#like how spiteful of the gods that in not giving him Hyrule they would also doom their own creation to such simplistic and pitiful lives

[gust-jar-simulator]

Y’know what would be fun and fucked up.

Since I’m still full of spite about Dark being a costume gimmick instead of grabbing BOTW!Link by the throat and giving him the perfect identity crisis gut punch, I think I deserve to dial up the angst knob.

I already have an idea for how to write Dark as a satisfying, if still obviously gimmick fight, but I just remembered that the Palace of the Four Sword is a thing.

The Four Sword Sanctuary kind of moves around between games, but it’s meant to be in the center of Hyrule, that center just changes because the map is insane. In Minish Cap, the sanctuary is in a courtyard in the center of Hyrule Castle, behind an invisible door.

In Link To The Past, if I recall right, the Palace of the Four Sword is a secret dungeon in the base of the Pyramid of Power, which is the Dark World’s substitute for Hyrule Castle.

So.

Let’s play a game.

We could put this either in the undercroft of Hyrule Castle in BOTW, or roughly under it in TOTK, since I do like the idea of The Depths being used as that game’s version of the Dark World. Four Swords and Four Swords Alliance seem to depict the ruins of the sanctuary slightly open to the elements, so it might not be perfectly under the castle this far down the timeline- we could even move it somewhere closer to the Minshi Woods. The Palace of the Four Sword, to me, is either one of two things: the corrupted remains of the Four Sword sanctuary, or a separate location constructed specifically by the royal family to imprison all the loose ends. I lean towards the first option.

You want your gimmick gear? You want Majora’s Mask?

Fight the shade of the Hero of Time for it.

You want the Bow of Light?

Fight the shade of Twilight Princess Zelda and her wolf for it.

You want the sailcloth?

You’ll have to rip it out of the cold dead hands of the man who killed a god.

If you’re like me, and you want some Four Swords rep or even just a singular crumb of Vaati, I think having a location like that- a hero’s tomb of some sort under the palace where you do a boss rush to mug them for their stuff- is a fun reference to start with, but apparently in development they tossed around the idea of Minish Cap’s shrinking mechanic. I am pouncing on this idea like a feral wolf because absolutely nothing recontextualizes mob threat assessment like that first boss battle in Deepwood Shrine.

The reason I shouldn’t be put in charge of writing videogames is because I’d make a gimmick dungeon in the Minshi Woods where you get shrunk to Tom Thumb size and then have to fight a keese.

The reason they should hire me anyway is because in a game where weapon durability is a mechanic and yet there are No Blacksmiths, I’d make a questline where you have to visit the fae folk to bring back the secrets of metallurgy, just one sidequest of many to help rebuild what Hyrule has lost in the wake of the Calamity. The Minish are the ones who forged the Picori Blade, after all, you can play a whole game about it.

Also, just to round the whole thing out, while I like the fact that the Master Sword tries to murder you in BOTW I think it would have been cool to fight the shade of you from 100 years ago in the Lost Woods as a trial before you earned the right to wield her. Our lad has too many hangups and issues, make him stab them in the face.

[cloudninetonine]

I have more thoughts, but first I wanna thank you for indulging in my crack mind, so thanks! I don’t expect fics, and I just enjoy expanding and creating more concepts since they’re vague and allow more creativity to flow in. Blasphemous, but have some Sympathetic Hylia agenda. I was thinking about the implications in the lore and manga. Hylia is canonically a goddess only in name. She didn’t create life, the worlds or anything; all of that falls under Din, Nayru, and Farore. Her only purpose was to protect the triforce, which she fails in doing so. I think that affected her in being more callous and cold. She can’t afford to fail even though her failure seemed almost unavoidable. She can’t use the triforce against a demo lord, and in the manga she’s looked down and isn’t exactly believed by others about what will occur with demons taking the land, which kinda makes since(but if an celestial being told me demons were gonna come then i would listen) The bond between The golden goddess seems very detached, as long as the triforce is protected and safe then everything is okay, not accounting for the lives of land they built. All the gods & goddesses are pretty apathetic to the pleas of people, and it’s surprising that Hylia even tries to save them, but I guess she got pretty attached to her “home” // Yandere starts when you fall into not-hyrule yet and meet the repressed and awkward first! link from the manga. Not yet chosen by Hylia, and you bond with this not hero guy, and he mostly bonds with you out of pity because clearly you’re just beggar who hit her head and starting spouting nonsense, probably insane, and it's also spreading because clearly this isn’t a logical choice, but Link has never a person of logic. You meet Hylia while wandering in this soon to be apocalyptic world (honestly imaging a large crack in ground as the Demise and his demon begin their conquest and quite literally come from the depths of hell to take over) and Hylia is attempt to spread word without being “do not be afraid” but it hasn’t really worked yet. You accidentally blurt out “Zelda” confusing her, since clearly she is not this “Zelda”. Hylia, in my opinion, isn’t exactly the brightest, but she tries her best. Link and Hylia meet, bonds grow, and life goes to hell when Link is left to rot in the dungeons, changing him to a more colder and repressed man. Hylia is more desperate and growing more tired and frustrated that everything against Demise is proving to be futile. The one person who seems to keep together is you, but their love is stifling and you're starting to forget why you’re even here—why are you even here? You bleakley realize that your fantasy life isn’t very great and that you might die or be stuck in this well intended gilded cage by your loved ones. You create, indirectly and unknowingly, an ocarina as a self indulgent gift that gets blessed by Nayru: the ocarina of time. In the end, you die and everything is futile, or you thought before you woke up. Regret is strong as you recall the fact that 1) you died 2) your love ended in bitterness and hatred 3) you’re apparently alive while your lovers aren’t. You never did find out why you were there in the first place either. Bittersweet, but Hylia thinks “Zelda” as name because you called her that, or “Lia” affectionately before your relationship turned cold and bitter.

Now I have an au for tethered au called Replaced hero/kill the hero au. You do get reincarnation but you look nothing like you first did, so imagine the angst and shock and relief when you walk around and see a link with a copy of yourself that hylian, and then they walk past you, never looking back. Maybe you were never enough. Sure you look nothing like you used to, but your ears are still round and maybe you do behave differently but you died! How can anyone behave the same after going through something like that? dirven hy spite you decided to fuck it and give hylia a piece of mind by taking and venting on her incarceration: Zelda… only to attached when you realize both of you have been abandoned by the same person. You take the place of the hero, while confusing him because where was his journey? only to forget because his “goddess” was next to him and took priority. Hylia is smug, but also internally panicking because who the hell is this odd human? You and Zelda are busy flirting and ignoring the fact that you were originally planning to kill her. It’s going to be a bit of a shock to both the Chain and Hylia, because if that's you then who are the “(y/n)”?

IT'S NO PROBLEM I LOVE PEOPLE SHARING THEIR IDEAS!

@yandere-linked-universe Because I gotta tag you for this stuff.

I love the concept of the Player (If you're not talking about the Player I apologise!) being a basic kick-starter to the story! A voice of reason for those who are losing to it! After all, it's just a game, right? Maybe the Player is just here to get the show going, help Hylia, help the hero, help Hyrule! Right?

But then it starts to get....dark.

The first hero had experienced a traumatic experience like no other. Their Goddess is now just a former husk of herself, this isn't supposed to happen, right?

They're up in the sky now, cold, tired, watching the clouds below as people weep In the background. Hyrule is lost, they're now on what will later be dubbed Skyloft and Hylia is just distant. All you really have now is your Ocarina.

You die,

But then you're not dead.

Thus begins the events of the Replaced Hero.

Honestly I love it!

[derekscorner]

LoZ: Shower Thoughts

Remember this chaos? We all argued for it before, somewhat dislike it after getting it, and still make theories on it. Which, one of the beauties of LoZ is that this isn’t needed at all.

Each game is it’s own thing to the point the outside lore is a fun extra to read about one day. It’s just fun extra facts compared to other games or shows that rely on extra material way too strongly.

And in line with that simplistic fun I was thinking about how Breath of the Wild, canonically, exists at the end of every confirmed and hypothetical timeline. It’s the final destination.

Many assume this is due to the devs having become annoyed with the specifics of the timeline (to which I don’t blame them) but no in-story reason has been given. We dont know if this is some “dragon break” in which time collapses into one series of events.

We dont know if each timeline just leads to Botw, we dont know, nor need to know, anything. So, in line with that thinking, no grounded theories or the like, I just thought;

“wouldn’t it be a little funny if the gods (devs in the meta sense) just collapsed all the worlds into each other?”

Just think about it, we know of three, it’s possible to count Age of Calamity as a fourth if you wish, and you can even argue a possible fifth exists due to the first Link killing Demise in the past at the end of Skyward Sword.

What if, the golden goddesses, the hightest powers that be in this series, looked at all this temporal mess and thought “too annoying, put it back”.

Then bam! three (if not five) Hyrules just collapse onto each other. The spirits of the hero, the curse of Demise, the bloodline of the goddesss, all of that just finds a new singularity.

The Master Swords, a key tool in the first major temporal break, is now one blade.

For us fans, we now have a reason for Hyrule to be so familiar yet landmarks to be in odd places. For inhabitants, it makes sense they have (from our view) conflicting legends of Twilight and vast seas.

Hell, if you wanted to give this a more serious flare, you could even argue this is what caused Ganondorf to become a nigh on force of malevolent nature. The latest Ganon wouldn’t just be some new variant, he would be all of them.

The Twilight Princess manga already showed that the child timeline Ganon remembered Ocarina of Time due to that link his Triforce piece gave him to his parallel selves. (just take that logic and run with it)

And before you ask, I have no real excuse as to why the current Link or Zelda wouldn’t have a similar event happen. You could possibly throw in that the 10,000yrs past variants did but Ganondorf is the only one to display a hive knowledge with his other selves.

And even then he still seems unaware he’s just some host for a demons curse/spite.

The closest we had was the Hero of Time, as the Heroes Shade, teaching his successor and blood-descendant swordsmanship in Twilight Princess.

Of course, that precedent does now exist so you can also play with it as well. In either case, I hope you enjoyed my shower thought, bye~

[ashleyswrittenwords]

Restless

Another Zelink Oneshot

Commissioned by @florette-the-witch​ <3

Link is sick. Link is also stubborn. Post BOTW.

——————–

“I’m not sick,” he said again, sitting up before a hand was placed squarely on his chest. It didn’t take much pressure to force him back to the pillows.

Zelda glared down at him and though she didn’t say anything, he could feel her silent reprimands. The back of her hand found his forehead.

“Link,” she whined at him, “You’re burning up!”

He found the hem of her loose shirt and toyed with it. “Only because you’re near me.”

Despite his jesting, her eyes grew frantic. With a lithe hand, she moved his hair back and tested his temperature with her opposite hand. Zelda’s lips formed a pronounced frown and he heard a mantra of mumblings, not unlike when a hypothesis of hers would lead to a conclusion she wasn’t expecting.

Finally, she huffed and disappeared from view. The series of mumbles following the sound of her footsteps as she fled down the steps. Idly, he stared up at the rafters above. Weariness chanted in his bones, but his head was restless as always.

The gutters need to be cleaned, he thought aimlessly. If they aren’t Bolson is going to give me hell again.

And he didn’t want another lecture on the responsibilities of being a homeowner. With a grunt he sat up on his elbows and heard a sharp, “No.”

Zelda reappeared at the top of the stairs and held a glower his way. Again, his head hit the pillows.

“I’m okay enough to do a couple more things.”

“You aren’t,” she plainly said. “You weren’t yesterday, but I foolishly let you. You’ve gotten worse today.”

A wet cloth touched his forehead and, dear gods, he nearly moaned. Instead a loud hum of satisfaction came from his chest and he opened his eyes to find Zelda’s quiet worry. Her fingers grazed the side of his face, then cupping his cheeks. In the light, her hair glistened gold. Its shortened length was growing out now and he curled a lock between his fingers.

“Let me see your smile again,” Link croaked. He winced at his own voice.

Immediately, she pressed her pink lips together to stifle one. “I think not.”

The spite in her voice was far from real and soon she devolved into a wide smile. She glanced at his lips and when she dipped down for a kiss, he covered her mouth.

She stared with admonishment in her eyes.

“If I’m sick,” he grinned, “Then I’d rather be the only one sick.”

The way her tantalizing lips parted made him pray to the gods to get better soon. At least for her sake. That frown was recurring and he found discomfort in the unrest in her eyes.

“Well, hopefully your fever will break by the time I get back,” she sighed, pulling shoes from under the bed. Zelda glanced at his startled expression and followed up with, “I’m going into town. You need something warm.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“No,” she commanded, already pushing back on his bicep. “I’m perfectly capable of buying a few items myself.”

And then she looked at him in a softer light and he damn near melted under it. Her hand trailed down his arm and found his fingers, letting them tangle into her own. Without words, she brought the back of his hand to her mouth and left a chaste kiss.

A healthy Link couldn’t say no to those dancing eyes, how was he ever to put up a fight now?

Link didn’t and she left him with the hint of a smile. Soon the door to their home would signal her leave and the weathered man inside would groan at the ceiling. They had never owned a clock, but the one in his mind began ticking.

A three minute walk to Hateno’s center; five if she took her time. It would take ten minutes to shop for ingredients in East Wind; fifteen if she haggled with Pruce. All in all, if she wasn’t back within a half-hour he’d wrought himself from the covers and go to find her. At the thought, he nodded to himself as if that made all the sense in the world and crossed his arms over his chest to cement it.

Tick, tick, tick, tick. Couldn’t the gods allow time to pass a tad faster? Tick, tick, tick, tick.

Clean gutters. Taxes. No, Zelda always paid those. Weekly scout of the perimeter with village garrison; that could wait. Help Zelda weed out the big spider in the garden.

It felt like he was forgetting something vital and the task snuck farther into the recesses of his mind the more he sought it out. Hadn’t most things felt like that these days? The fact hadn’t calmed his body and the itch to brace himself for the consequences of forgetfulness kept him far from sleep. The damp cloth on his head was warming to his skin and his body was blistering hot.

Sluggish movements cast the covers from him and Link cursed his discomfort and his inability to kiss the woman he loved. It made him drag a hand down his face.

Then, it struck Link.

The horses. He hadn’t fed the horses this morning.

Shit. He ambled to sit up, suddenly thinking their light braying outside the window wasn’t all that cute anymore. Link’s attempts to stand faltered as his legs felt weaker than before. It had been several hours since Zelda forced him back to bed. 

Link heaved himself off the mattress and stumbled into the desk chair. He gripped its back and breathed a labored breath to keep his lightheadedness at bay. A chill violently took hold of him and he slowly wrapped the quilt from the bed around his shoulders. Eventually, he gathered the confidence to take on the stairs.

Zelda’s lectures ebbed at his ears with each step but what she didn’t know wouldn’t kill her, right?

He was never a man who could waste a day in bed. For the majority of his life there has always been a goal to work towards. Even when he could barely remember his own name, his spirit was restless. As a child, his goal was to become a knight his father could be proud of. His late adolescence brought upon keeping Hyrule’s princess safe and slaying Calamity Ganon; though as long as that took, he completed them all the same. Now he was an adult and life didn’t bear the burdens as it once did.

After Calamity Ganon, he found that he wanted to make Zelda happy. Her sign of happiness on Hyrule Field had confounded him. With her kingdom in disrepair and a century’s imprisonment, she would still smile for him?

Why she would embrace his filth-ridden form was even more of an anomaly, not to mention when she continued to hug him for weeks to come. And, of course, Link couldn’t help himself after that. Weeks turned to months and months into years. Their hugs changed to shy kisses and shy kisses to much, much more.

The thought occurred to him as the quilt twisted around his feet on the last stair and sent him tripping. Link yelped, scrambling to support himself on the door handle.

The spring breeze made him grip the covers harshly over him. It wasn’t a long walk to the small stable, only around the house, but it seemed like forever. He shuffled slowly on the grass and felt the tell-tale sign of exhaustion making gravity feel harsher than it was.

There wasn’t anything to rest on where the horses were, so Link brushed it away. An itching in his sinuses grew into an enormous sneeze that made the two mares shake their own manes. A glob of snot clung to his nose and Link made a lame attempt to shirk the green blob from his hand.

“Don’t judge me,” Link nasally said to the auburn haired horse.

He removed the quilt and regretted the action as he did it. Chills made him violently shiver. But the horses needed him more than he needed the warmth and the knowledge pushed him to hang it on the stable hooks. The action alone made his arms weary.

Hay bales were on the opposite wall next to the firewood and he heaved one up. Usually the action was nothing, but the lack of appetite the last couple days left his heart racing. Even the horses seemed concerned when the hay dropped over the gate and he stumbled to brace the wall. His world was a boat on rough waters, swimming precariously in his vision.

Link gulped and felt himself flush. He hadn’t felt this queasy since he trekked the Gerudo desert without the proper gear and suffered hyperthermia. 

Dimly, he heard his name from the other side of the house and he responded faintly. Another call for him grew closer while a blurry head of golden hair rounded the corner.

“I-I’m right here.”

Link was leaning against the wall, bracing the support beams to keep himself from slipping to the floor when Zelda reached him.

“Hylia above,” she cursed. An angelic curse, but a curse nonetheless. “Link, what in the goddess’s name are you doing out here?”

A soft gasp. “You’re hot to the touch.”

He knew it was bad when the motivation to respond with a quip didn’t manifest itself. With a firm but gentle grip, she wrapped one of his arms around her and made Link use her as support.

“The horses.” He nearly retched when she moved forward and to remediate it he shut his eyes.

“Is that why you’re out here? I fed them this morning.”

All he could do was nod and beat down the urge to puke on the love of his life. Slowly they hobbled around the bend and Zelda wrangled the door open.

“Come on,” she cood. “Can you make it up the stairs?”

His affirmation was to lean on the guard rails instead and breathe in heavy pants.

Without him seeing it, Zelda pulled his hair from his face into a low ponytail. She always carried multiple ties around her wrists these days. Her arms wrapped around his middle with a feather-like touch, partially supporting him and also just to feel his being.

“You worried me. I expected a sleepyhead, not an empty bed.”

Link wanted to chuckle, but he lacked energy and her tone was devoid of amusement. When he didn’t say anything at all, she coaxed him up the stairs. While he fell on the bed, Zelda shuffled through the closet and produced several blankets.

The sudden coverage around his person made the nausea subside and her hands tucked in the blankets around him to make sure there was no room for cold air to seep through. Link closed his eyes at the sensation of chills subsiding.

Her footsteps retreated before he could breathe an apology, but she wasn’t gone for very long. The smell of simmering chicken broth wafted to his nose.

“How many times have I gotten sick and you’ve taken care of me?” She pinned him down with her eyes.

Thrice, but she wasn’t asking for an answer from him. Zelda took his face in her hands. There was a small line that creased her forehead. 

“So why is it that the one time you get sick it’s the end of the world?” she voiced, sincerity stressing the question.

Link didn’t have a response for that. Guilt borrowed into him. Weakness was something he could never have afforded and now that he could… it made him feel inadequate. 

“Do you not want me to care for you? Because I promise you that I’m trying to look out for you, my love,” she said, voice filled with warmth and a clear sign of the love in her eyes. Link’s heart ached.

“Zelda,” he rasped, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

The crease soothed slightly and her grasp on him fled. “I know. You did worry me, no, you continue to.”

He could hear her wring out the washcloth in a water basin she had pulled upstairs. Then, a sigh.

Link swallowed, thumbing through all the things he could say to remediate the conflict in the sound of her breath. He fell on a simple: “I love you.”

The frantic tone of his voice quirked a smile on her face and when she looked up, he could swear she was a benevolent deity. “I love you too.”

“So much,” he followed up.

Then, she laughed. “Too much!”

“Oh, gods, never enough.”

She smiled down at him as she smoothed the damp fabric on his forehead. Beautiful was a word that flashed in his mind repeatedly. Lucky, lucky, lucky.

“Do me a favor, lover boy.”

“Anything.”

“Take a long nap.” Zelda scrunched up her nose defiantly. “I’ll be downstairs where you won’t be able to escape.”

As she stood to walk away, he took her hand in his and pressed a kiss to the back of it, basking in the way a slight rosy color tinted her cheeks.

Link fell asleep without even trying. When he woke, it was still daylight and the afternoon cast shadows across the room. His hand was wrapped around another’s and it didn’t take his sleep-muddled mind long to figure out who it was.

She slept with shallow breathing over the side of the bed. Her head rested on the edge of the mattress with her hand clasped around his. A sea of golden locks. On the nightstand was a bowl of soup, still steaming. Link turned to get a better view and realized that feeding the horses hadn’t been what he had forgotten.

Next week he had to trek out to Gerudo Town. To Zelda, he was making the journey to check on the young Gerudo chieftess. In actuality, there was a small package waiting for him in the jeweler's shop.

Link had always thought her ring finger was missing something. 

[loz-and-lu-fan-blog]

Tiny Time ch.4 - catching Time

Tagging people @aceofspadeswiththedragoneggs @wildpuppa @pinkittwice @eleventhspy @jjpony @sillus @4firey1

—

...Time was running away.

‘Crap!’ Warriors screamed in his mind as he began to give chase. ‘Crap, crap, crap’

Warriors had to admit even with his boots on, Time was extremely fast as a child, not only staying a good 3 to 5 feet from him; but moving everyway trying to lose the knight.

Warrior kept up chase, knowing damn well that if he lost sight of Time he wouldn’t be able to find him again.

‘Me and my big mouth’ he though sarcastically as he ran. Despite him getting tired Warrior didn’t dare rest, he needs to find a way to get stop the fleeing child.

A hint of blue caught his eyes.

The ocarina!

The song!

Warrior quickly pulled out his own as him mind drifted back into memories...

-

‘What are you playing?’ Warrior asked the young hero who jumped in surprise. Young Link looked down as if ashamed.

‘Hey nothing wrong with the song. It’s sounds pretty’ Warrior said taking a seat next to the young hero.

‘It supposed to bring friends to help me’ was all Young Link said, looking down at the ocarina in his hands.

‘Did they come?’ Warrior asked.

‘No’ was all Young Link said as a sad look crossed over his face. He always got this expression when he thought about his past, it made Warrior feel for the young hero.

Determined not to let his young friend feel down, Warrior took out his ocarina and mimic the mournful notes he had just heard.

Young Link looked at him in shock as he finished the song.

‘There’ Warrior said bringing his hand down to ruffle Link’s hair ‘now I know it. So when ever you play it I’ll be there’

The smile on Young Links face finally appeared again, Warrior could count on one hand how many times he had seen it.

‘What’s the songs name?’ Warriors asked to the young hero.

-

....Oath to Order...

Warrior kept running after Time but brought the ocarina up to his lips. It was hard playing the mournful notes while your running full speed but someone Warriors managed.

As the last note finish the child immediately stopped as if the song had froze him.

Warrior stopped as well, not wanting to repeat his mistake. He dropped the sword he was carrying and took one step forward before dropping to his knees.

Young Time turned around, sword between him and Warrior. Warriors could see the colorful range of emotions in Time’s eyes, confusion, remembrance, anger, sadness, guilt, all heavy emotions no young child should feel.

“Hello” Warrior spoke in a soft voice from when he first met Link “remember me?”

Time got closer but still held the sword up, not trusting Warrior.

“I’m sorry for yelling at you..you look so different without your hat” Warrior said softly before chuckling “I probably look different without my hat”

Warrior could see the child trying to piece together who he was. So slowly he began to undo the scarf around his neck, Time held his sword tighter. Finally when the scarf was free he laid it out in front of him, Time seeming to get what Warrior wanted snatch up the scarf and began to study it.

Time look up and Warrior could read the happiness and realization in his face. Time also put his sword away and handed back the scarf to its owner.

Warrior gave Time a pat on the head before working to put his scarf back on.

“Are you alone?” Warrior asked.

He soon learned that, that was the wrong thing to say. Tear began to fall down the young child’s face, however his face didn’t show any signs of sadness. If Warrior hasn’t spent so much time around the young hero he would have shrugged it off. However he knew better then that.

“Hey, their is no need to cry” Warrior said bring a hand up to wip away the tears, which Time let him do “I didn’t mean it negatively, when I think about it we all were technically alone before finding each other” he commented as he thoughts about the other Links.

Time finally looked up with tearfully eyes.

“Would you like to come with us? That way you won’t be alone and I can keep you safe” Warrior said with a smile, remembering how the young child like the cling to his side even in times of battle, it was obvious the child was scared of losing others.

“Us..?” Time finally whisper out, his voice sounding scratchy like he had been screaming for hour; it nearly made Warrior shiver as is didn’t bring the comfort of the older leader or the younger spirit.

“Yeah...their are more Links. Remember the one that fought with us, we called him toon” Warrior said remember the first time he meet Wind, they had nicknamed him Toon because of his colorful and interesting facial expression.

“Would you like to come with us?” Warrior offered. In all honesty Warrior wasn’t planning to let Time wonder alone, however he didn’t want to force the young child in a place he wasn’t comfortable; that would just cause him to run away again.

Thankfully Time just nodded a yes to Warrior who might as well be an older brother at this point. Warrior gave a big sigh of relief and held out his hand for Time to take, Time just grabbed on of Warrior’s finger and they began to walk. Warrior was so thankfully for the slight bit of calm in all the chaos. Now his thoughts were shifting to something else.

‘What did this to Time?’

As they walked back to the outskirts of town, Warrior wave at Wind who seemed to finally spot them. Wind putting together that the little green child next to Warrior was his friend young Link ran full forced and hugged him. Warrior had to stop himself from laughing when he saw Times confused face.

“This is Toon remember? He fought with us, we call him Wind now. He hugs” Warrior explain simply to the little hero.

Wind finally let go and Warrior turned to him.

“He doesn’t hug” was all he said and Wind seemed to get the idea taking a step back and letting young Link have his personal space.

“This is young Link from our adventures remember?” Warrior said gesturing to the young hero but more importantly the sword on his back.

Time’s gilded sword.

It was Time.

“Great! Another person to add to our party” Wind said not letting the truth leak through his emotions. “Come on. The others are waiting for us” Wind said grabbing Warriors hand.

“Others?” Time asked in his soft voice.

“Yes their are others with us, they are-“

“Monster!” Time cried out holding out his sword. Following it with his eyes he could see the sword pointed directly at Wolfie.

Today was beginning to be a long day.

—

“God’s where could Time be?” Legend said kicking a rock. They had been out searching for a good 30 minutes and they couldn’t find a hint of the older hero anywhere. Legend was starting to think the old man had done this to spite them.

“I’m not sure” Hyrule said quietly obviously lost in thought. Legend gave a growl as they continued to search the area.

“Hey legend” Hyrule said finally breaking the long silence.

“Yeah rule?” Legend said as he look around.

“You know how I can sense magic right?” “Hmm-hum”

“Well even senses I met Time their had been something off with the magic around him” Hyrule said.

Legend rolled his eyes.

“Listen all the magic from each timeline will react in different ways, of course it feels different, don’t let I-“

“It’s Dark magic!!” Hyrule scream effectively cutting Legend off. Maybe if was the worry about their missing leader or the fact of keeping the secret for so long but Hyrule said it. Legend stopped moving and talking and just stood taking in what Hyrule just said.

“You said dark magic” Legend said turning around to look at the sprite. Hyrule nodded a yes in return.

“Dark as in how?” Legend asked.

Hyrule sallow the lump in his throat.

“Darker and more powerful then ganon. Maybe even more powerful then the triforce” Hyrule said as stress tears feel down his cheeks. Legend stood their in silence for a minute silent mutter curses.

“Is it Time himself or an object?” Legend asked.

“I don’t know. If it’s an object it’s something he always has on him” Hyrule said.

“Well let’s make sure Time is ok before we go searching for it. If it’s stuck to him we can probably find a spell to banish it. If it’s an object, we will use death mountain” Legend states.

“You believe me?” Hyrule asked.

“Of course I do. But first things first, let’s find the old man”

[ganymedesclock]

How do you think Zant and Ghirahim would interact? Likewise, how do you think Ganon would treat the two in a setting where we could explore such a relationship?

My particular read on Zant is he’s not wild about social interaction unless he’s already decided the person is okay; I interpret him as the specific flavor of autistic where he’s only really comfortable in a social situation by shadowing a particular person for comfort’s sake. In which case I think he’d have a lot of sideways interactions with other people, but, not a lot of super direct engagement.

Ghirahim superficially is much more polite, but, given his particular complex relationship with his master and his childhood (a friend of mine, @golvio draws a lot of comparisons between how they imagine Ghirahim’s treatment under Demise and the Pearls in Steven Universe) it’s just that- superficial. He wants to be well-mannered because he feels keeping up aristocratic airs is an imperative he has to justify avoiding, but unless something really catches his intellectual curiosity, he, scientifically speaking, tends to not give a shit.

So I feel like you could have Ghirahim and Zant cohabiting in the same area and just sort of operating with a mutual regard to not say anything to each other unless the other’s hair is on fire and someone else isn’t already intervening. They could absolutely take more interest in each other, but, they’d need to at least get shoved into some kind of buddy cop adventure story to shake the topic loose. Just leaving them around each other, they’d never get anywhere. They would politely ignore each other. You would ask Ghirahim what he thought of Zant and after asking you to clarify who you’re talking about, he would make an idle note of “So that’s what his name is.”

With regards to Ganon and Zant, I sort of like the vein that Hyrule Warriors took with it in the sense that Ganon seems to regard Zant as a protege and student- not something as warm as “like a son” but that’s because Ganon’s not exactly the type to hand out familial affection very easily if at all. I imagine him taking a sort of scholarly, educational angle; Zant is his apprentice. Even if the guy lives for centuries, he’s significantly younger than Ganon himself, so there would be a certain degree to which Ganon looks towards Zant as someone in need of guidance, rather than a peer and equal.

That’s not to say Zant doesn’t impress him, or ever surprise him; Ganon might have a certain compassion for the downtrodden but he doesn’t seem the type to have patience for slackers or the talentless in his inner circle. But there’s definitely a distance between them, that would be altogether reinforced by the overly-reverent pedestal Zant puts Ganon on, though I think as time goes by and they had more time to interact with each other, or even just Zant operating on his own for a time because Ganon hasn’t been resurrected yet, he’d become a little less starstruck by Ganon, for the better- creating an environment where they can actually talk to each other and Zant isn’t fountaining the glories of his god, because Ganon might be cocky but I think the last thing he’d want to be is someone’s deity.

That would also affect Ghirahim; not the mentorship, because Ghirahim is one person who can not only match Ganon in age but actually surpass him- though I think this would average to them seeing each other as peers because the gaps in Ghirahim’s resurrections are much larger and they’re both at a certain level of time abyss where what’s a century give or take, actually- but the thing where Ganon has no particular desire to be regarded as a god. Distant reverence is fine on paper- it certainly flatters his ego- but in practice it just means people project a lot of expectations and perceptions onto him and that would make him shift a little uneasily in his skin considering the whole situation he had as king of the Gerudo.

It also doesn’t help that the person Ghirahim would be reminded of looking at Ganon is Demise- there’s no way to ignore that Ghirahim would be comparing Ganon to Demise. And the thing about Demise is, they are, in brief, an abusive tyrant; Ghirahim is someone deeply marked by the fact that he was raised from the cradle to disregard his personhood and feelings for Demise’s benefit.

This is completely counter to how Ganon operates, and would be a wall he would inevitably run into hard, dealing with Ghirahim- Ganon’s nice and cozy with Zant as a protege because Zant has all of his hopes and desires right there on the surface. All Ganon has to do is play the genie in the bottle, feed those hopes, encourage them, and, when Zant becomes more of a favored student than a useful tool, he can still use them to prop Zant up. Zant wants to feel powerful, Zant wants to feel valued, heard, supported- Ganon knows exactly what words to cook up to feed a flagging spirit.

Ganon operates selfishly on a certain level, and, he also works best with others who are also operating selfishly- not necessarily maliciously, but, what do they want? They want something for themselves.

Ghirahim is a standout among many Zelda antagonists in that he really doesn’t want anything. His resurrection of Demise is because he sees it as his responsibility. If he attaches emotions to it, it’s that he’s pleased to feel like he belongs, like the world makes sense, like he’s filling his role, and then, slowly, that he’s actually a bit curious about this person who’s so good at thwarting him.

But that’s one selfish desire, and it’s clear Ghirahim writes it off as a petty and ridiculous thing. Him, wanting things for himself, even if it’s something as simple as having the pleasure of figuring out who the hell this twerp in his way is.

And I think Ghirahim’s sense of self-denial would logically be a lot harsher any context in which he’s interacting with Ganon- because Ghirahim would have to deal with the keen awareness that Demise threw him away. He is not alive now because of Demise’s grace, but as an oversight, in a world Demise may well be incapable of returning to, and the sense is that this is just fine to them; they don’t need him or want him back.

I can see Ghirahim falling into step behind Ganon if he’s at a particularly low point and just needs to feel like someone actually wants him to be here, whoever that is, but I also feel like Ganon would galvanize Ghirahim in interesting directions- because coming from someone who is inevitably going to superficially remind Ghirahim of Demise, Ganon’s entire stance is going to be “but you’re a person, you’re made of metal and you’re a sword, that’s great, I’m largely made of meat slime that grows eyes, physiological construction is completely irrelevant here, the point is, you think, you have opinions, and no matter how hard you’re trying to pretend you don’t, you want something.”

Ganon focuses on the idea that people want things. He himself is so driven by this you could argue that his less-corporeal forms are basically one big grudge spirit. While textually, Ganon’s dying words in Ocarina of Time and Demise’s curse intend to mirror each other, it’s worth noting how Ganon’s words are basically pure spite- while Demise’s curse is methodically, systematically worded, functionally aloof; it’s the patient explanation of an adult to someone they perceive as a none-to-bright child that no, actually, you haven’t won anything of meaning. You’ve inconvenienced them. And they will not forget that you did that.

So Ghirahim would inevitably initially see Ganon as an entity similar to Demise, and that perception would inevitably come utterly torn down around the edges because Ganon and Demise are such fundamentally different people.

Frankly, my perception of Ganon and Demise is their relationship is comparable to that between Hylia and Zelda- the first Zelda was bodily born out of Hylia, making her a sort of mortal-incarnated demigod, but, the more Zelda became aware of Hylia, the less she was able to stand Hylia and was repulsed by Hylia’s thought process and the way she viewed Link. That’s continued through all of her descendants; Breath of the Wild Zelda suffers a huge amount of misery trying to connect with Hylia only to be given a repeated cold shoulder, and even awakening her powers, it’s only to be a pawn in the face of Hylia’s scheme.

Hylia is, in short, Zelda’s sort-of removed divine mother, and, she’s also an incredibly cold, neglectful parent.

I think the same goes for Demise and Ganon- they in a sort of abstracted manner had a hand in Ganon’s origin, but, this isn’t a family that could so much as sit through a very uncomfortable holiday dinner. And this is relevant to Ghirahim, because Demise’s treatment of Ghirahim obviously aligns with a lot of Demise’s attitude as a creator and towards the world in general- an attitude they actually share with their sworn enemy, Hylia. (both Fi and Ghirahim are ultimately discarded once they’ve “served their purpose” in the eyes of their respective creators)

Ganon, conversely, is heavily drawn towards the suffering outcast, and, as I talked about in my long post about what Ganon’s healing power means about him, that draw isn’t “I can exploit this” nearly as much as it appears to be genuine compassion. A lot of his narratives and behavior suggest that he feels that way himself- that as someone who has spent much of his life marked as a pariah, he has a certain visceral empathy for the discarded.

More than Ganon would not want to treat Ghirahim the way that Demise did, he would be loath to tolerate someone who treats fully loyal servants like Demise does. If Ganon stabs someone in the back, it’s because he’s either sure they would do the same in a heartbeat or because from his perspective they’ve already put a dagger in him. He’s not the kind of person who gets rid of someone he knows would never betray him, or has no reason to believe they’d do so.

If anything, this makes me wonder if Ghirahim would initially find Zant revoltingly whiny and needy- he can’t imagine why Zant would utterly humiliate himself and Ganon both by drawing Ganon’s attention to his needs and wants, or even just openly expressing distress in front of Ganon. 

And then after a while Ghirahim starts to feel a little weird watching them interact because the fact that Ganon actually responds to Zant and encourages him, or even just, irritably orders someone to see Zant to his bed after the latter’s magically overworked himself, would just sort of start to contextualize for Ghirahim the gaping void of affection or even basic care that he received in his own development.