Chapter Text
The Parmi brothers were good at what they did. Scavenge pods from whatever accident or wreck they could, assess the skills of the person inside, calculate a debt for their rescue, and sell to one of their many loyal business customers. Rinse and repeat ad nauseam. People called them bottom-feeders, others used the term grave robbers, some even liked to throw out the word vulture. They, however, were just willing to acknowledge the ugly truth of things:
If you wanted to survive in this vast universe, one had to take or one would be taken.
When their ship’s sensors pick up on the telltale frequency of a pod out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, their curiosity is quipped. There was no wreckage anywhere, no planets, literally nothing. Wherever the pod had come from, it was a long, long way from home.
Pulling it aboard was no issue. Even getting it set in place for assessment wasn’t that bad, despite its bulk. The appearance of it though, it just…
“This pod looks weird as hell, don't it?” Lexir, the younger of the two said, as he tried to wipe grime off the hull of the pod to get a better look at the writing on it.
What little he could see was still unreadable to him, the language not recognized by his work visor's universal translator. It couldn't even begin to place the weird symbol that kept cropping up at the pod's different access points: a highly stylized, eye lashed, weeping eye. This sort of malfunction with the visor wasn't common but definitely possible, especially if the language was part of an obscure dialect, from an Outlier Planet, or used root words from a dead society.
“It’s definitely not run of the mill, that’s for damn sure. It's bulky like some of the earliest pods designed, but it managed to survive space in one piece. Those first gens were onboard use only and weren't meant for the void." The elder brother, Remmy, replied from where he was hooking up the pod to the computer terminal just for this purpose.
“Have you ever seen a pod like this before, Rem?”
“Nope. Well, not exactly. Closest thing would have been that time I broke my leg and had to go to a hospital station on an actual planet. Even that was just a poorly made replica of the really old machinery they used to make on Terra.”
Lexir hummed for a moment, moving around the pod to where he could peer through the lid's viewing port. It was badly scratched and discolored, making it impossible to see the state of the person, or possible corpse, inside. It would not be the first time in the brothers' joint career as pod-sweepers that they opened one of these glorified coffins to find bones or much worse inside.
“How old do you think this thing is?” he eventually asked, moving yet again to stand next to where his brother sat typing away, staring intently at the information on the monitor. How he ever made sense out of half the readouts, Lexir would never know.
“Man, I can never tell by just looking at these things, you know that. Besides, this one is particularly beat to shit, it's a wonder it's in a single piece at all. I’m tryin' to run diagnostics now so we'll know more here at any mo-”
Remmy stopped mid-sentence, something on the screen apparently giving him pause.
“What? What is it?”
“Our trusty system seems to think this here is some sort of dual life and cryopod that launched from, get this, Hyrule of all places.”
“...wait wait wait, really?”
“That’s what it's showing.” Remmy said with a nod.
“Didn’t that planet go all,” Lexir wiggled his fingers dramatically, “up in flames or something like, a hundred years ago?”
“Or something is about right.”
“Can these things even run for that long? I thought dual models got phased out forever ago because their battery life was garbage when it came to long term continual usage.”
“Yeah, you’re not wrong on that. This one,” Remmy pointed to where the dual pod lay, “is apparently running just fine. It's even showing me strong life signs from whoever is in there.”
“Huh. Well shit, let’s wake this poor frozen sack up and see what they can tell us about that long dead planet."
"One reanimated relic, coming right up."
With a flourish of the hand and a final keystroke, the familiar hum of energy filled the room as the pod began it's awakening sequence. It was a good thirty seconds of humming and whirring before the lid of the pod began to separate from the base, lifting up and off to the side of the machine. Fog from the cold environment of the pod now spilled forth from it, but no person followed suit. No gasp of breath, no shivering form sitting up, no coughing fit from lungs breathing again for the first time in years, nothing.
They, apparently, had caught themselves a dud: a pod so broken that even it's internal systems didn't know what was what anymore.
At least there wasn't any stench of rot pluming out from the thing. It had been years since they'd found a dud with a body in it, but the process of inventorying the pod for scrap with decaying matter coating every inch of it was still seared into Lexir's mind and sinuses. Either way, a clean dud was still a dud and a dud meant far less income for all their efforts.
"Aw dammit, I really thought we found something good h-"
Lexir was cut off by a sound that belonged in one of the awful old horror movies his brother liked so much. It was like a drawn out gasp being pulled through torn skin, airy, wet and awful. From the fog of the pod came a grasping hand, fingers curling around the side of the pod and heaving the body it belonged to up and out of the base chamber.
They were humanoid, wheat colored hair a shaggy mess over their face and down their back, pointed ears peeking out through the thick mane. What the brothers could see of their tan skin was marred with an array of scars, the origins of which neither could even begin to guess at.
The person in the pod turned to face the Parmi brothers, their blue eyes filled with nothing but the utmost confusion as they opened their mouth, the terrifying noise from before falling from their lips as they tried to speak.
The plasma drill’s emergency shut off activated suddenly, a small blue light on top of the tool the telltale sign that it triggered.
It's the first time Link had ever seen it do so in the months he'd been using one. From the sparse training he’d been given before being shoved into the mines to work, he knew there was only one of three things that could be going on.
One, the drill had come in contact with living organic tissue matching one of the many species currently on ‘staff’ at the mining hub he was living on. Unlikely, given that no one else but him was even around and he certainly hadn't drilled himself.
Two, the drill itself was about to overheat and explode. Again, probably not. They tended to smoke right before that point and Link’s was smokeless, like always.
Three, he’d hit a mineral the drill did not recognize. Now that…that was a real possibility.
Peering into the space that he'd just been drilling at, Link dug his gloved fingers into the crumbling hole and found the offending culprit. For the most part, the rock was unassuming, save for its odd shape. A triangle with its edges rounded, it's sides equal to each other, no bigger than the size of his palm. How something like this could form naturally, he had zero clue.
Link tapped the side of his EV suit's helmet, the built-in headlamp flickering on after a moment. Holding the rock under the light, he turned it over and around every which way, trying to identify what it might be. It had a near iridescent quality to it, colors warping from warm to cool as he moved it under the light. Tapping the side of his helmet again, this time twice, the headlamp switched over to its UV light.
Under the purple hue of the light, the surface of the stone appeared to have little speckles of red, blue, green and gold embedded all along it. Shutting his lamp off entirely, one succinct thought crossed Link's mind,
'What a weird ass rock.'
“Hey Link!”
The sound of his name being barked was enough to startle him stiff, hand clamping around the stone and instinctively stuffing it into his pocket. Pointedly, he kept his focus on the craggy wall in front of him, only to quickly find a hand spinning him around and pushing his back to it.
Keeping his expression neutral, he looked up at his fellow indentured miner and shift manager, a wiry man named Ingo. Link didn't know if he'd looked at him wrong or if he did something that the other man had taken as a slight, but from the moment they had met, the mustached man seemed to squarely have a bug up his ass whenever it came to Link.
"If you have time to stand and stare at the stone, you have time for mining it too, dont'cha? What were staring at anyway, huh? Something interesting you wanna tell me about?"
Case in point.
Link only shook his head in response, letting none of the irritation he felt so much as twitch the corners of his lips. Ingo quirked his mouth into something like a smirk and clapped his hand against Link's left shoulder, squeezing harder than he needed to. Even through the thick material of his own EV suit and Ingo's gloved hand, Link felt the unnecessary pressure behind the grip.
"That's what I thought. Now stop staring at wall like a good for nothing and actually do your work."
With that, Ingo let him go with a small shove, the force enough to push Link against the wall once more. He sighed softly at the sight of his shift manager's back, rubbing at the spot the other man had grabbed. How someone like Ingo ever managed to get into a position of power, Link honestly wasn't sure he wanted to know. Sighing again, he picked up his plasma drill and got back to work, letting his mind drift and tune out the monotony of his task.
The last six months had been…well they had been a lot. Being woken up from the pod he'd been adrift in space was one thing. Having no memories to call his own, save for his name, that was a whole thing in and of itself too. Everything else just added layers upon layers of ridiculousness to the life he woke up to.
First, there was the fact that he effectively had no voice. The most his vocal cords seemed capable of was a low, scratchy noise that usually made people nearby sorry if something was dying. The company doctor that gave him a once over after he'd become an mining 'employee' thought it was an injury of some sort that the pod had tried, and failed, to heal completely. Link had quickly been outfitted with a CommPad that he wore on his wrist at all times but, much to his frustration, few people around him ever had the patience to let him use it to communicate.
Secondly, there was the substantial debt incurred by those who 'rescued' his pod. Apparently, pulling people out of space was a great way to make debt indentured 'employees' in this day and age. Don’t want to work off the money it took to retrieve you? That's fine, your fishermen were always glad to put you back in whatever pod you came from and throw you out to the black void of space again. As far as Link understood, few people ever went back into their pods once out.
Thirdly, even without his voice or using the CommPad, trouble seemed to follow Link without him trying, like he was some sort of magnet for it. If it wasn't one of the miners insisting he gave them a weird look or slighted them /he never had any idea what they meant by that/, it was staff reporting him for attitude and disrespect /how he could possibly make the CommPad's one provided voice bank sound anything except monotone and efficient, he had no clue/.
Link's time awake taught him, quite quickly, that if he wanted to have a chance to leave the mining industry in one piece within his natural lifetime, he would have to keep his head down and his proverbial mouth shut. So he had, for months now, done his best to do exactly that. He woke up, he ate alone, suited up, did the work he was tasked with for the day, ate again, and went to his tiny strip of a room to sleep. He washed every other day like his schedule allowed, had gotten used to the weird texture the food dispensed from the machines in the cafeteria had, and kept to himself as best as he could. Everyday, in and out, head down, doing what he could to keep the world he found himself in from biting at him.
Was he bored out of his ever loving mind most of the time? Oh absolutely.
But he was surviving. The longer he was awake, the more he came to realize that if you were at least doing that, you were doing pretty alright.
Working hours are now over. Please proceed to nearest entry hatch for decontamination process.
The message caught Link off guard, making him blink hard several times. He'd zoned out hard enough to get himself through the rest of his shift without noticing.
Awesome.
Sighing and stepping back from the wall he'd been working on, he slung the plasma drill over his shoulder and gently kicked a button on the side of the bin the mined material had been falling into. He watched for just a second as the pile began to shift, wanting to ensure that the machine had indeed started up. Satisfied, Link nodded and began the small trek back to the nearest entry point for decontamination and scanning.
The first time he went through the process, Link had no damn clue what to make of it.
Lined up only to be made to stand with your hands behind your head in a single person tube while being blasted with air harsh enough to nearly knock you over, your eyes almost blinded by the scanning laser that followed if you didn't close them in time. Even months in, he still found this part of his day particularly unpleasant.
Cleared by the overhead light switching from UV black back to bright white, Link stepped through the opening door of the decontamination tube and made his way to the locker rooms, removing his helmet as he did so. Opening the locker assigned to his suit once he reached it, Link pushed the helmet into the top compartment, the square shape of it sliding neatly into the space. Grabbing the zipper handle from the hook in the locker, he lined up the crocked notch with the seam on the front of his suit and pulled downward, the self adhering fibers splitting apart. Shrugging the top of the EV suit off, Link pulled the long strands of his mullet out of his low laying ponytail and he ran his fingers through it, once, before looping the hairband around the same wrist as his ComPad.
Humanoid EV suit example and close up of zipper tool.
It was as he was pulling off the lower part of his EV suit that the odd rock made itself known again as a out of place lump against his leg.
He never did scan the damn thing, did he? No…no he wouldn't have, not with Ingo distracting him with that one-sided pissing contest of his. The decontamination room's scanners wouldn't have nabbed it from his pocket because it was still a unrecognized junk material, as far as the mine's system was concerned. Oh this could be so bad.
If there was one thing, one actual thing that could land him in serious trouble, it was the mine owner's thinking he was trying to steal something from them. Theft was the reason the decontamination room had the system it did; even attempted theft of company property was the surest way to get debt added to one's ledger. Debt enough to add decades of work to one's ledger.
Long and the short of it was this: Link needed to get this stupid stone back outside during his next shift, point blank, end of sentence. Or he might as well kiss being free in this lifetime good-bye.
With a fluid and practiced quickness he had no context for, Link pulled his legs from the EV suit and slipped his hand into the pocket where the weird rock sat, palming it. As he leaned his torso into his locker to push the bulk of the suit deeper into it, he deftly placed the rock in the breast pocket of the jumpsuit he wore under his EV suit while working.
Giving away none of the anxiety that threatened to shake his hands, Link closed the door to the EV suit's locker, and turned to leave for the cafeteria. The rock would be a problem for future Link, for tomorrow Link. Right now, all he needed to worry about was getting food, some sleep, and keeping out of trouble.
Should be easy enough.
It was not easy enough.
Forgetting that someone tried to trip him while he was getting his meal, some stocky red-head with yellow eyes whose name slipped Link's mind, there was literally everything else that happened nearly as soon as he tried to eat.
The cafeteria for the mining unit he was a part of was longer than it was wide, long tables and accompanying benches facing the entrances. Isles split through the sea of reinforced metal every one-hundred feet, each leading to a dispensing stations set along the back wall. With shifts in constant flux and flow, people working away at the current site around the clock, the cafeteria was always busy, always bustling, always nearly full.
Even still, Link usually found space to spare around himself when eating.
Just as he sat down and made to begin shoveling a lump of the nutrient mush before him into his mouth, did he feel the floor beneath him shudder. That…that wasn't normal at all. It was as far as he got in his consideration before he was watching his food tremble, then shake, then rattle, as the tremors of something big made it's way closer to the cafeteria.
One of the food dispensers bulged and then crumpled forward as what looked like a large drill broke through the wall. All of this happened only a handful of tables behind from where Link sat, neck craned and shoulders twisting to see what was causing all the ruckus.
Those nearest of those to the drill's entry point yelped and scrambled away, going up, over, and around whatever was in their immediate way. Even as the drill continued to spin the tip of it changed, opening up like a metal maw to let a two figures walk from it. The first, slender and sleek, had their helmeted head turned towards something on their left wrist before turning to look out across the sea of faces staring at them. The second, tall and bulking, had a gun to match their size and a helmet with the telltale insignia of a space crew highlighted across it. A pirate crew, if Link was seeing a skull in the pattern correctly.
Space pirates, oh joy.
The first figure pressed something against her wrist and one of the worst noises Link had ever heard shrilled through the cafeteria, forcing him and everyone around him to cover their ears for a moment.
"Now that I know you're all at attention, let's get those hands above heads before someone has to get hurt!"
The smaller of the two's voice was amplified through their helmet, their words carrying through the hall well as a wave of hands rose into the air.
"Good, now I'll make this simple to follow! I'm after something one of you dug up today. If everyone does as they're told, no one has to get hurt; I'll be out of your hair in less than five minutes, even. Me and my crew have no qualms with you, but I won't hesitate to make an enemy today if needed, are we clear?"
From where he sat, Link could see Ingo. Could see that his shift manager's face was turning red with anger. Having been on the receiving end of such a expression more than a few times now, he expected it when the lanky man abruptly stood up and marched over to the smaller figure, bellowing,
"Who do you think y-"
Link blinked.
Ingo was on the floor in a crumpled mess, unmoving. The figure rolled their neck once and turned their attention back to the sea of faces turned their way. Not a single pair of hands moved from where they were held in the air.
The figure looked down at their wrist again and, to his dismay, turned and began walking in his direction. As the figure reached where he sat, they roughly grabbed him by the front of his jumpsuit, pulling him forward with such force that he found himself now facing them, his back pressing into the thin lip of the bench table uncomfortably. They released him to press something on the side of their wrist; as they did so, Link watched as several things happened in unison.
First, the faceplate on the figure's helmet dissipated, leaving him to look at one of the prettiest people he had probably ever seen. Probably. Hazel eyes, strong nose, full lips and dark complexion were framed by the suit's dark material.
Secondly, the hulking tall accomplice of this pretty pirate had handed them a rather large looking knife, which they promptly pointed the tip of to Link's face.
Thirdly, he realized he had an extremely annoying itch on the bottom of his left foot.
“I believe you have something that I've been looking for.” The person before him said, tone as hard as iron even though their voice was still laced with sweetness.
Link stared at the knife in his face, entirely unsure of how to proceed. If he moved to activate the CommPad on his wrist to talk, he might get hurt. If he didn't do anything, he might get hurt. If he tried to make what noise he could, he might get hurt. He was kind of screwed, regardless of what he did.
“Translator broken? Scared stiff? Or are you just stupid?"
He frowned and furrowed his brows at them, shaking his head. They didn't need to be an ass while holding him at knife point, yeesh.
"Oh good, you can understand me. Now, I know you have what I’m after. Should be shaped like a triangle, looks and feels like rock…know it?"
He nodded and continued to stare at the pirate.
"So you gonna hand it over? Unless of course, you have a death wish of some sort?” She pressed the blunt edge of the knife's tip to Link's nose for emphasis.
He shook his head minutely, not wanting the knife to slip, and began to reach into the chest pocket where the strange stone still sat. Pulling it out, careful to keep his unoccupied hand raised and visible, Link held his hand palm up, the rock in the center of it.
“About damn tim-”
Link had every single intention of letting this pirate snatch the stone from his hand, he absolutely did. He just wanted to get back to keeping his head down and chipping away at his stupid debt. But, apparently, the rock had other plans.
As the pirate reached to take the stone from his hand, it began to lose its form, pooling along the lines of his palm, it’s color shifting into a swirling mixture of gold, green, red, and blue. Before either Link or the pirate could react, the liquid had lashed out from its small pool and wrapped around the wrist of each other’s hands, before disappearing entirely. It was the longest few seconds of Link's life, watching the stone change shape like it had a mind or a will.
There was a beat of silence and than,
“What did you just do to my guidance stone, you little cretin?”
All Link could do was shake his head and wave his hands in front of himself, doing everything he could to convey to this obviously dangerous woman that he had done nothing. The pirate opened her mouth to say something, only for the shrill sound of an alarm sounded overhead.
"…I think that's our cue to leave." The larger of the two said, turning back towards the drill.
The smaller pirate grumbled as their helmet rematerialized around their face, the words "What a waste of my damn time-" being the most clear to Link's ear as they turned to walk away.
He went to take a deep breath, every fiber of his being thankful this nonsense was nearly done-
And then something yanked at his wrist, hard.
Hard enough that Link found himself on the floor, his arm out stretched, a matching set of cuff and chain visible between him and the pirate for the briefest of moments before it faded. He watched from where he laid as the pirate stared at their own wrist for a beat before giving it a tug. He felt him arm jostle as the cuff and chain between them appeared again and dissipated once more.
Great. Fantastic. Absolutely perfect.
“Oh you have got to be kidding me- I don't have time fo- Just grab him Senza, we can figure this out back on the ship, now let’s go!”
Before he can fully register what was said, Link is hauled bodily upwards and over the shoulder of the pirate's accomplice, the action forcing a puff of air from his chest. The next few minutes of Link's existence move incredibly fast and yet painfully slow.
He sees many faces staring at him as he was hauled into the pirates drill like a sack of gravel. Sees that no one moves a muscle to help, just a sea of hands and eyes.
In an awkward, upside down view, he catches sight of the drill tip closing back up, the outside still clearly visible despite the now enclosed space. Dizzyingly, he watched as the drill spun in reverse, filling the space it had made with some sort of dark foam as it moved backwards.
Link only catches a glimpse of the mining hub that he has called home for the last half year before the drill is fully retracted and enclosed within something. He found he could only dimly wonder if pirate kidnappings were included on the 'Acceptable Reasons for a Late Payment on Rescue Debt' list.
More movement.
Hands lowering him into a coffin, no, a pod. A prototype, a one of a kind thing, the Queen had called it.
Words washing over him.
"This is the only thing I can do to save your life, Link. Hyrule will need your help, when you wake up. For that I am so, so sorry, my dear friend."
Sat in a seat, buckles holding him in place.
The lid slides shut overhead with a hiss and the pod begins to heal and freeze him in tandem. There is pressure building
Everything goes dark.
Everything goes dark.
Link comes back to himself slowly. The first thing he becomes aware of, aside from the pounding in his head, is the sound of voices very close by.
“-nd now that we know we weren't followed, can someone make me a drink, please? I have to wait until my living ball and chain here comes back to himself before I can do much of anything.”
“On it, Captain Tetra."
“Make it a double, won't you Senza? I can tell I'm gonna need it.”
"Yes, ma'am."
So…he wasn't tethered to any old pirate, oh no. He now found himself attached to a pirate Captain.
Great. Fantastic. Absolutely fucking perfect.
Sighing silently to himself, Link cracked an eye open, preparing himself to try and have something near a civilized conversation with his begrudging captor.
Like an incessant drip of water, the feeling of awakening scratched at the consciousness of Something.
It rolled as it stretched out, dark flames billowing angry and hot from the surface of Hyrule. The planet was dead, thoroughly and completely. The planet's proverbial corpse only held together by Something's desire to remind any who dare grow close that it was here and it could Burn. Out in the darkness of the void around it, Something could smell the kindling of hope it thought smothered to death spark anew.
On a planet that has not seen life on it for one hundred years, the thing that continued to burn Hyrule opened its eyes and bellowed out into the inky blackness of space.
Something was awake and it Hated.