Chapter Text
Link stomped up the last few velvet-lined stairs and flung open the ornately-carved mahogany door. He disregarded the guard that let out a yelp as the wood came into contact with his nose. Link didn’t wait for permission to enter, or take a little bow, the time for that was long past.
“Princess, with all due respect,” he began, without a shred of respect in his tone, “what was so important that I had to drag myself all the way here?”
Then he saw her frazzled hair outlined by the golden light coming from the lamp and the darkness under her eyes, and his stomach recoiled at his own words.
Zelda combed her chewed fingernails through her hair and sighed.
“I apologize for interrupting your rest, but I would not have called you here if the situation weren’t dire.” She said, a practiced fluidity rolling off her tongue. Link looked at the barely rising sun in the large window behind Zelda, and then at the scrolls, books, and spent containers of lantern oil scattered about the place. She had been up all night. Again.
Zelda often admonished Link for his poor sleeping habits, which he admitted, were horrendous. He might listen to her, but the fact was that she was hardly better.
And when I do sleep, she’s waking me up for some quest or other. He thought bitterly. Even as the string of words crossed his mind, however, he knew that this was different. Usually it was a letter about some rouge band of monsters that was easily taken care of, or maybe a petty thief. Being called in to speak with her personally was unusual.
“Then what is the situation?” He barked, unable to keep the frustration from his voice. The one night that he got to spend in his home and just sleep, and then that message smacked him right in the nose at five in the morning.
Zelda didn’t respond for a moment, instead looked around her desk, the beautiful design of which was completely obscured by parchment of various sizes. She found the one she was looking for, a beaten up-looking scroll.
“Do you remember the western settlement that was started a few months ago?” She asked. Link nodded. He recalled her telling him about it, that it was an excellent place for mining, farming, and livestock, but the closest water source was miles away. Vulnerable.
“It’s under siege.” Zelda blurted.
“ What?! ” Link exclaimed, his eyes widening farther than he usually let them. “Who? Wha-“
“That’s why I needed to speak with you. Face to face.” She began, her sapphire eyes full of earnest “This isn’t a foreign land trying to take over, or a band of mercenaries or pirates—…they’re monsters. Three of them. A-and not just any monsters,” she added when Link visibly relaxed “they… the descriptions of them, from the settlement leader. They sound disturbingly like the monsters that you’ve described as guardians of the temples you’ve defeated.”
Link felt his stomach perform a loop-the-loop.
“That’s impossible. I killed all of those, I made sure to.” He pointed out. Zelda sighed again, rubbing her eyes.
“I know, it should be, but you’ve fought multiple of the same monsters before, right?”
“I always assumed that those were relatives of each other.”
“And who’s to say that these monsters aren’t?”
Zelda shut her eyes.
“It matters not how they got there or where they came from, they must be brought down. The settlement has already lost too many brave men, and more will be to follow if they cannot gather water within the next week. And you are the only one who knows how to defeat them.”
Link’s gaze hardened before he gave it permission to. Three temple guardians at once was a big ask, even for him.
But when have I ever backed down from a challenge?
Link put a hand on the hilt of his sword, plastered on the most determined expression he could muster, and took one step backwards.
“Not to worry, Princess. Those guardians won’t even know what hit them.”
====
Link tightened his grip around the broomstick and tried to blink the stinging wind out of his eyes. His frayed hair bit at his cheeks. He really needed to cut it. Irene’s inky silk however, glided through the air like a fish in water, graceful and delicate. If there was one thing that Link envied of her, it was her hair. That, and her ability to fly.
No matter how many times Link had begged that old hag to teach him how to use a broom, the witch had refused. She became so adamant, in fact, that Link came under the assumption that she simply wanted to get Irene out of the hut every once in a while. Link couldn’t blame her.
Irene was talkative. Very talkative. From the moment Link got himself on the broom she was going on and on about every little detail of a story. And there was no stopping her. His only choice was to sit there and listen to her babbling nonsense. Needless to say, Link only called upon her when things were time sensitive.
That day, Irene was on some sort of tirade about a potion she was attempting to brew. From the sound of it, she hadn’t been very successful. Link chose to watch the clouds and figure shapes from them, though they mostly took the form of the temple guardians he was running through his mind.
He should have asked Zelda which they were, or to see the descriptions himself. Unfortunately, due to his dramatic exit, he hadn’t had the foresight to inquire about them. He had fought so many, it was hard to keep count and remember all the techniques for each one. With any luck, the settlement was large enough so that fighting one monster wouldn’t set the others off. If they were too close together he might have to individually lure them away. That had the possibility of ending very badly.
Come on, Link, you’re the Hero of Legend! If the Hero of Legend gets scared by a few big bads, then who else is going to rush in and save everyone? He asked himself, taking a deep breath. Always the hero, that’s what he was.
“What is that ?!”
Link tore his gaze from the clouds and turned it to the back of Irene’s head. Her voice was louder, more frightened than it had been moments before.
“What? What is it?” He asked, trying to look around her without leaning the broom off course. Irene pointed to a spot near the ground a hundred or so meters ahead.
“There! I’ve never seen a moth so big!” She answered. Link followed where she was pointing, straightened his back ever so slightly to see, and then felt his heart sink. A moth, in broad daylight, twice the size of a normal Hylian. And the blue-turquoise color of its wings was unmistakeable. Mothula. He was rather familiar with this one, as it was one he had fought multiple times. Annoying, but not difficult.
For a moment, he debated on just riding past and marking the monster down on his to-do list. Then he remembered that it would be easier to fight it alone than with others, if they happened to find each other. Seeing as they seemed to be banding together, it wasn’t wise for him to procrastinate.
Link huffed, and began digging through his bag.
“Irene, bring us close enough to the ground so that I won’t be a pancake if I jump.” He ordered. His fingers found what he was looking for, right where it was supposed to be. Irene gave him an incredulous look, eyes wide and mouth open.
“You can’t seriously think you’re going to fight that thing! It’s twice the size of you!”
“I’ve fought one twice that size. Your point?”
Link waited maybe two seconds of her searching for some argument but ultimately finding nothing.
“Hurry and start lowering us, I really don’t want to engage in a nosedive today.”
Irene gently leaned forward, the broom responding by descending at an angle towards the ground.
“I hope you know what you’re doing.” She mused. Link shrugged as he stuck Roc’s feather into his cap and braced himself to jump.
“I never know what I’m doing.”
Before Irene could protest, Link dropped from the broom, keeping his gaze on Mothula.
His feet found vague footing in the air, his body made lighter from the feather. Before he could get a feel for the ability (an adjustment needed every time he used the item) the feather decided to float him farther forward than he anticipated. Far closer to Mothula.
Dang it. He thought, trying desperately to backpedal. He only succeeded in speeding up both his fall and approach of Mothula. It’s beady black eye watched him warily as he soared overtop of it. Link would have sighed if he didn’t want to keep from spooking the monster.
Well, I suppose this is one way to do it.
He pinpointed the only stable location on Mothula’s back, doing his best to aim towards it. The lighter, wispier strands of his hair gently lifted into the air as he descended, carefully calculating where he should place his foot so that he wouldn’t immediately lose balance.
By the time that the soles of his pegasus boots gently landed on the fuzzy surface, Mothula had seemed to have forgotten about the strange floating man that had appeared. That was strange. Usually monsters attacked at first sight of other beings. This one had the foresight to not waste energy on something that it didn’t think was a threat.
Link felt a small seed of dread settle in his stomach, but focused on quietly drawing his sword and attempting to keep balance while the monster flapped its massive wings.
His sword glinted in the sunlight, hungering for something to connect with. Link locked onto the space where Mothula’s head and body met, and prepared his strike.
This will be over soon.
With a mighty cry, Link plunged the sword into the beast with the full weight of his body. He imagined the tip of the blade shattering through exoskeleton and gliding into the soft inside, but he could only barely make a crack. It felt as if there was something that kept his sword from doing any real damage.
Mothula screeched, and began violently twisting its body in attempts to dislodge the hero. Link wrenched his sword out of the monster’s flesh and prepared to strike again, but what he saw made any rational thought stop.
What looked like thick, black ink was spurting from the wound, splattering his legs and staining his boots. Now that definitely wasn’t normal.
What in Farore’s Forest?!
Before he even had time to decide what he thought about the ink there was no longer solid matter underneath him and his body was being viscerally thrown to the side. His back was the first to connect with a massive boulder. Sharp pain radiated from his spine, splaying stars across his vision as he drifted to the ground.
Link just barely managed to land on his feet and stay upright. That was… different. This Mothula was different. He widened his stance and raised his sword, watching the gargantuan moth circle around and prepare to come back to him.
Ok, when it turns around I’ll need to jump. Hopefully I can time it right and get a hit in on its eye. That should do more damage.
Link took a breath as the insect turned, hauling its massive, disgusting limbs under it. He bent his knees before taking a good look at Mothula, and launched before he realized that it was brewing something.
Between the two feelers on its face, glowing orange turned to yellow, which turned to white. Link felt his heart sink and his eyes widen as he realized, mid-air and helpless, what the monster had been preparing.
Fireballs.
===
“… pink hair! Shoot, wake up!”
Link let his eyes open to slits, almost shut them again when the sun stabbed into his temples.
“I’s more of a rose gold...” He mumbled before he even knew who was talking to or where he was. He twisted his neck to look at the voice, and then winced, fire spreading all across his skin as he moved. Right. Burns. Mothula.
The memories flooded back in a garbled wave, forcing his heart rate to skyrocket. His thoroughly roasted upper half screamed in protest as he sat up, the world finally coming into focus. Before him sat, with an utterly relieved expression, a boy who couldn’t have been much older than him. His eyes were of beautiful emerald. His hair was light tawny, falling in messy curls all around his head.
“Oh, thank goodness, you worried me there for a second!” He breathed, relaxing. A slight shimmering sound that Link hadn’t realized was there suddenly stopped. It was only then that he was able to detect the sweet honey aroma of healing magic.
Wait, that wasn’t right. It felt like fairy magic. But this boy was definitely not a fairy. He looked like a normal Hylian, if wielding a sword and shield. But that wasn’t entirely uncommon.
“That big bug monster is a real nasty, doesn’t help that it was infected.” He laughed awkwardly, face breaking out into a nervous smile.
Infected? Did he hit his head or something? Link wondered. Upon further inspection, Mothula seemed to be gone, and the other boy’s green tunic was stained with the same ink that was drying on Link’s own clothes.
So he took down the monster on his own. This is officially getting weird.
“Right… and… who are you?” He asked, letting his eyes narrow and nose wrinkle.
“Oh, sorry. I’m Link. If your name is also Link, then I’m Hyrule.”
Link’s stomach turned sour.
Oh. I understand. This isn’t real.
The sudden appearance of once-dead monsters, the black ink, it all made sense now. And then… the boy. Hyrule, apparently. He sighed inwardly and set his jaw in hard resolve. If this was a dream, he might as well see what it was about.
“Uh huh… how’d you guess?” He mumbled. Hyrule grinned sheepishly.
“Well, you have a witch friend, you were fighting a monster, and I can feel your magic. Those are all pretty tell-tale traits that you’re a hero of something or other. We’ve become pretty good at singling them out.” He explained. Link tried to get past the whole “feeling magic” bit and blinked.
“We?” He questioned. Gosh, if there were more somewhere…
“Yes. There are eight of us, but… it seems that we’ve all been dropped in different locations. I think I might have seen one or two of the others close by, but then I ran into your friend. Irene, I think she said her name was.”
“Friend is a strong word.” Link corrected. Hyrule smiled and shrugged.
“She seemed nice enough.”
Link’s head spun with the notion that Irene could be called “nice”. Not only that, but with the foreign terms that Hyrule used. Dropped? Others? Who were they? Why were they here? He stopped himself instantly. Of course, it wasn’t going to make sense if it was all in his head. There were bound to be plot holes.
“So… are all of you named Link?”
“Yep! But we go by our hero titles. Hyrule, Four, Time, Twilight…” he counted off the strange names on his fingers, trailing off. “Anyway, I had a feeling we might run into another here. We’ve never been to this era. It’s… so… bright.” For a moment, Hyrule’s eyes glazed over, looking at the emerald velvet of the field they were sitting on, the soft blotches of daffodils that littered the hills. Link scoffed, rolling his eyes.
“Well, It’s not all sunshine and roses, I’ll tell you that much.” He assured, picking up his sword off the ground beside him. It was still dripping in the night-black ink that had erupted from Mothula. He snarled in distaste and quickly tried to wipe it off of the metal, only managing to acquire a good deal of grass on the blade. Hyrule blinked out of his daze and looked back to Link, regaining his easy smile. Link had to wonder how any hero managed to smile that much without tearing a muscle in their face.
“Oh, I don’t doubt that.” He admitted. Link let his sword drop back to the ground softly, and he rubbed his face. Ouch.
“You said you’d never been to this era before. What exactly do you mean by that?”
Hyrule hesitated, putting a knuckle to his mouth.
“Well… all of us— the Links, are from different eras. Different points in history. Lately, strange portals have been opening up to the other eras. So essentially, time travel. We’re not sure where the portals are coming from or who’s behind it, only that with every new portal jump there are more and more infected monsters. Like the one you were fighting.”
Time travel. Sure, why not.
“And… the black blood?”
“That indicates an infected monster. They’re generally smarter and stronger than the normal monster.”
“Huh.”
Link closed his eyes against the sun that was giving him a headache and sighed. Somehow, he was even more confused now. He knew there were heroes of the past, but it just seemed like eight was too many.
“Anyway,” Hyrule continued, breaking the silence, “Usually if we haven’t been to an era before it means there’s another Link somewhere. Although… this looks a lot like my era. Just a lot less… destroyed.” He ended in a half-mumble, looking towards the ground. Link turned that statement over in his mind. His land, destroyed? How… could that happen? To his knowledge his land had always been the same, always safe. He had protected it.
“What… do you you know about your era before… you were born?” He asked, curiosity beating out his desire to keep conversation to a minimum. Hyrule blinked, thinking, and then smiled.
“The f—erm… the elders told of a beautiful land, covered in life and brimming with the kind of bitter sweetness that only the goddess could provide.” He provided wistfully. A gentle breeze lifted his hair as he breathed. How cinematic.
Link nodded and looked around. Wait. He had a mission. The settlement, the monsters. A sudden urgency overtook his curiosity of this strange character of his imagination. With a pained grunt, Link stood, picking up his disgusting sword and wincing at the way his head pounded.
“Well, thank you, for uh, waking me up, but I’ve got to get going.” He said, shoving his filthy blade back into its sheathe. With Mothula taken care of, he just had to get to the settlement, and then battle three (possibly infected) temple guardians. By himself. The more he thought about that the more he realized how impossible it sounded. Oh well. It wasn’t like he had a choice. If he wanted to end this dream the… pleasant way then he was going to have to do it. Even if it somehow wasn’t a dream, though he seriously doubted that. Time traveling heroes? He wasn’t so easily fooled. Not as fooled as he had been by soft palm tree melodies and gentle waves.
Hyrule scrambled up after him, catching up the few steps he had already walked.
“Wait! What’s your mission, maybe we can help?” He offered. Link raised an eyebrow.
“There’s temple guardians laying siege to a settlement just over yonder.” He nodded in the vague direction. “Three. I’m headed there to take care of them.” He said as confidently as he could, which, due to his phenomenal ability to appear annoyed whenever he wanted to, was not difficult. Hyrule tilted his head a moment, and then seemed to realize something.
“Oh! Dungeon Masters? Yikes, you’re doing that by yourself? No, absolutely not. I’ll tell you what, you come with me to round up the rest of the Chain, and then we all go over there and pulverize the monsters.”
For some reason, Link’s chest squeezed. If this were reality, he probably would already be walking away from this strange boy, unable to get past his suspicions that he was some evil lurking under a smile.
But then again, the stakes were low. And clearly, his dream wanted him to follow Hyrule. And part of him, he supposed the curious part, wanted to see exactly what the rest of the “chain” was like.
With an inward sigh, Link agreed. Hyrule’s smile was brighter than the sun.
====
Ten minutes later, Link was regretting his decision.
“Wait, so you’re telling me that I fail in the future, and Hyrule is left to ruin??” He challenged incredulously. Yeah right, like he was believing that. It wasn’t that he thought he couldn’t fail, it was that he was so tired of adventures. Even thinking about going on another made his knees hurt. Failing was just a slap in the face. Hyrule flinched back slightly and rubbed the back of his neck.
“Not exactly… you see, there’s a gap between you dying and me being born. That gap is where Ganon rose to power. I was born into the destroyed world, and I doubt you had a direct part in it.”
Link still thought that meant ‘failure’ just with more words. Who cared if it happened after he was gone or during, the point was he would ultimately do nothing to stop Ganon. The entire conversation made his chest turn sour with something he didn’t recognize.
“But uh… that’s the clearest connection in the timeline I’ve ever made. Sorry I didn’t mean to sound so excited.” Hyrule added. Link shrugged and rolled his eyes, unwilling to delve deeper into the topic or show Hyrule how much that bothered him.
Hyrule moved a low-hanging branch out of the way, and they were plunged into even more field. The sun indicated it was just noon. They had been walking for at least a couple hours, most of it existing in blessed silence.
After some deliberation, they had decided to simply walk in one direction and hope they ran into someone. Link thought that was a horrible way to look for someone, but he also couldn’t think of a better solution, so off they went.
After a good deal of walking, Link realized that his companion had mysteriously disappeared from his side. Upon further inspection, Hyrule was not missing, but flagging. Significantly. Link stopped to allow him to catch up, tilting his head at Hyrule’s white complexion and unsteady gait.
“You’re injured? Why didn’t you say something?” He questioned. Hyrule stopped and sighed, looking rather annoyed.
“I’m not inja-injured.” He corrected, rubbing his face. “If I use too much magic too quickly my sugar drops like crazy. That last thunder probably put me over the edge.” He laughed nervously at the end of his sentence, coming to a wobbly stop as he caught up.
Link resisted the urge to groan. They were already moving slowly, he did not want to have to stop to find food.
“You don’t carry food?” He asked. Hyrule shook his head, then stopped himself and nodded.
“W-well usually I do, but I used the last of it yesterday. I’m sure I’ll be fine though, one of the others probably h-has something.”
At that, Link rolled his eyes.
“You’re more of an idiot than I took you for. Look, I’ll find you something just hang on.” He mumbled, setting his bag on the ground and starting to look through it. Hyrule’s eyebrows scrunched together.
“You really don’t have to do that.” He slurred.
“I’m going to. Find a place to sit down before you keel over.” Link ordered. Hyrule opened his mouth to speak again, but Link cut him off, already knowing what he was going to say.
“I know . The same thing happens to me when I use my Pegasus boots too long. You’ll think you’re fine one moment and then you wake up in some random person’s house the next.”
At that, the other hero snapped his jaw shut and sat right there on the ground. Link dug through his supplies, hoping to find something, anything. He finally wrapped his fingers around his emergency snack bag, only to pull it out and find… nothing. Not even a crumb. He cursed quietly and looked back to Hyrule. He was now sitting with his head in his hands, and Link could see the sweat stains poking through his tunic.
“How’re you holding up?” He asked hesitantly. Hyrule raised a shaky thumbs up. That wasn’t promising. Link sighed.
“I haven’t got anything. I’m going to have to forage. I’ll be right back, yell if something happens. Guards are everywhere around here so try and stay alert.”
“I-ok… “
Link stood and scanned the surrounding areas for the cluster of bushes he was sure he had seen before… ah!
In a few good seconds of sprinting, Link came into contact with a promising looking blueberry bush. The berries were plump and ripe, hopefully enough so to hold Hyrule over until they could find something more sustaining. Link began plucking the berries off of their stems as quickly as he could, piling them into his snack bag.
A scuffle arose from behind him, one that sounded like metal clanging against metal in the distance. Link straightened and looked back, feeling his heart sink when he saw the all too familiar clunky armor of a green guard. He stuffed the rest of the berries into the bag and took off running, unsheathing his sword from his side.
When he returned, Hyrule was standing, barely, with the tip of his sword nearly touching the ground. It seemed like he had gotten a hit in already, but Link would be hard pressed to believe that Hyrule was able to swing again with how unsteady he was. Link rushed up behind the guard and thrust his blade into its back before it could lunge at Hyrule again.
The guard screeched and turned its shadowed eyes back to Link. He was just about to strike again when the guard swung its sword towards him. He just managed to jump, and the blade flew uselessly through the air, but that had been close. With one final slash, Link connected his weapon with the guard’s neck, and it erupted into a puff of smoke.
In that same moment, Hyrule finally tipped over onto the grass. He fell on his hands and knees, breathing heavily. Link yanked the bag of blueberries out of his pocket and tossed it over.
“Here, it’s not much, but it’ll have to work,” he said, searching the surrounding field for any more armored guards. Though he strained his eyes to see, he couldn’t spot anymore flashes of color. Once he was sure that rogue guard hadn’t brought any of its friends, Link turned back to Hyrule and allowed himself to relax.
“You didn’t let that thing hurt you, did you?” He rumbled. Hyrule shook his head and shoveled another handful of berries into his mouth. Link almost felt himself say words of celebration at this response, but instead exchanged them for “When you’re ready to get up off your butt, just let me know.”
Eventually, his companion did regain some color and the shaking quelled to a normal level. At that, they decided to keep walking.
“Thanks, you know… for saving me.” Hyrule said lightly, observing a dandelion on the ground. Link shrugged.
“Guess we’re even now, after Mothula.” He mumbled in response.
Silence overtook conversation again, Hyrule clearly running out of things to talk about. Link didn’t mind, it gave his situation a chance to sink in.
He had had strange dreams before, sure. This one had to take the cake. That didn’t mean it was a bad dream, really. What it did mean was that it was going to be hard to wake up from if it continued being a good dream. As good as his dreams could get, anyway.
“Oh… goddesses….” Hyrule muttered, suddenly stopping. Link looked up from the ground and fixed his eyes what his companion was frowning at. Before them, in the distance, stood a single lone tree, lit ablaze. It was beautiful, in a strange, fiery sort of way. Faintly, Link could hear a pair of cackling voices.
“What the heck?” He muttered. Hyrule sighed and began walking again.
“Come on, I think we found a couple of the others.”