place in the kingdom?”

He thought for a moment. Surely it would be somewhere on the outskirts, an intriguing and lonely place, where people unknown dwelled, perhaps with ancient ruins full of history and dirt teeming with exotic insects. She’d read of such places in books, but never had she been to them. Link, however, had done his fair share of traveling with his father.

“My house.”

She stopped walking. Link didn’t notice.

“Your… house.”

The disappointment in her voice made him pause and turn back, puzzled. “Um, yes.”

“But why?” In a few quick strides, she caught up with him and they continued on. “You’ve been to so many other places. Don’t you visit the Zora a lot? I’ve never been. Or maybe the Gerudo– wait…”

She mumbled to herself about the logistics of Link crossing the desert only to be rejected from Gerudo Town until he spoke up.

“I like my house because my mom cooks the best pumpkin soup and I get to help my pop outside,” Link explained. The little Hero, assigned to the Princess of Hyrule and wielding the Master Sword of legend, destined to slay the evil threatening their land, preferred the simplicity of his wooden house on his family’s land, humbly named Lon Lon Ranch. It didn’t click with Zelda.

“And…?” Surely there was more.

“And I like the horses. I have a pony. Her name is Epona, and I really miss her when I’m here. My pop will set up hurdles for us to practice jumping over, and afterwards I feed her carrots to let her know she did good.”

The Princess envied that. She didn’t have a horse. Her mother didn’t make pumpkin soup and her father didn’t do work outside that she could help with. In fact, she wasn’t allowed to help with much of anything around the castle. She didn’t have a ranch passed down from generation to generation, renowned for its milk and cattle.

She was handed fate instead.

But that wasn’t a fair comparison and she knew it. Link bore the same burden; he just came about it differently. That’s all.

“Maybe when we get to the Academy I can learn about horses,” she said as they came up to the residential wing of the castle. Down a few hallways they found the door to Link’s room, adorned accordingly with a small plaque bearing his name.

Link’s room was nice, but not the nicest. Those were reserved for the most important, highest ranking members of the military and nobility, as Zelda understood. Link was pretty important, she thought, which is why he still got a room with a fireplace. Draped over a cushioned bench were his mother and father’s cloaks, which they left when they last visited. The room was messy, with clothes strewn about, papers tossed haphazardly onto a desk in the corner, and the bed unmade, but it didn’t matter because Link didn’t live in the castle all the time like the Princess did. Sometimes, he got to go home.

They threw the cloaks on, practically swimming in the thick fabric, and scuttered their way out the castle and through the guarded courtyards, disappearing into the thick crowd of Castle Town when nobody was looking.

“Your guards aren’t very good.”

Zelda rolled her eyes. As quiet as he was, he was opinionated, considering his swath of military knowledge (that no ten-year-old really should have known) and prowess with a blade. When it came to the castle’s defenses, he had more than enough to say. She was only annoyed because she agreed with him. More often than not, she actually enjoyed hearing his funny comments about the guards. One of her favorite things to do with Link was watch the training courtyard, where he could spend hours pointing out flaws in technique or how one simple move could’ve changed the tide of some practice battle. Link was so smart, she thought. And she didn’t know what she was good at.

Thanks to the fact that they were rather small and that the sea of people in Castle Town were too busy and in a rush to care about anything other than themselves, Link and Zelda were able to easily maneuver through the streets. Well, Link was–Zelda just held on tight to his hand and went with the flow, bumping into a few people along the way (and they were quite rude, she found–nobody had ever cursed at her before).

“There it is,” Link said at last, pointing toward the grand building before them.

Princess Zelda’s jaw dropped.

The Academy was huge, almost like a second castle. It was white and gold, with giant opulent pillars, students streaming in and out of the large doorways that could have rivaled the size of the castle gates. In comparison, the Princess and her Hero were mere bugs. Wearing their impossibly large cloaks and doing their best to seem unassuming, they slipped into the Academy.

The inside was just as magnificent and just as grand as she’d imagined. High arched ceilings with tall, tall windows, endless hallways lined with classrooms. Signs on the walls pointed to a cafeteria and a library and private studies for the Academy staff. As they wandered the halls, ignoring the strange looks they got in order to hopefully appear like they belonged there (they did not), Link had to practically drag the Princess to prevent her from gawking for too long. Even the simplest glass displays full of miscellaneous awards caught her eye.

Finally, Link pulled her down a long hallway with him, one quieter than the others. As they passed each door, they could hear muffled voices from within the classrooms giving lectures, but on what they didn’t know. They stepped lightly and carefully, making sure to be as silent as possible. Zelda found this part of the Academy rather boring. That was until a large, arched doorway caught her attention. While Link went on ahead, she tiptoed up to it.

“Link…” She peered around the doorframe, doing everything she possibly could to stifle the loudest gasp Hyrule would ever hear. “Oh my Hylia.”

But the Hero was still scurrying down the hall until Zelda’s sharp “Psst!” cut through his echoing footsteps. He whipped around and, as nonchalantly as he could, walked back to her. He couldn’t help but parrot her awe when he saw what she was marveling at.

The library was huge. About as big as Hyrule Castle’s. It had a huge skylight through which bright sun streamed, illuminating the shiny bookshelves and tables strewn about for studying. The only sounds within this grand room were the flipping of paper and the clacking of shoes on the spotless marble floor. What sort of books did they keep? Zelda wondered. At home, the books were all boring, her least favorites being Diplomacy for the Young Royal, Devotionals for Hylia, and Etiquette Around Hyrule. She much preferred the history books, rich with interesting facts from distant pasts. She bet her last rupee that this library had everything she ever wanted and more.

“You know what’s cooler than this?” Link whispered, interrupting her thoughts. She raised an eyebrow. “The noise I heard down the hall. It went kaboom!”

She didn’t really want to leave, but she followed Link anyway, slinking down the hall until they came upon a door ever so slightly open, just ajar enough for them to peek inside. Link peering from the bottom and Zelda peering from the top (she was taller than him by this age, and he would hold it over her head when they’re older), they caught glimpses of some weird experiments being performed at the front of the room.

Atop a counter were some vials and flasks and weird tubes, all kinds of which Zelda and Link didn’t know the names of, filled with equally weird and colorful liquids. The teacher up front dropped a pulsating, sparking yellow jelly into a flask of water and it erupted in a great shock.

“So, when you combine certain elements of ChuChus with other components, you can heighten their reactions,” they heard the teacher say. Then, the teacher dropped a flaming red blob of jelly into a separate flask. “Or you can lessen them.” The jelly turned a dull grey as the water put it out.

Zelda knew what a ChuChu was. It was in the creature encyclopedia she liked to read; one of the rare good books in the Castle library. But the mixing with water and elements and whatnot… she didn’t understand it and oh, how she wanted to.

She wished that, instead of whatever Impa was doing, they could learn this.

“Who is that?” a voice rang out and a head poked up from the sea of students’ heads. Link’s face fell as he watched the eyes of the teacher land on him and Zelda.

“Are you two in the right place?” the teacher asked, leaving her experiment station to approach them. “Class is in session. You shouldn’t be–”

But before she could finish they had already bolted, cloaks flowing behind them as they held onto the hoods desperately so they wouldn’t fly away, and the teacher was yelling at them: “No running in the halls!”

Too late. All Zelda could hear was her heart pounding in her ears and the panting of her friend beside her as they sprinted and skidded around corners and bumped into people, sending books and papers and pencils flying. She had never felt more alive.

After barreling through the Castle Town streets in the same fashion, this time being met with much more impolite curses, the feeling quickly died down.Seeing the castle shot any hope Zelda had garnered during her brief expedition. It was gray and dull and looming, so unlike the bright Academy.

But maybe… maybe one day, she could take a lesson there. For now, they slinked in through the gates again, holding their cloaks close and trying their hardest to mask their heavy breathing. Walking nonchalantly through the courtyards, ignoring questioning gazes and keeping their posture straight, Zelda glanced at Link. 

“I want to go to the library,” she announced.

“What?”

“The library. Please?” She stopped walking now, tugging on his cloak and commanding his attention. “The one at the Academy gave me an itch. It was so big and amazing and had so many books–I think if I look just a little harder this time, I can find some good ones. You know, behind all the manners books and law manuals and stuff.”

“Every time you go, you always leave frustrated.”

“It’s not my fault the people in this castle have bad taste in books.”

At first Link looked annoyed, and a flash of worry crossed her mind. But his expression softened and he bit his lip in thought before sighing and saying, “Okay. We can go.” Her apprehension disappeared and she smiled at him before grabbing his hand and, abandoning any sense of decorum, took off sprinting once more. Finding the Castle Library was nowhere near as exciting as scurrying through the halls of the Academy, but it was almost equally as grand. Tall ceilings, two floors, endless shelves lined with books, scholars and castle staff milling about. Hushed whispers filled the air alongside the flipping of pages and the tapping of shoes. Light streamed in from the giant windows near the ceiling.

Zelda still preferred the Academy Library.

They shuffled in, letting down the hoods of their cloaks and walking towards the back of the room. Purah, the head librarian, greeted the pair with a smile.

“Hey, kiddos. Can I help you find anything?”

Zelda liked Purah a lot. Purah treated her like a normal kid, didn’t call her Your Highness or Princess, and always answered her questions directly. She wasn’t like her mother, hung up on formalities, nor was she like Impa, skittish about the truth.

“I want to read interesting books,” Zelda declared, Link nodding beside her. “Not like manners or diplomacy or royalty stuff.”

“We want to read about ChuChus–”

“No,” she interrupted, “we want to read about history. Like, stuff we haven’t read before, or that Impa has already told us.”

Purah was deep in thought, tapping her foot and rubbing her chin. She glanced around the vast room and sighed. “That’s a tall order. You sure you haven’t already read every book in here?”

A joke, but to the little Princess it was a valid question. She’d spent countless hours rummaging through these shelves, yet rarely finding a good read. The little Hero beside her chuckled.

“I do know one place you could look,” the librarian offered. “Come with me.” She led them to a back corner of the library where there were no windows and reading the spines was a challenge. Zelda couldn’t recall ever going back here–maybe the darkness scared her–but she was excited anyway, swiping dust off of covers and flipping through some of the books. Link didn’t seem as enthused, but she reassured him that she’d find a book so interesting they’d be stuck in that corner forever.

“What are these?” Zelda asked, some of the books being indecipherable and written in entirely different languages.

“History, like you asked,” Purah said. “I’ll be around the corner if you need anything!” And off she went, carrying with her the fancy Sheikah tablet she used for logging books. Link stared after it, practically drooling over how badly he wanted one. He’d expressed his want–no, need–for a Sheikah Slate like Purah’s countless times, and each time Zelda promised that she would get him one. For now, she smiled and rolled her eyes, continuing her hunt through the shelves.

Zelda began to realize why she never came over here. These books were impossible! They were written in big, looping script, some letters looking like animals and others totally unrecognizable. Some of the books were incredibly thick and too heavy for her to lift, so Link helped her put those on her growing pile of pending reads. Some of the books had pictures, but they were crudely drawn and nothing like what Purah’s Sheikah Slate could recreate. Dragons, pendants with funny carvings, something depicting an underworld right beneath their feet.

“This isn’t history,” Zelda frowned. “These are fairytales. A whole other world underground? That’s silly.”

“Check this out!”

In her disappointment, the Princess had completely missed the fact that her courageous hero had gotten a little bit too brave and was now attempting to push an entire bookshelf to the side, and… it was moving all too easily. It was sliding neatly across the floor, albeit making a loud scraping sound, but none of the books jostled or fell.

“What are you doing?” she hissed, nudging him away from the shelf. “You need to put that back.”

“But–” he stopped himself, sighing and pointing to a book he had gone to grab that simply stood tilted, unmoving. Like a lever. Zelda’s jaw dropped. “You see?”

“Okay, well, move it quieter.”

Zelda helped him now, doing her best to dampen the sound the shelf made as Link continued pushing. They were starting to notice the empty space behind the bookshelf and once the gap was perfectly Hero-and-Princess-sized, he stopped.

“Is that…?” Link began.

“An entire passageway. A cave,” Zelda replied.

“No, not a cave. Look. Those are bricks.”

From what little light there was, they could make out the faint outline of bricks and small details on the wall and even stairs a little ways back, descending into a grim nothingness.

“Princess Zelda?” a voice called, a little muffled. “Are you okay over there?”

Purah. Link and Zelda locked panicked eyes and the world froze. What now? Run in and hide and hope Purah shrugs it off? Tell Purah the bookshelf broke and did this itself? Tell the truth?

Zelda knew exactly what to do. She took Link’s hand, dragging him behind the bookshelf with her and, using their combined might, they shoved it back in place with a loud boom! The dust settled around them in a gentle cloud.

Link exhaled and shook his light brown hair to get some of the dust out. Meanwhile, in the pitch black, Zelda pawed around the walls and floors until she could feel the descending stairs beneath her palms. Going down a few, she noticed faint light coming from below as the stairs turned a corner.

“Link,” she breathed. “That’s light.” He came up behind her, hands resting on her shoulders to give him anchorage in the dark. She could hear his heartbeat and the way he nervously swallowed. “Hold my hand. We can go together.”

And they went, together, through the patch of darkness and down into the light, stepping carefully down the winding stairs. The light was yellow from a freshly lit torch, and the further they descended down this staircase, the stranger the walls became. It was still Hyrule Castle brick, but some parts were interrupted with smooth stone bearing strange script–similar to the one in the book Zelda had been poring over, but not quite exact. Link plucked a torch off the wall and held it up as they went deeper.

Then, the stairs ended, and they were faced with rubble, cracked pillars and ceiling–and at the end of the destruction was a wall bearing strange carvings unlike anything Link or Zelda had ever seen. They had seen carvings before, courtesy of their field trips with Impa (they were hardly field trips–they went to different chapels in Castle Town or less-visited spots of the castle), but those had depicted far different things, like just the Triforce or Hylia or both. Common legends, things Zelda had learned in her sleep. But this…

They approached the wall hesitantly.

It was a Hylian woman, they thought, pictured above them. 

“Who is that?” Zelda wondered aloud, knowing Link could offer no answer.

They knew she was Hylian because the pointy, long ears were emphasized in the carving. She was kneeling in prayer, perhaps, before a statue of the Goddess, clearly recognizable, with her small smile and signature pose. Link walked along the wall, his torch illuminating another section. In this, the woman stood next to a figure wielding a sword.

“That’s you,” Zelda said, tracing her finger along the stone blade, “but from the Long Ago.” At the next carving, their jaws dropped.

A giant swirl enshrouded a castle, and the woman from the other carvings was there, her size triumphed by whatever it was she was holding her hand out at. Her hand, emitting stony, carven rays, a triangular shape aimed right at the boarish cloud…

“Look–” Link pointed to the carving’s hand. “It’s… it’s like yours. When you go to the springs and it glows.”

He was right. Zelda’s Triforce mark, which would shine when she prayed at the statues, matched that of the carved woman. That was her, her soul and her blood, from Long Ago.

In the final carving before the wall became hidden by heavy, immovable debris, the woman was gone, and only a shroud remained over the picture of a castle–Hyrule Castle. And in the middle of it all, a small shape, like a speck of light, remained.

But Impa said she wouldn’t have to do that. “Such a feat is not expected of you,” she had said, right? Princess Zelda knew her purpose. It had been drilled into her from birth, at religious services, in the classroom, at the dinner table, in everybody’s faces and gestures to her, she saw it. Alongside Link, the Hero, she would hold back the Calamity or the Demon King or Ganon or whatever its name was and save the world. She wouldn’t… She couldn’t…

“Hey!” came Purah’s voice, high-pitched and urgent behind them. The pair whirled around, watching in horror as light suddenly appeared around the corner of the stairs and she came jogging down. “Why are you down here?” Zelda wanted to know why her voice shook, why she seemed panicked.

“It was an accident,” Link quickly explained. “Curiosity got the better of me, um, the bookshelf broke and this opened and I was going to fix it but I, uh– I tripped! And fell in! And we didn’t know how to–”

“Enough,” a more powerful voice interrupted. Around the corner behind Purah–

There stood the Queen of Hyrule, in her deep blue dress and blonde locks in an updo, face stony and cold.

“How did you get down here?” she asked, eyes searching the young Princess and Hero, so small against those murals, so wide-eyed. Unknowing. Innocent.

Link opened his mouth, but it was Zelda who spoke. “I found this,” she declared. “I opened the bookshelf, and I told Link to come with me. Please don’t be mad at him. It was me.”

A silent, tense moment passed, before the Queen spoke again. Staring ahead at the murals behind the fated pair, she said, “Purah, please escort Link back to his chambers. I will take care of Zelda.”

“Yes, Your Highness.” And in a rush, they were gone. Zelda watched Link go, her heart dropping at the sorry face he made when he turned to look at her. And then it was only her, her mother, and her destiny.

That night, Zelda sat on her bed with her arms folded as her mother went off at her. Impa stood silently in the corner, unmoving.

“So you and Link went outside the castle, though you know you’re not allowed to, and to the Academy? And because you wanted to learn what they learn, you snooped a little too much?!” her mother scolded, pacing back and forth. “Zelda, we have these rules for a reason.”

“I don’t want to stay here all the time,” Zelda argued back. “I want to go outside and learn what they do.”

“You don’t need to learn what they’re learning. It’s not necessary, and it has nothing to do with your mission. Impa has taught you your path!” Her mother turned to the teacher. “Haven’t you?” Impa could only look away. In horror, her mother turned back. 

Zelda shook her head as tears threatened to fall. “Impa never told me. But those pictures, that girl, she

Sacrificed herself. Zelda had determined that much, despite Impa’s lack of teaching and her own ignorance. The carvings had made it clear. With the power of the Triforce, by praying to the Goddess, she could sacrifice herself and hold back the great evil that threatened her world.

Zelda pursed her lips, and spoke again.

“So I die?”

“Don’t say that!”

“But that’s what the murals showed! And Impa isn’t saying no.”

“Impa is not the matter right now,” the Queen said, shooting a glare back at the teacher who had failed to teach Zelda her true purpose. The teacher whom Zelda had played with in the gardens, trusted and listened to, who held back the truth because she cared too much. “Zelda, you cannot go back to the Academy. Your purpose is here. If you get distracted with other things, then… then…”

“But I want to!” she yelled back. “It’s not fair that they get to learn all about monsters and medicine and plants and animals and I’m stuck learning about… this!” The Princess wildly gestured to the air around her, but they knew what she was referring to. They all did. No longer was it a secret they needed to keep from her. The Long Ago was Now.

“You can’t!”

It was a shriek, a wail, a scream that ricocheted around the room, a scream so powerful it silenced the world for just a few moments. And in those moments, Zelda understood.

But she still asked, in a quiet, little voice, “Why not?”

“Because it is not important to you,” Impa spoke up, calm and level, although Zelda did not miss the way she played with her fingers nervously. “Your duty lies elsewhere–in giving… giving yourself up.”

“Zelda, there is no other choice!” Tears colored her mother’s voice. “You must. You must. It’s the only way.” Now she was shaking. “Think… Think of me. Your father. You must hold back the Demon King for the sake of Hyrule– no, for the sake of the world.”

The Princess winced at the force of her mother’s grip on her shoulders.

Solemnly, the little girl said, “I will.”

love me (and leave me to die)

chapter 1: yearning | ao3

For @zelinkcommunity Zelink Week 2023, prompt: yearning. Massive thank you to @hyylia for being my beta and encouraging my delusions

Rating: T

Summary: Princess Zelda is cruelly aware of her destiny, prophesied since a time Long, Long Ago. Though she gives herself to it wholly so that the Future may be peaceful, her destined Hero Link will do anything to save her.

Disclaimer: This fic contains references to major TotK spoilers.

Long Ago was so far away that the Hyrule of Now couldn’t place it in time. Too much had come to pass that they couldn’t decipher whether it was centuries, millennia, or eons, so instead they called it Long Ago. The Hyrule of Now was wary of the Hyrule Long Ago, a Hyrule deemed dangerous and riddled with fragile legends. Parents told their sleepy children bedtime stories of the monsters from Long Ago, history books dared not to address it out of fear of manifesting what had once been, and the Royal Family kept its closely guarded secrets about that time so Long Ago. Long, Long Ago, the king and queen of Hyrule faced a great threat. Its princess was tasked with an insurmountable feat she determined to be the only just solution. Long Ago, she

“sacrificed herself.” The Sheikah tutor rounded the table with a glum look. “In order to drive back the Demon King and support the Hero of the Long Ago, she forfeited her being.”

A small hand rose. The tutor gestured in acknowledgment.

“How?” asked the young, bright-eyed Princess Zelda of Hyrule, blonde curls settling as she tilted her head.

“An ancient mural indicated the princess of The Long Ago became a dragon. Such a feat is not expected of you in that regard.”

Zelda didn’t understand why Impa always looked so sad. When they played in the gardens together (after some begging), her teacher looked perfectly happy. Maybe she just didn’t like the classroom, disproportionately large for only two small desks, one each for the Princess and her Hero. The walls were lined with educational banners–literature, numbers, famous quotes–and one bore a giant chalkboard which Impa rarely wrote on. Princess Zelda wondered when they would finally learn arithmetic like all the other schoolkids.

Another little hand, another gesture.

“Where is she now?”

The voice was very quiet so that even from right beside him, Zelda could hardly hear Link.

In a voice almost equally small, Impa replied, “We don’t know.”

Keep reading on AO3

[bokettochild]

Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones

Angst! My Beloved!

Not a lot of whump here, but I put Wild through the wringer!!! Lots of BotW2 ideas and concepts here, but nothing really cannon.

Also, disclaimer: I think Flora is a wonderful person, a bit harsh and sometimes unkind, but I feel for her a lot. The prompt submitted to me however asked for her as an ass, so that's what's here, for angst reasons. THIS IS NOT HOW I PLAN ON WRITING HER NORMALLY!!!

When Wild left the Chain behind in the woods, it was with a soft smile and a hesitant wave of his right hand. It was with a gentle ‘See y’all later’ that made Warriors shake his head with a sigh while Twilight offered a wobbly grin.

He would join them again, he knew that. After all, Hylia wouldn’t have chosen him to go with them in the first place if he was only supposed to leave before they’d even really started to know what it was that they were meant to be doing.

He’d see them again, and he’d fall back into a routine with all of them, sparring with Warriors and teaching Hyrule to cook and shield surfing with Wind and learning to carve from Sky. He’d go back to sewing with Legend, to exploring with Hyrule, to learning the Ocarina with Time and teasing Twilight about his terrible singing. He could work with Four on the Sheikah Slate and experimenting with different plants he’d gathered. He would see them again, and he’d go back to being busy and smiling nearly every day.

For the time being however, he had to square his shoulders and harden his jaw as he stepped through the swirl of black that had repulsed all the others every time they tried to enter. He had to tame his mind and wild spirit and come to stand before the Princess of Hyrule in all of her stern glory and receive the scolding he was due for wandering off without permission.

He never had time to question what she meant by being gone for ‘two whole weeks’ before she was marching off towards the labs and explaining that there was a new task for them to complete.

Such a task was one that left in his mind no time for thoughts of his brothers save on the lonely nights in the sky when the islands above the clouds were silent save for the birds about him that reminded him of Sky, or when he ran across the forests and was reminded of the wolf that once ran at his side. And, alright, the tiny people in the grass and the fountains reminded him of Four and Hyrule. When the wind sang strong in his ears as he dove towards the earth from the highest places in the sky, he couldn’t help but envision a small hero whose laughter danced like the sea and who’s fingers mastered the currents of wind and sea both.

It was a lonely quest, just like his last before it, but somehow it was more painfully so, now that he knew what it was to have brothers at his side to catch a monster’s blade when he was too slow or to help him patch himself up afterwards. It was quiet when the Princess and he sat around the fires as night, she studying him as he sat still and stonelike as she worked.

The hand that had waved goodbye to his brothers now flickered green and ethereal in the night shades, iron bands clinging to the wisping appendage and acting as a bond to hold its form together. It was nothing like what he’d known or studied in the Sheikah technology, or even what he’d seen from the many worlds he’d traveled with the other, and it earned many a stare and twist of the lips from those he met and traded with during his journey.

The arm was only the first of many changes, it’s power seeping through his body and altering him before he even knew what was happening. He’d hated it at first, disliking how it changed him, made his eyes glow and his hair touch with the same ethereal shades, red bleeding through at the roots and earning him even more wary looks.

Ganon, in all his terrifying power, had been a surprising comfort during the quest, an aid to discovering his new abilities and training them to bend to his own will. The Princess had been wary of their relationship, but had accepted it when she saw what he learned to do, and every evening she would require a report of his newfound skills, as well as the occasional demonstration or examination.

It all came to an end both too soon and not soon enough.

Ganon was gone, as if he’d never been there at all, and the Princess was as cold as ever even after their second adventure at each other's sides. And now there was no use for the abilities that had fused to his soul like the arm had to his flesh. He’d asked Purah if there was something that could be done to restore his body to its normal Hylian state, without the glowing limb that earned his only stares and insults from the village people, but the Princess had overheard it and declared that such a thing should not even be attempted.

“You don’t understand, Link. Don’t be foolish! We have here a scientific marvel ready for our investigation and exploration and you want to get rid of it just because it looks odd?”

He’s shuffled his feet slowly, resisting the impulse to rub at his chest where the Hylian part of him ended and the eldritch horror began. “I can’t live like  Hylian anymore.”

“Because you aren’t one!” Her Highness rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Sir Knight, after everything I certainly doubt that Hylian even applies to you anymore! Hylians do not possess the qualities that you now do, and they most certainly do not travel through stone or time or any other such thing at will. Think would you! You’re something else entirely, and I intend to find out what that is!”

Purah had frowned at that, eyes full of sorrow as they met his own with an apologetic sigh. But there was nothing the de-aged scientist could really say against the royal Sovreign of Hyrule, not as a Sheikah sworn to the service of the royal family. The woman/girl had offered him a sympathetic pat on the head later after climbing up to reach high enough to do so, as well as a few dumplings that Paya had sent on her grandmother’s behalf the day before. It was a welcome gesture, but amounted to so little on the grand scale of life. Not when so many others he had once called his friends had so blatantly rejected the mere sight of him.

Bolson and the other carpenters shied away from him with harsh whispers as they spat insults across the distance.

‘Half-blood’.

‘Gerudo Bastard’.

‘Freak’.

‘Demon’.

There were favorite insults spread from stable to stable and up and coming village to up and coming town and slowly all of Hyrule knew of the monster that had once been the hero. Gossip abounded, and he couldn’t even turn to shield his face with his hood without drawing attention to his arm.

It was only the koroks that welcomed him, themselves all too accustomed to the strange and ethereal. Them and the blupees.

Maybe it was the knowledge of how it felt to be shot at for his oddness that allowed him to ease into the graces of the flighty animals. And maybe it was his lonely heart crying for comfort, but when nestled in their midst, it almost reminded him of how it felt to be hugged by the salty veteran, on the rare occasional that the pink-haired hero had let down his guard.

The fairy’s tangled themselves in his hair and the blupees gathered at his feet, koroks dancing around him and flying to his side as if he was some sort of forest god, but the strange rise of his spirits in their presence shattered the instant a traveler caught sight of him.

Arrows and fire, once his favorite of weapons, were turned against him as words in every language of the New Hyrule had burst from the mouths of its people, and like his namesake, he ran before them, darting through the forest and fading in amidst the trees, hiding, incorporeal and translucent within the halls of the forest as those he’d once seen as allies pushed him away.

He’d begged the new Queen for aid, for relief or even just a word to the people that he wasn’t the evil they had come to think he was, but she only waved him aside with a purse of her lips. “You are not meant to be here without first asking.” The Child of Hylia declared, eyes as cold as the Shrine’s waters themself. “And why should I make a declaration on behalf of a man who refuses to even speak to me properly? You come groveling like a worm, yet for years it was I who you ignored. See how it feels, Sir Hero, to be the one left helpless at the hands of the country. Know what it is to be scorned by those who you thought would love you.”

He’d barely made it out of the window before the trainee guards of the newly repaired Hyrule Castle had caught him and Queen Zelda Diana Hyrule had stared after him with eyes colder than Hebra’s tallest peaks.

It was the Father Tree -the Deku Tree as the Queen had called it, but the koroks laughed at him for using the name, so he’d adjusted in kind- who suggested that he hide the changes, and he’d begun to wander Hyrule as much as possible to find the materials he would have needed.

The Queen still required his presence regularly so she could inspect him; her love of science no ways tainted as to stop her from ordering him to appear regularly, as there was now no need or safety in his acting as her guard. The Queen sought her people’s respect, and to employ such a being as himself, not Hylian and not quite mortal, would be to spark fear in the people. Indeed, when he skirted villages, he would wince at word of ‘the queen’s monster’ as gossip was traded. Those who didn’t see him themselves knew him as a beast of feral nature who lived amid the lost woods and destroyed any who came close.

“A specter that glows with the light of the shrines.” They would tell each other over campfires. “It has eyes like a ghost, empty and lost, with no care for humanity or Hylia’s chosen. They say it was once the Hero of this world, but he died ages ago.”

“I heard it’s the body, possessed by a being beyond this realm, a monster escaped from the edges of reality that tried to hide in our midst but corrupted it’s host so that it only scares away others, leaving it roam the earth in a shattered body. If you get too close to it though, it’ll take your instead.”

He’d stayed away from towns after that.

The blupees and koroks had been happy to help him to find what he needed to hide among the Hylians should he wish though, and two in particular guided him; the korok swinging little twigs like they were batons and humming swinging little shanties as it hopped along the path, the blupee snorting softly and nipping at his heels when he wandered too far, unnatural purple eyes staring up at him with something that was fondness and a reprimand all at once, and in their care he’d made his way across the land of Hyrule to find what would be needed to return to his once life.

The fairies and their Great cousins had been welcome help, and in time, he’d been able to walk amid the populace of Hyrule like any other, as long as he kept a long cloak about him and his hair pulled back to hide where the roots would begin showing again in gold and ethereal blue.

Once Hyrule had talked about needing to hide in his world, about the curse that followed him and made the Hylian people afraid. He’d thought it bizarre and ridiculous of the people at the time, but now he understood what it was to live it.

When the portal opened beneath his feet the day that the Queen had reprimanded him for concealing and potentially damaging the strange limb, startling the Skeikah scientists and Queen both, he’d nearly cried tears of relief.

He was going away, somewhere where he wasn’t a science project and where, unless they traveled to his world’s future, no one would know how much he had changed. His copy of the slate had enough hair dye to last him a few months, and he was certain he could make more over time, and as long as he continued wearing the tunics and gloves the fairies had helped him to adjust to hide the glow the others would probably never catch on. Or well, he could extend it anyway.

His brothers greeted him with open arms and teary eyes, and in a strange parallel to his adventure, he found himself thinking of blupees when Legend had curled against him, stiff and cold on the outside, but with fingers that clutched his tunic just a bit too tight to really be reluctant. And Four, Hyrule and Wind’s exuberant hugs and chatter brought to mind tiny forest people and koroks with twigs for batons.

It was good to be home.

It was good to cook for other people again, and they were glad to have him cook for them, even if his fondness for both Gerudo spiced dishes and fae like sweet things had increased exponentially during his newest adventure. It was good to fight at their sides, even if it was strange to once again have to take others into account before he could select a weapon. It was good to sit around a fire and talk with the others too, but that was perhaps the hardest one; it had been ages since he’d had a proper two-way conversation with anything other than a tree or a korok, and neither of those was good at either staying awake or staying focused for very long.

There were some harder things to adjust to though. Fire, for one. Unlike before when he’d have been happy to burn an enemy camp to the ground, now he was wary of using faming weapons or spreading heat further than necessary. The same went for hunting; he couldn’t bring himself to shoot an animal unless it attacked first or they needed the meat it would provide, and even then, he felt a bit bad for doing so. Is this what Twilight had felt like? Is this why the rancher never liked hunting? Because he too knew what it was like to be on the other end of the bow?

But the hardest thing by far to readjust to was his name.

‘Wild’ they had called him again, and after months of ‘the wild one’, ‘wild beast’, ‘monster’ and every other insult, slur or title that had been used on him, it made him flinch ever so slightly at the words. And unlike the other things where his brothers dismissed it as a change caused by his adventure or an increase of maturity, it was something that the others seemed to either not notice or to excuse as situational.

He had adapted though, learned to keep a smile on his face where blankness had once been required in his knightly duties, and the more he wore the mask the easier it was to put on again.

He’d reveled in traveling across time again, in dancing through battles and exploring the world without the Queen reprimanding him in her cold tones to stop wandering off. He’d pushed himself to learn more music in the last adventure, and even if his experience was more with what few instruments Ganon had had time to help him learn, he’d enjoyed sitting down with the others and borrowing one or another instrument to play a tune and sometimes he even got to sing.

He fell to comfortably into his role though, even with the changes, and he hadn’t even noticed when they’d come back to his world. To be fair, it was different in the daytime, and Hyrule had changed so much in the absence of her hero as he hid himself away from the eyes of civilization. Towns and roads had sprung up where there had only been fields before, and the Guardians that had littered the land had all been dug up and hauled to the castle to be either restored or destroyed by the Sheikah, depending on what Queen Zelda decided after she looked at them herself. The world was so different to him, so unlike that which he knew, that he’d failed to keep as alert as he ought to have been when he wandered about an open market with the others, laughing and chattering away with the other younger ones as Time and Legend herded them towards the needed stalls.

It was a traveler that was his downfall, a man who’d seen the Monster Hero and had been among the first to discover the disguise he wore.

No questions were asked when the word spread, and Wild hadn’t caught on to the whispers until a stone had struck his cheek and he was stumbling forwards on the path.

“Wild!” Twilight was at his side in a minute, Time right after him as Legend launched a barrage of insults at the guilty party who’d thrown the thing.

“’m fine.” He was careful to wipe the blood away with his cloak, holding the fabric to the wound to prevent bluish blood seeping down his face and exposing him to his brothers. He wanted to keep them as long as possible and proving himself to be a monster, not even Hylian, would surely have them turning their backs on him.

“Get away from him!” A woman scolded, grabbing ahold of two of the younger heroes while several other shoppers had like ways grabbed Legend and Sky. “Are you dears alright? He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

“Freaking what?” Legend shrieked. “Who’s the injured party here?”

“I’d avoid that thing, son.” A man huffed through a frankly walrus like mustache, eyes hard as they trailed to where Wild stood, cloak still pressed to his cheek as he attempted to wave off a fussing Twilight and Time. “It’s not natural. Sure, it looks like a normal Hylian, but that’s just an effective ruse.”

Another villager nodded. “It’s one of the Calamity’s puppets, a Gerudo-Bastard set on destroying the kingdom!”

“He’s the freaking hero!” Legend shrieked, barely being held back by a steely eyed Sky. “He saved all your freaking asses and all you can do is insult his flipping guts? Who’s the-”

“Enough.” There were few times that Sky’s voice reached levels worse than Twilight’s growls, but the stern command, regal and firm, froze all present as the man stiffened with a cold nod towards the villagers. “I see we are unwelcome here, and with that being the case it would be wise to spend our rupees elsewhere. Legend,” A tug to the boy’s shoulders. “Let’s join the others and be out of their hair. If they cannot be welcoming and kind to our brother than they will not receive our patronage.” And like a swan gathering it’s cygnets, Sky swept down the street, cape fluttering as he ushered the rest of them out of the town and back to the safety of the wilds. The village stared after them with wide eyes, as if they’d just been judged by a breathing god.

The stiffness in Sky’s shoulders faded as they neared the edge of the forest, and instantly the Chosen Hero been tutting over Wild, gently but firmly prying his hand away from his face with a kind smile that almost set Wild at ease. Almost.

“It’s fine, it’s just a scrape.”

“Still.” Sky crooned softly. “I’d rather we clean it up now and make sure it’s nothing worse than let it sit and get infected later.”

And though he’d tried to fight, his single Hylian hand was no match for the firm grip of the Skyloftian, and within minutes his face was exposed to the shocked faces and flickering eyes of his brothers.

“It’s blue...” Wind breathed as Hyrule darted forwards, hands already glowing softly only for them to stutter to a stop over Wild’s skin.

“It’s... Wild, why is your blood- why is-” The healer’s eyes had flickered golden for a moment, wide as they stared up at him. “What happened to you-”

“What the freak!” Legend had startled, blinking in surprise as he stared. “Your eyes are glowing!”

Shit! The healing properties of the arm had already taken affect and it was making everything act up all weird! He shot a glance down at his arm, one hand raising to tangle in the long hair he couldn’t even see at the moment, praying silently beneath his breath that nothing was showing through. It wasn’t, but that didn’t change how Hyrule had come to fixate on his right arm, or how the healer's fingers hovered over it sparking and eyes twinkling as he whispered softly under his breath.

“Wild.” Time had sighed. “I think this one is going to need an explanation.”

All the breath left his lung in instants.

He’d panicked to say the least and Time had eventually shooed the others away to make camp as the eldest hero had sat at his side, waiting silently for him to regulate his breathing. Touch was too much right now, and any attempts from the others to ease him down or help him level out his breathes had only made him panic more. But when at last his blue eyes blinked back to clarity it was to see Time sitting at his side, a gentle tune wafting from the Ocarina at his lips.

“I’m sorry.” He whispered, trying his hardest not to startle Time or otherwise make the situation worse. “I should have said something, I know. I just- missed being Wild and I wanted to come back and be normal and I didn’t want to-”

“It’s alright.” Time’s voice rumbled softly, a single blue eye turning to him with a pained look, even as the man offered him a hint of a smile. “None of us talk about our adventures either.”

“Yes, but you’re people.” He sighed, rubbing the fingers of his glove together. “You’re allowed to choose things.”

There was pain in Time’s voice when their leader answered. “And you’re not?”

“I’m not Hylia anymore.” He whispered. “I don’t count.”

“You count to us.”

“That’s because you don’t know.”

Time shifted, turning to face him fully as the ocarina was set firmly in the grass. “That’s because you’re family and we care. Wild, I don’t care if Demise himself named you the king of the dead, you’re still my kid and Nayru knows I’m not going to let you go without a fight. If that means fighting you, alright, but you’d best better believe that no amount of physical or mental changes will break the bonds we all have with you.”

Something, something damaged and crushed and stitched up and torn open again clenched inside of him, tears pricking at his eyes as he stared up at Time’s royal blue gaze. “W-what?”

“You could be granted godhood, made a monster, I don’t care. You’re ours and you’ll have to deal with that.” Time smiled, warm even with the pain in his eyes as he looked down at him. “So how about you start again, maybe with the facts rather than the insults. Or,” Time softened, brows furrowing lightly. “If you want, we can just sit here and you can choose to talk about this later. We do need to know, so we can help you and keep you safe, but you don’t have to tell us right now. You can take some time to figure out what you want to say if you need.”

And, well, shoot him, but Time’s arms had always been a safe place and there was one thing he’d wanted more than anything since he had come back. Wild threw himself into his grand-mentor's arms with a soft sob, clutching tightly to the other, ignoring the armor and its sharp points and awkward shapes as he tried to hold back all the emotions swirling in his chest.

Time’s arms folding around him broke the floodgates though, and when the man’s hand had stroked through his shortened hair, he’d had to bury his face in Tim’s neck to muffle his sobs.

“There, there,” Time hummed softly, rocking slowly as he held the broken wild hero. “Let it out, little one. I have you, I’ve got you and I’m not letting anyone hurt you.”

[lampmanliveblogs]

Pictured: Luz, about to bite the Brass Watchman’s nose as revenge that one time when he threatened to kill King.

No, of course not. Lux is a good person, she wouldn’t leave someone to die. Even if he is a prick.

Side Note: Where are they? This place is full of weird golden bubbles and rocks with strange holes.

(I just realized the typo I made, calling Luz Lux... it happens sometimes. Funny thing though is that Luz is a unit for measuring illuminance)

This made me laugh out loud.

Turns out, I wasn’t too far off with the whole ”bite his nose” thing, except she chose to slap him instead. Probably a good thing too. Look at that mask with only two small slits for the eyes, the cape, gloves and heavy clothes he’s wearing. On the Boiling Isles. Emphasis on Boiling. You can not convince me he isn’t covered in sweat and reeks.

Are those skulltulas? From the Legend of Zelda games? That must’ve been a loooooong fall for them to end up all the way in Hyrule. 

Insert joke based on your favorite LoZ game here:___________________.

The village they’ve found themselves in is called Latissa and here is its police precinct, of course run by the Emperor’s Coven. This is where the captain Kikimora was talking to said they were headed… which might mean our Brassless Watchman here is headed straight into a trap.

I also wanna take another look at the background in this scene. We’ve seen more boulders and rocks with holes in them, and here we some very large rock formations with similar holes. The ones behind the police station here appear to have been fitted with bars to act as jail cells. They don’t look like they’ve been drilled or dug out though.

Surprise, surprise, a kid showing up to a police station claiming to be a superior office isn’t taken seriously by anyone. The Golden Guard demands his staff, which Luz refuses to give up (which is fair; you did threaten to kill her like… fifteen minutes, tops). This results in a chase, which had me asking the same question Luz is now asking.

Hey, GG, why don’t you just… use your magic? Some immobilization spell, that binding spell you used before, a fireball, a barrier, portals, or just calling your staff to you like we’ve seen other witches do. Is it because you’re related to Belos (who is the human Philip Wittbane) and therefore you’re part human (witch hybrid judging by the ears) and can’t use magic without your staff?

I seem to recall he’s always been holding his staff when he’s used magic before, although I could be wrong. I’d go back to S2E1 and check to be sure, but like… I don’t feel like it, so

[bahbahhh]

@zelinkweekofficial

Also on A03

In which Link finally witnesses how brutal Zelda really has it.

Another zelink week prompt selfishly set in the story of The Killing Moon so I can continue to flesh out parts of the story that won’t fit into the plot. I knew I wanted to eventually dive a little deeper into Zelda’s training in BOTW when I wrote the memory in chapter 3. This is an expansion on the original passage.

[edit - author’s note] there is a very tiny nod to @blueskittlesart brilliant comic because I am one thousand percent onboard with a origin story where something as innocent as a Korok is the thing that leads the way to the destruction of life as Link knows it and the *resentment* that follows. We all know I love a hero who struggles. This fandom is so ridiculously talented. I want to share every piece of art that moves me with everyone. I am in constant awe. I just love it here, guys.

--

There is a beetle on his boot. 

It has been there for the better part of an hour, occasionally lifting two green half shells to flutter paper thin wings. Link is balanced against the massive cathedral on the Great Plateau with his arms crossed, waiting for the doors next to him to peel open with a groan. She disappeared into the Temple with an audience of priests shortly before sunrise. 

The shade has started to thin under the glare of direct sunlight. He is overdue for another perimeter survey. No one told him how long this would take, just that, as with all of the sacraments meant to awaken her Power, his attendance is forbidden. 

He startles the beetle into flight by shaking out his legs and moves in a slow circle about himself, adjusting the Sword on his back. Zelda won’t tell him what happens during these ceremonies. She tries when he asks but her voice kind of catches in her throat and dies whenever she starts to talk about it. He used to wonder if it was because she thought he was too ignorant to understand but as her resentment toward him wanes, Link realizes her silence is a blend of superstition and crippling shame.

Ever since she was a young girl, she's gone through rigorous daily routines to show her dedication.

The Royal Episcopate has always regarded him suspiciously despite the King’s enthusiasm. He told Link they initially counseled against his appointment for fear he might pose a distraction to Zelda’s training. King Rhoam reiterated his confidence in Link’s loyalty to the protection of the Realm but much like anything the King said to him, it felt like a warning wrapped carefully in a bow.

The truth is they have every reason to worry. But it isn’t Zelda who risks distraction. No matter how fervidly she throws herself into research from the moment she opens her eyes, her hands always end the day in devotion. She has never once declined a recommendation of liturgy. 

It is him. Despite his reticence since his appointment, from the moment he saw her at the garrison the day he was called to service, Link has slowly been giving into temptation.

Granted, this is not new behavior, not the first time he’s consciously danced around the rules. He was strictly prohibited from participating in the Mikau Eisteddfod during his time with the Zora. He ended up dancing with Mipha his second year and won the sapphire earrings he still wears today. 

He knowingly trespassed in the Lost Woods shortly after; a crime punishable by death. Korok Forest hadn’t even been his original destination. He was trying to reach the Typhlo Ruins on a dare. Mipha refused to speak to him for a week when she heard what he’d done. 

The fog swallowed him up and spit him back out until nightfall. It was only when he took up a torch and noticed the flames that he found the Path. Burning embers in the wind and the tiny spirit they led to changed his life forever.

So much of who he is comes from when he has chosen to ignore the rules. 

Only now does he even try. Link tries to keep his distance. He tries to honor his duty, first. He tries to resist the gravity he feels whenever she gets too near. 

But the more he learns about her, the stronger the pull. 

Deep chanting permeates the stone behind him. A drum beats slow and flat. He rolls his jaw, turning to retreat into the forest before pivoting on his heel and scaling the side of the Temple like a ladder. The remainder of the Royal Guard is with the Sheikah at the dig site. No one can climb like him. If by some chance he’s spotted, he can easily justify his actions with a lie about scouting vantage points in case of a Yiga raid.

He maneuvers himself under a gothic buttress and hides behind the busy geometric tracery of the southernmost window.  Through the gleam of crimson stained glass, it is a scene out of the Old World. She’s on her knees in front of the Goddess statue surrounded by hooded figures. Their faces are hidden but he can tell they are the ones chanting, their arms outstretched in a circle. Incense burns from three glowing points around her, flooding the room with smoke. Zelda’s hands are clasped over her head, fixed at an unnatural angle from the wrist. He can see her shaking from where he is perched, her entire body trembling with effort. A web of glowing sans script webs over her from beneath the smoke. It pulses bright against her skin; a deep breath on hot coals. Through the monotone song and drumbeat, he makes out a curious and faint hissing. He thinks of raw meat sizzling on a pan and bile coats his tongue.

The spell is burning her.

Link grits his teeth, fist white-knuckled against stone. Zelda arches back with a gasp, causing the magic to flash golden amber.  He pictures her gagging on her words when he asks her, invisible pain searing hot across her skin at the mere memory of it. 

He will never ask her about this again.

She opens her eyes and immediately finds him. Whatever they are trying to unlock in her vibrates inside him. He sees the lidless eye of Death Mountain shut, Roila Spring’s knife edge fray, the doorway to the Lost Woods clicks shut, the spiral of Rist Peninsula cracks like a whip, a thousand underground tombs with cubes of incandescent technology blink to life.

Zelda’s gaze takes him to places far across Time in a single instant. The fatigue behind her eyes evaporates, eyebrows furrowing with resolve. She snaps her head down and cries out with a hundred voices. The spell shatters into a thousand tiny slivers of light. It creates a shockwave that blows out the glass of every window in the Temple. He jerks back and loses his grip, skidding down the side of the Temple to the earth. He’s lost fingernails but he doesn’t pause, instead, he sprints back to the entrance, swatting glass and debris out of his hair.

He will not be the reason she is punished further.  

Link is able to calm his breathing by the time the doors open. The priests disappear in the direction of camp nonchalantly. Like they did not just witness the Hand of the Goddess making a fist. Maybe they couldn’t see. He moves to follow them, assuming she is lost somewhere in the crowd when fingers just barely catch his.

Turmeric and oil stain her cheeks. She smells like the sage and smoke and whatever else is needed for the Temple’s auspicious ritual. She’s paler than snow on Hebra Peak.  

He hates it. He hates what they do to her.

He hates that he can’t save her from this.

Dust plumes up from a cliff in the distance. They must have found a new Shrine. The King recently sanctioned excavations on The Great Plateau in hopes it might unearth anything to bring her closer to unlocking her Sacred Power. 

But Link’s not looking at that at all. 

He’s looking at their hands.  They know better than to do this and yet, he still sweeps his hand up to her face and feathers her cheek. She leans into the touch. He is the distraction and the distracted. 

He knows he can be devastating to her but he can’t help himself.  

Behind her, a figure sinks back into shadow. Long white hair knotted out of her strict face. An unblinking painted eye grants them a moment longer before breaking the spell, alerting them to her approach with heavier than necessary footsteps. Link snaps away from Zelda and folds his arms behind his back. Zelda begins working at the paste on her skin with the slack in her gown. 

Impa steps forward to cradle her. “Hopefully they’ve found something useful this time. Let’s get you into a bath, hm?”

A vow passes wordlessly between them. 

She will never step foot in the Temple again. 

[starwarsloverpizza]

Magic - 3

Link x Reader/(Y/N)

Word count: 1055

Warnings: Cursing, death

Other notes: Again, again, before the calamity! Please read the previous parts before this. Gender neutral-ish. Enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You are a good fighter, being able to take down Link and Revali,” Said Mipha. In the few minutes she had been healing you, you had come to like the Zora.

“Thank you! Is Revali his name? Why do I feel like that fits him perfectly?” You asked with a smile. Mipha chuckled as she finished her healing. 

“You’ll be fine, just rest. Do not push yourself at all otherwise that wound in your side will open again,” She said before she walked off. When she was out of sight you leaned closer to Link, who had refused to leave your side .

“I have no place to rest, but I can lay on the floor though,” You joked as Link stroked your hair.

“Come to my chambers with me, you can rest there until you’re feeling better,” He said as he helped you to stand. It took you a while to walk better, but you guys began to walk to the castle gates within a matter of minutes. The palace was massive, you were happy to have Link there because if you had tried to navigate the castle alone you would be incredibly lost. The magic took you to a flashback to an era called Link to the Past, the castle was so easy to navigate back then! It took you two a while to get to his chambers because you were barely getting along. Eventually you guys got there, and you looked around. It was simple, plain actually.

“So this is where you live?” You asked as Link sat you down at the foot of his bed.

“No, I just have a room here for being a knight. I’ve never slept here before, I quite dislike it honestly,” He answered. 

“How come?” You asked. He looked at you with a sly smile.

“Would you choose to live here?” He asked you.

“No, not at all. Even if Zelda didn’t try to kill me today,” You replied. Link nodded his head as he went into another room. You sat on the bed and thought about the day's previous events. Nearly being murdered, fighting Revali, fighting Link, many things had happened. Link, he kept popping into your head, then you remembered what had happened with the sword, how he had protected you from Zelda, how he stayed by your side when you were dying. He was so nice to someone he had just met, someone he didn’t know anything about. The more you thought about him, the more you blushed. You then leaned back and smiled, you were in love for the first time. And you were also convinced that he liked you too. Your smile grew at the thought of that. Link came back into the room and you were lucky your blush had cleared just moments before. 

“Sorry, I needed to check on something. I brought us some food so we could eat before you rest,” He said with a sweet smile.

“Thank you Link.” You said as you grabbed your plate of food. You inspected it carefully and saw it was expertly made. Link sat at a desk not too far from you.

“Holy shit, did you make this?” You asked. Link nodded, his mouth was full. You tried a bite yourself and it felt as if you were reborn. Link laughed at the look of amazement on your face. You smiled but kept eating, it was too good to stop. After you two devoured your plates, Link and you kept telling each other about your lives. Link said he was 17 years old, and you explained to him that he, and Zelda, and Ganon had been reincarnated around 18 times, each thousands of years in between.

“Well, what about you? What role have you and your family played?” Link asked. That got your thinking.

“Well, my family does have their own Sheikah plate, but that's only 10k years old. I can assume my family has been assisting you and Zelda for the past 180k years,” You explained with some quick mathematical calculations. 

“And for how long has Zelda hated me for the last 180k years?” Link asked. You looked back into your magic until you came up with an answer.

“She has hated you for about 85% of the last 19 ‘games’,” You answered once you pulled out the memories.

“Well I expected it to be more,” Link said, causing you to laugh. “However, why do you refer to it as ‘games’?” He continued. 

“Well, think about it. The same hero, Link, has been reincarnated constantly for the past 180k years. And every time he has beaten Ganon. It seems like a game in some ways, don’t you think?” You explained. Link took a moment to think this over, and eventually he nodded his head. You two sat in a moment of silence as you each soaked up information.  

“Oh, I have an idea! Gimme your hand,” You said with a bright smile on your face. Link laughed.

“Why?” He asked.

“I assume if I link with a person, especially you, I can see the role we each played in the last thousands of years,” You explained. Link nodded and held out his hand to you. You took his hand into yours, and you two linked fingers. You smiled softly to him before you activated your magic. You two saw different things, but you each saw what each other saw. 

You saw what happened yesterday. Your parents ruthlessly murdered. It wasn’t always by the Yiga, sometimes it was from castle guards that were possessed, or bandits, or whatever the heck else. You had always ended up meeting a Link. Sometimes, you just see him in the market. In other times, you two were childhood friends, and so on and so forth.

Link saw the two of you in every life. Not every time did you two interact, but every time you had contributed to his life more than he could’ve imagined. In times you had trained him to the point of perfection. Other times you said nothing, but somehow brought him away from the point of death.

Both of you saw something in pretty much every game. The same thing, but each time a bit different. From the way Link’s hair was parted, or where it happened. But seeing this changed both of your lives for the better.

[science-lings]

character ask game with botw link?

One aspect that I love: I really love how purposefully androgynous they made this version of Link. With every other version of the character all of their voice lines consist of wordless yelling and stuff like that (aside from WW Link's meow), but botw Link laughs and has a noticeably lighter/ higher voice than the rest of them. Not to mention his character model is very short and made to make him look gnc af. also there's a whole major part of his quest that relies on him being able to pass as a girl and he blushes when he's called cute in the clothes BC IT'S NOT DEMEANING TO DRESS FEMININELY!!!

One aspect that I wish more people understood: I think people don't think hard enough about his lack of emotions in the cutscenes, they literally explain why he's like that, why he doesn't talk and everything. He's supposed to be seen as cold and unfeeling because it shows how different he is after the Shrine of Resurrection. He has snarky dialogue and he gets excited to cook and he can shield surf when before the Calamity it's so obvious that he's this soldier trained from childhood to reject his emotions and do what's needed of him.

One (or more) headcanons I have: There is no way that this little dude is cishet. I refuse to believe it. But I can't decide on my favorite gender headcanon for him but I usually default to him being genderfluid. I do really love ftm and mtf trans headcanons and nonbinary headcanons for him too. I think he deserves all of the gender. I also like to put him on the aroace spectrum, but at that point I'm mostly projecting. I just think it's funny that in game there are so many girls who are attracted to him and he just... doesn't understand at all. Like Mipha and Zelda and Paya and the arrow lady all write in their diaries about him and I think it would be fun if he just didn't get the hint at all.

One character I'd love to see them interact with: Outside of his game? I think he and Midna would commit crimes together and it would be funny. Also I really like it when things like fanart and fics include TP Link because he's there as Wolf Link and I think it would've been nice if he could turn Hylian in the game to teach him things but instead he's a dog who kills everything that he sees and gives me a heart attack while distracting guardians. This dog makes me way more anxious when fighting bigger monsters.

One character I wish they'd interact with/ interact with more: Riju, 100%. I think they should've added the fact that he had a family to the game including a little sister who Riju subconsciously reminds him of so it would be nice if they had added some big bro moments with him. You know that they would get along to the detriment of Buliara.

One or more headcanons I have that involve them and one other character: Him and Zelda have the same amount of cryptid nerd energy. Like they both had some before the Calamity, she tried to make him eat a frog and he literally ate rocks and kicked the asses of full grown knights at the age of four, but Post-Calamity? after he had been resurrected and she had spent a hundred years fused with the goddess? They're both fully weird now and they don't care what other people think of them at all. They also have different flavors of inhuman-ness. Like hers is more divine and ancient and powerful and his is more wild and monstrous and new. If that makes sense. Idk he's the nature spirit that connects with animals and strange creatures and plants and she's connected to the goddess so she has dreams of the future and sees everything differently than everyone else. They're weird and its super obvious.

[total-drama-disaster-gays]

Unlikely total drama friendships headcanons?

*cracks knuckles* ahh one of my favorite tropes.

Lindsay and Team Escope:

How it happened: Lindsay helped them (and Owen) de-escalate a situation between Izzy and some Bath and Body Works employees (something about Izzy trying to set fire to all the candles because it was candle day). Owen and Izzy invited her to spend the rest of the day with them, to which she said yes.

Izzy likes having her around because Lindsay is very forgetful so she gets to tell her the same stories over and over and Lindsay will still react to them. It’s a different reaction every time.

Noah at first refused this new addition, but she’s nice to Owen and Izzy and she wasn’t afraid of Eva so he had to begrudgingly let her stay. After she helped him on a Legend of Zelda level once, Noah decided he liked having her around too. Sometimes they’ll call each other when they’re stuggling in games; Noah knows how to avoid unnecessary fights or how to make them easier and Lindsay helps him recognize puzzles. (You can read more about gamer!Lindsay here).

At first Eva just liked her because she’s big gay™️, but after she casually mentioned a wrestling match she had next weekend, Lindsay immediately asked where it was. She showed up early with a cute little sign saying “Go Eva!”. She’s shown up to every one of Eva’s matches and weightlifting competitions without fail. Eva refuses to admit she finds it cute, but she does tell Lindsay she appreciates her every now and again (Owen says she needs to work on telling people that).

The gang has several matching shirts including shirts for Noah, Eva, and Izzy that say “if lost or arrested return to bail money” and shirts for Lindsay and Owen that say “I’m bail money”

Jo and Lightning

Say it with me, kids: lesbian/jock solidarity.

Once the show was over, Lightning called Jo a dude again and she finally yelled “for FUCKS sake Lightning, I’m not a dude, I’m just a butch lesbian!”. Lightning just stood in shock for a minute, then he apologized. Jo just laughed and gave him her number and told him they should get together some day.

The first time they hung out, Lightning was wearing a dress shirt and khakis and looked more like he was going to a movie premier than meeting a friend for coffee while Jo wore her trademark sweatsuit. Fashion Icon Lightning™️ couldn’t let this slide so he dragged her ass to a mall so she could wear something with a little more flair✨ (“Lightning can’t be seen with no bum!” “hEY”)

Come on, this guy has a super bowl champion father and a trophy wife mom, you can NOT tell me that he doesn’t dress well and take care of himself religiously.

Lightning helped Jo come to the realization that self care doesn’t always mean looking feminine and wearing makeup, it means listening to your body and making sure it’s healthy in all aspects, not just physical strength. She had nothing but respect for him after that.

They go to each other’s games and matches whenever they can and they meet up once a week to train together. Once a month they’ll go on a mall trip where Lightning critiques people passing by on their outfits while Jo checks out girls (Lightning is too oblivious to notice and help her).

Gwen and Geoff:

Geoff held up on his promise after season one finished filming and he invited Gwen to one of his parties.

To Geoff’s surprise, Gwen is fantastic at beer pong and she can absolutely drink him under a table. He made the mistake of trying to go drink for drink with her to see where her limits were for future parties; Gwen ended up half dragging him to a couch midway through the night so that way he wouldn’t keep drinking.

The next time they hang out, Geoff brings her to a skate park with DJ and Duncan and he tries to teach her how to skateboard (DJ had roller skates and Duncan was on a bmx bike). For the most part, Gwen held her own but she busted her ass when she tried to go down a ramp. She told Geoff that she’ll stick to painting boards instead of riding them.

Most times when they hang out, Geoff gets Gwen to do some random activity with him with varied success. For example: Gwen sucked at surfing with him and Bridgette, but she was fantastic at mini golf (“how the fuck are you so good at golf?” “Cody rambled to me for 40 minutes once about angles and physics in sports”).

They don’t spend a lot of time together, but when they do, it’s an absolute blast and they’re ready to set up their next hang out as soon as the first one ends.

Sorry this took so long, I hope you enjoy them!!

[fatefulfaerie]

A Century Apart Part 1/2

Kakariko without the stench of blood in the air was frankly sickening to Zelda’s lungs. 

She had trouble breathing in the air that took so long to clear, that had forgotten the war of a century prior, that was normal to an entire country of people that had become accustomed to a post-apocalyptic Hyrule. 

When she had first arrived here, Link draped as best as she could manage over his horse, she was frankly overwhelmed with nausea, some of it due to her worry at Link collapsing moments after an unanswered question, some of it due to the blood caked on his tunic, and some of it due to her terrible, terrible, stomach twisting guilt for making it here alive. 

It was night now, and the twelve hours that Link spent recuperating in his slumber had felt to Zelda like an entire week. She tossed around a circular slice of orange carrot as she sat with worry twinging her heart. Normally sitting on the floor to eat as the Sheikah were accustomed to would have made her back hurt, but she paid little mind to her back.

Impa cleared her throat, and so Zelda looked up and across the table. The noise was so familiar that she almost expected to see the Impa she knew, in her twenties and incredibly agile.

Yet this Impa had eyes that had aged, eyes that had faded from a red as bright as cranberries to a hazel, a common side effect of Sheikah aging.

“You’ve hardly touched your food,” Impa said, wrinkles and all, her face more spotted and much more round nowadays. “I know the carrots aren’t your absolute favorite but you always used to love when I made Seafood Rice Balls.”

Zelda nodded, and faked a small smile, although it came off as a simple pursing of her lips.

“Yeah, I…I remember,” she muttered quietly as she tore away her glance, looking back down at her plate. The scientist within her knew that she was, in fact, hungry and needed food to sustain herself, yet the princess with her wasn’t quite ready for such indulgence, for such luxury. 

She began with a carrot.

It was soft, obviously well-cooked as her teeth bit upon food for the first time in a hundred years. It was buttered and salted and spiced with something she didn’t recognize, something they wouldn’t have typically served at the castle.

She almost forgot how to swallow as the chewed-up orange mush threatened to trail down her throat, but she gulped the single slice of carrot down nonetheless. 

It felt strange, eating, and it felt strange that it felt strange.

She could tell Impa was watching her eat, especially as she dove the chopsticks into the Rice Balls that, over a hundred years, she forgot she missed.

“When was the last time Link was in Kakariko?” Zelda asked, reacquainting herself with the texture and taste of the white rice, the seasoned fish on top of it, the leafy seaweed around it. She didn’t dare to meet Impa’s glance.

“About a week ago,” Impa said. “He came to restock, as he does occasionally. It wasn’t a long visit, though. I suppose he had places to be.”

Zelda nodded, using the cloth napkin on her lap to wipe away any stray particles of food from her mouth. It was almost an instinct, the way she was trained to always be proper, the way her back was straight were she sat, the way she refused to let herself be and just put her elbows on the table. Paya obviously had no problem with it when she ate earlier. Zelda envied her casual manner, living decades upon decades away from a kingdom.

Zelda didn’t expect Impa to reach out and grab her hand, and thus she almost ripped her hand away she was so unaccustomed to it. Zelda looked up.

“He is going to be okay,” Impa insisted slowly and calmly with eyes aged with wisdom. Zelda had no choicest to truly trust them. “He pushed himself very hard to save Hyrule and to bring you back. I would wager he hasn’t slept in days…and the injuries he ignored, well, it’s about time they caught up to him.”

“S-sorry to interrupt,” Paya stammered. Zelda didn’t even hear her come back down the stairs. “It…it’s Link.”

“What’s wrong?” Zelda asked standing up completely panicked. “Is he okay?”

“Oh gosh I shouldn’t have phrased it like that,” Paya said. “He’s fine, he’s just stirring. You said you wanted to be there when he woke up?”

“Yes,” Zelda said, nodding, her hand lightly fisted at her chest. “Y-yes, of course. Please lead the way.”

He didn’t look any different when Zelda finished the last steps of the stairs, Link coming into view. His face was still terribly scratched up and bruised. The only difference now was that Paya had-and she would have to ask later how a Sheikah could be so stealthy as to wrap a person’s chest without waking them up-dressed Link in bandages to brace his broken ribs. There was a fair amount of blood on the bed from the gash on his leg, but it seemed to be well-sewn up now, the wound cleaned and covered with a fresh bandage. There was also a half-empty bottle of a familiar dark purple elixir, a common painkiller among Hylians. Zelda used to use it for headaches.

She could she the way his blue eyes had begun to shine through eyelids. The room was dark, lighted only with candles that smelled of lavender and honey. It seemed so long ago that they had brought Link in, Zelda suggesting they keep the main lanterns in the room doused so that Link could perhaps sleep sounder.

“Link?” She asked as she stepped forward, the combination of her lack of stealth and her thin brown sandals making the wooden floor creak.

She knelt at his bedside and repeated her query.

“Link,” she said. It was now a whisper, like she was pretending to be the lover she never was to him.

The fatigued hero hummed as he blinked open his eyes lethargically.

“Zelda,” he said, softly in his half-awake state with a small smile. The former princess assumed it was because he knew of her presence before his head rolled over to her and he flipped out with wide eyes. It was as if someone had put smelling salt underneath his nose, the way he bolted upright.

“P-princess! I…” Zelda watched with equal parts awe and glee as he ignored the extremely likely pain in his ribs to fix his messy bedhead. Not to say he was in any way successful. “I’m sorry, I…”

“Link,” Zelda said, in such a soothing way that Link froze immediately. It may have also been because she placed a hand on his cheek. Zelda gently guided him back down to lay on the pillow.

“You look fine,” she assured him. “And you are in no condition to do anything but rest.”

Link’s icy blue eyes pleaded for something Zelda couldn’t place. They looked at her, studied her in a way Zelda wasn’t used to.

“Princess, I…” he began, but his words faltered, as if his intended sentence just walked off a cliff, accidentally ran out of room on the ledge and was now falling and forgotten. “I would like to call you Zelda,” he finally said. “Is that all right?”

Zelda nodded, and had to keep from tearing up.

“Yes,” she said, water making her green eyes shine like emeralds. “I would actually prefer that.”

It looked as if Link had something else to say, and yet he hesitated with a hitched breath. Zelda hesitated too, not what to say, but whether or not it was fair to reveal that she could read him like a book. It was a byproduct of their time together a hundred years ago, a time he may not have any recollection of at all, a time he may even be scared of. It was for those reasons that she demonstrated her patience instead, taking his hand and fooling herself that she was conveying her care with her eyes.

“I remember you, by the way,” Link said.

Zelda shifted slightly. There were so many memories between them and so many things that could be assumed between the memories that she couldn’t help but fear what story he had construed.

“I remember you not liking me,” Link continued, Zelda sighing, opening and closing her eyes with a slight cringe. Of all the things for him to remember. 

But he didn’t stop there.

“I remember you warming up to me and us becoming friends…at least I think.”

Zelda had looked down at her hand, the way her thumb ran up and down his palm.

“Do you remember anything else?” Zelda asked, tilting up her head. Link seemed genuinely out of answers and that’s what broke her heart the most.

“Is there something I should remember?” Link asked. Zelda shook her head.

“No,” Zelda said quietly, detaching her hand from Link’s. “It’s nothing of consequence.”

She moved her hand to his forehead, brushing aside a lock of his dirty blonde bangs. 

“I’m glad you’re recovering well, Link,” she said softly. “I’ll leave you to your rest. We can talk more later if you’d like.”

She stood up to leave but didn’t get far, Link’s hand grabbing her wrist and seizing her heart.

“Wait,” was the word he spoke to explain himself. Zelda turned her head to look over her shoulder. She couldn’t help but be surprised that Link had indeed, meant to grab her, was entreating her with those soulful blue eyes, deep as an ocean and filled to the brim with conflicting emotions.

“There’s more to it than what I remember,” he said. “There’s…well there’s how those memories make me feel.”

“What do you mean?” Zelda said, turning her body but refusing to kneel at his bedside, her cautious heart already shattered enough to not risk being broken even more.

“Whenever I remembered something that happened between us,” Link began. “I would try to draw you, would try to capture your beauty, but the image of you was always fleeting. Sometimes I forgot whether your hair was truly blonde, whether your eyes were brown or green, whether or not freckles dotted upon your nose, your cheeks, what the shape of your face was. But each time I tried to draw you I felt like I was getting both closer to and farther away from perfection.”

“Link,” Zelda said as she shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

“I didn’t either at first,” Link continued. “I didn’t understand why I was so enthralled by your beauty, why the sound of your voice twinged my heart, why the thought of your touch made me feel the warmth of my blood.” 

Zelda knew what he was describing, and she knew it well. It was for that reason that she couldn’t believe his words, that she searched within her lungs for the ability to breathe.

“Link,” she said breathlessly, finally kneeling down. “A-are you saying…?

She couldn’t even finish her question but Link nodded nonetheless.

“Once I realized it was a crush,” he said. “I tried to ignore it, telling myself that nothing in my memories indicated anything more than an obligatory friendship, that it was disrespectful to think in such a way of someone who was royalty, but…” He bit his lip. “No cliff was as easy to descend as the one that dictates love. I fell quickly and I fell fast. It felt familiar too, like something was in ruins inside me but this time, it was simple to salvage, to rebuild and to…” Link chuckled. “I can’t think of another word.”

Zelda was speechless, her mouth slightly parted and her eyes frozen. Link didn’t expect his declaration of love to be so paralyzing.

“I-I guess I,” Link said, continuing in the absence of Zelda’s words. “I kind of got the feeling that you also have similar…” Link looked for another word, but it didn’t exist in his brain “…feelings…” He inwardly cringed. “So I figured I would bring up the subject...but maybe I...shouldn’t...have?”

Zelda was quiet, almost too quiet, before she stood and finally said five words, five words that left Link in the dust of such an anticlimactic response.

“You never talked this much,” she said, before shooting him with green eyes filled with conflict and pity and turning around to walk back down the stairs.

[jq37]

The Report Card – Fantasy High: The Seven Ep 6

Bitches Be Shopping

What is up y’all. A little late but let’s jump in with episode six of The Seven where our girls have just received a LOT of information, Sam most of all who got put into a little vision coma that she’s just now waking up from.

She explains the vision to her friends (as she interprets it, the other Eidolons didn’t die, just became part of the natural forces of the world) and then the bear that Penny made on a whim last episode (who is Russian, named Koda, and somehow a trained circus bear) gets into a fight with Katja with their friends buffing the two to make things more interesting because these are still idiot teens, life or death situation or no. Yelle decides to be the adult and tells them to knock it off and get back on mission.

That means Katja needs to call her dad since he’s knows the guy who’s the best lead to getting to TK ( Talcidimir Tallbreeze who I’ll call Tal). She actually manages to get her dad this time who is inside a giant snake on his hell mission. Katja asks what he knows about TK and he says she’s a sorcerer but also has a spell book so maybe she’s multiclassed. Sam and Ant desperately want to know if they boned and Katja absolutely is not interested in that knowledge. Yelle decides to just ask which makes her dad a little annoyed since he’s kind of in the middle of something (literally) and that annoys Ant, Ost, and Sam who--respectively, accuse him of gaslighting Kat, cast Command on him, and cast Bane on him to aid the Command spell. 

Mr. Cleaver fails the save and Ost commands him to tell Katja the truth. He admits that he did hook up with TK and he regrets it (note: it wasn’t like he cheated. It was just a casual hookup that wasn’t fulfilling it seems). Ost demands he apologize for not being there for Kat and Sam berates him for being at the top of the world and not lifting up his daughter too. For his part, Kat’s dad seems genuinely apologetic and promises to do better. 

“You don’t need to be the best father, you just need to be there,” Katja says, making her dad break down crying. 

Yelle, who has no daddy issues, is a bit less aggro and says that everyone makes mistakes and he can start making it up right now by helping with the Tal situation. She also gives them the tip that a cold spell will probably get them out of the snake lickety split.  She is on the money with the snake tip and Mr. Cleaver gets them all invites to a masquerade ball Tal is hosting. It’s being held on the Rumbosa which is this city-sized leisure ship. Mr. Cleaver says he’ll be back as soon as he can and, in the meantime, she should take care of her friends, “even the first 2 that were terrifying to me.”

The girls give Katja the axe they took as a birthday present (it was apparently her birthday the day before which Rekha just decided and Ost/Izzy refuses to accept without a fight because she *knows* Kat’s bday) which is identified as the Axe of Sundering (it can shatter objects, people, and sometimes concepts like halving movement). The two unnamed potions Yelle found are also ID’d as a Potion of Fly and a Potion of Gaseous Form. She distributes the Heath Potions to people without heals. Ant’s new arrows bypass some resistances and let her treat whatever she hits with the first one like it’s her favored enemy. 

According to their invites, the ship they need is docking in the city of Gravalvia soon (a very old city in the Baronies) so they need to figure out a plan. They have some downtime, during which:

Zelda tries to hype up the team.

Zelda tries to see if Ost is OK wrt dad stuff and Ost has a Full Breakdown after badly pretending she’s fine. 

While Zelda, Ost, and Penny are being Emotional and Sam is trying to literally cool them down with her powers, Ant and Yelle keep watch and experience emotional stability as the Adults Of The Party 

Anyway, after a night of rest, they head to the golden city of Gravalvia which is this very cool, very pretty city with mosaics and fountains and I assume columns. They get there and there’s a dramatic fight happening in the square which is halted when one of the fighters realizes that the country he’s fighting for doesn’t exist anymore. And now, it’s time for what we’ve all been waiting for. Shopping Montage! Let’s go girl by girl.

Katja and Ost

Kat asks for help from Ost with getting fancy for this gala since she’s never really done anything dressy before (and she had no mom to help--Kaaaat) and Ost is happy to oblige, dressing them both like “Jersey trash”. Kat, of course, still wears her Khakis underneath.

Antiope

Ant decides to get a vibe for what people here wear and picks something that will blend in but be forgettable so she can be stealthy. Classy blue dress and mask.

Penny

Penny...OK, I absolutely cannot describe what happens here in any way that will do justice to the scene. I am going to tell you what matters to the plot. You have to watch this yourself if you want to see the entire table have a collective breakdown. 

While looking for a costume, Penny runs into a halfling who is a member of the Society of Shadows--Laertes. He wants to know why she hasn’t responded to their invitation yet. She says she’s really eager to join, she just wasn’t sure how to respond (and also, she’s kind of in the middle of something). He says she can join by just messaging back and then her loved ones just have to sign waivers to have their memories wiped of her and she’s good to go. Say what now? asks Penny. She didn’t realize this was like a full Men in Black situation. 

He says it’s ultimately her decision and leaves.

Of course, I left out the parts where he ate a handful of Candy Heart’s remains, became violently ill, almost projectile vomited into Penny’s mouth, and she tried to kiss him despite him being a full adult. It’s A Lot, ok?

Also, we don’t find out until later but Penny picks a sexy duck costume for reasons that make more sense if you watch the scene but not *much* more sense. She also burns one of the healing potions on this dude as he is bar

Danielle

Danielle tries to get some info on the guests at the party and gets the names Lawrence LaDuc, Princess Autumn, and Duston who is the playboy cousin of Tal. She also hears some dude saying some colonize and plunder the earth BS and casts Heat Metal on him, fully mercing the dude. Ice cold. 

She tries to play it off like it’s the Curse of the Forest and when that doesn’t work and people start coming for her, she wildshapes into a dragon wyrmling and starts roasting people, killing 1 and dropping 2 to zero. 

Unfortunately, one of her party members is a known dragon hater and uses her new arrows to snipe her right out of the sky. Ant is horrified once she realizes what she’s done but Yelle says it’s all good. It’s NOT all good, says Ant, I STABBED YOU. You’re allowed to be mad! Yelle says she’s just really good at compartmentalizing but what Ant’s getting here is that Yelle doesn’t really believe that her feelings matter which echo the fears of her moms. 

Sam

Sam uses a combination of Mantle of Inspiration, glamour magic, performance, and good old flirting to get herself some killer clothes and also start a spontaneous musical number Giselle style.  

Brennan says she looks resplendent and, honestly, when does she not?

They reconvene, Zelda in a classic hoop skirt. Yelle realizes she never got a costume and just whips out a Met Gala level, autumn themed, Queen Mab-esque costume with Druidcraft which she could have done this whole time so I guess that’s why she was cool spending her shopping time getting gossip and playing Poison Ivy. 

They get to the ship and the way this works, everyone has to make an entrance and the really rich people (including Tal) are on a dais up top watching everyone come in. They all have to give fake names for the night since it’s a masquerade and they have to do Performance or Persuasion checks to see how impressive they look going in. 

Before they go in, they plan a little. Penny wants to look for TK. Sam wants to find Dunston. Ost wants to talk to the bouncers. Yelle wants to see if there are plants she can manipulate (there are btw) and for any exits. 

A quick rundown of how these all go:

Katja aka Mere (which means both mom and horse): 16 

Ant aka Midnight Huntress: 18 

Penny aka Penny Duckstone: 13

Zelda aka Madame Goodparty: 2 (Poor Zelda)

Sam aka Songbird: 22 (but she takes a hit to entrance save Zelda from totally flaming out)

Ost aka Stanley Gucci: 13

And Danielle, who never hogs the spotlight and is embarrassed to admit that maybe she does want to be the center of attention for once in her life with a Natural 20, gets a 29, absolutely bringing down the house as Empress Anima. As she walks forward she feels a voice say to her, “You got this. I love the name. You wear it well.”

Tal seems very impressed by her and a lady in a rabbit mask (Coeliabranca who I’ll call Coel if she comes up more) comes down to bring her up to the top with the high rollers. As she leaves, Sam casts Fly on her, just in case and holds the Concentration. 

Ost and Kat go talk to the bouncers and Kat decides to pretend to be her mom to get access to the area Yelle is. She rolls low and is told, “Hey, aren’t you already up there?” Kat is like, fuck and Ost saves her by using her charm earrings to get an entourage of guards who will let them through and do what she says. Once up there, Kat doesn’t see her mom which I can imagine she has mixed feelings about. 

Sam finds Dunston who is talking about Fantasy Bitcoin and seems like a real “Step on me mommy” type you know? Like, I feel like he’s into findom. Anyway, Sam charms him and his hangers on and learns about a procedure called a Phlebectomy that involves something going into their nose and then they feel better. Sam is rightfully horrified because, as I said, she is Most Likely To Survive A Horror Movie and can sense BS when she sees is. It’s apparently all the rage with the rich people here which is, como de dice, concerning seeing as they’re surrounded by them but we’ll get to that. Sam takes advantage of Dunston’s proclivities and gets him alone, knocks him out, steals him clothes, and pretends to be him (a *very* good scene by Sephie). 

Penny sees a gnome gnome boy (Lysander Higgins) shining shoes and finds out from him that there is a copper earth genasi woman here. In a very Cinderella move, she asks what shoes she was wearing. Then, she makes out with him which like, sure. At least it’s not a grown adult man this time. Before she gets her kisses in, she does tell the group what she learned. 

Up with the rich people, Yelle is introduced to Tal’s friend who is into Eidolons because of the name she chose. Between the shoes and her knowledge, they confirm that it’s TK! Yelle asks what she knows about Eidolons and she says that 7 is a very powerful number.

We cut to Ant who is patrolling the room as the sun sets and she suddenly hears a little beeping. It’s coming from a small crystal that was in Preston’s shirt (which she still has on her because???). Guests start dripping goo from their noses and transforming into monsters. Ant realizes that some kind of spell is happening triggered by midnight and this beeping. Hope these costumes are battle ready cause it’s fight time baybee!

Superlatives 

Danielle: Most Likely to Be on The News for Murdering Fantasy Jeff Bezos

I cannot imagine what was running through Yelle’s head when she decided that, having just rolled into a foreign country, her next move was to start using lethal force on anti-environmentalist colonizing capitalists. Like, she’s not *wrong* per se but she is wild--in all senses of the word.  

Random Thoughts

Kat keeps saying yesterday was her birthday which Ost/Izzy (and the rest of the group to a less vocal degree) are simply not having because maybe her dad would forget her birthday but her girls absolutely would not.

“You’re great because you stayed,” is the other killshot Kat line to her dad.

At a certain point Sam says, “This is so unhealthy,” to I think Yelle and like, if SAM is telling you your coping mechanisms are unhealthy, get thee to therapy.

OK, so someone, presumably Anima’s spirit, talks to Yelle as she makes her grand entrance which seems like info they should get to Talura ASAP, right? Cause that’s evidence they’re not dead-dead, just changed in form. But also Anima, girl. Don’t talk to Yelle. Talk to your rampaging sister!

"That's my secret, I stay in initiative."

Just a process note, notes are taken for the next ep and I am working on getting that recap up ASAP. As a battle ep, it will be in the abbreviated style that I did for last battle ep. 

In this episode, Penny rolls a Nat 1 (which she rerolls) and one of Brennan’s NPCs rolls a Nat 1. Ant rolls 2 Nat 20s, Yelle rolls 1, and Brennan says that one of his NPCs gets a 20 which sweeps him entirely into Sam’s dance number. 

[kintatsujo]

LoZ AU- The Courage of Running Away Part EIGHTEEN

This story is at the point where if you haven’t read the previous post you’re gonna get out of context spoilers so go do that if you haven’t!!

#AU August

#LoZ AU: The Courage of Running Away

Gerudo City Square is hushed at Dinravi’s sudden call for Ghirahim to stop, until he gathers himself and continues:

[Image Descriptions: Dinravi looks shaken, but he’s speaking firmly.  “I refuse to be why you make an orphan today,” he says.  Ghirahim, furious, gestures downward and bellows “He was trying to KILL YOU!”  “And you’ve neutralized the threat!!” Dinravi shouts back.  “Do you REALLY think he’s a DANGER now?”  Ghirahim grumbles, rolling his eyes.  “FINE,” he says, then dismisses his sword.  Astramorus closes his eyes and flops his head on the street with a groan.  Eltani stares at her son. “Belovéd, what’s going on?” she asks sternly.  Dinravi suddenly blushes. Link rushes to Astramorus, falling to his knees, then yanks him up into his arms, much to Astramorus's surprise, and buries his face in his father's shoulder. Ghirahim rolls his eyes.  Zelda approaches them.  “Lord Astramorus...” she says.  “You REALIZE this is a GRAVE offense.”  Astramorus doesn’t answer, only staring to the side as if to say “of course.”  Link looks irritated, tears tracking down his face to match his father’s.  Eltani says, “I’m still a BIT more concerned as to why a DEMON LORD just saved my son, me dear.”  Dinravi starts to say, “Well-” when Ghirahim interrupts with “Oh PLEASE, Chief Eltani, LIKE YOU REALLY DON’T KNOW,” flipping his hair and rolling his eyes.  “Don’t backtalk my mother,” Dinravi tells him. Quietly Eltani tells Dinravi, “We're having WORDS later Belovéd, and he answers “yes Mama” as they descend the stairs to join Queen Zelda and her group, which includes Impa, Tonbo and Marla as well as at least one Hyrulean soldier in armor.  “All right, then, HOW?” Zelda asks Ghirahim.  “You DISAPPEARED from history, it was always assumed you’d been SEALED AWAY.”  Ghirahim smiles, not kindly, down at Link and Astramorus, still on the ground.  “Ah, you know how these things HAPPEN,” he says, then sits down next to Link and Astramorus and leans in towards them.  Link glares and tightens his hold protectively, while Astramorus leans away in obvious horror.  Ghirahim grins flirtatiously.  “Some OTHER little priest with more fervor than sense,” he says.  He then lazily waves his hand.  “He just kept going ON and ON about BLOODLINES and BALANCE- Quite frankly I only left him ALIVE because he was so POLITE.”  He then adds more quietly, “well, that and being SHIFTED ACROSS DIMENSIONS while also being AWAKENED takes a lot out of even a demon.”  Astramorus has looked down, as if thinking. “And did this priest have a NAME?” Zelda asks, frowning. Ghirahim puts a hand to his mouth thoughtfully and hums.  “I’m trying to REMEMBER, actually,” he says.  “One of those silly LONG ones.”  He then reaches to straighten Astramorus’s hair, leaning into him with a grin, much to Astramorus’s horror and Link’s irritation.  “Maybe YOU know him, little priest,” he says, then begins to list traits, counting on one hand.  “Glasses, red robes, a round face and nose, elderly, white hair, short, HIGH RANK, far as I could tell-”  Both Link and Astramorus’s faces dawn realization, and they shout the name at the same time: “SERENUMBRA?!”  Ghirahim grins, sliding down against Astramorus as he points lazily at them.  “Thaaat was it,” he says with a grin, then sits up in surprise.  “WAIT, you DO know him? I was just being SMART with you.”  Astramorus gasps, falling back against Link in shock.  End ID.]

So to make it clear btw the reason Astramorus shouted Dinravi’s name at the beginning of this sequence is because he was fully prepared to take the consequences of assassinating a prince and didn’t realize Ghirahim is immune to long ranged attacks.  That’s also why he makes that face when Zelda points out how serious what he’s done is. 

[Image description: Link glaring up while Astramorus looks numbly off to the side.   They both have tears running down their faces. There is a caption which reads: “Not a good time!” in a font and style similar to the same BotW message that plays when one tries to have Link sit by the fire somewhere the game doesn’t allow.  End ID.]

Incidentally I think I’m doing well now at making them look related to one another; Astramorus’s character design really didn’t solidify until I decided he had to look like he could be Link’s biological father.  

Ghirahim has turned into a huge fucking dork in this AU and I’m pretty cool with that.

Anyway “the guy who summoned a fuckin demon lord and sent him off to corrupt Prince Dinravi to the Dark Side in the name of something something religion maybe” is actually Serenumbra’s original character concept, the fact that he’s done this was in the background his entire conversation with Astramorus.

[Image description: Serenumbra adjusting his round glasses with a wicked grin. They are doing the anime evil-dude-with-glasses flash with a VEEN.  End ID.]