Chapter Text
Link watches as the beast made of malice roars for one last time, its serpentine body exploding like a corrupted flare.
It’s finally over. He’s done it. Hyrule is safe once more.
Link falls through the air, pink glide suit catching on the wind. The hero waits for the light dragon—for Zelda— to retrieve him and bring him to safety, letting out a celebratory wooowhooup! as the final chunks of gloom-filled flesh burn up in the morning sun. The Hylian feels complete, fighting with Zelda by his side again, slaying beasts larger than his mortal body.
“Take that, Dra gan !” He shouts, lungs filled with gleeful laughter as he plummets down. “Not so tough now!” Link takes it all in, the rising sun, the wind rushing past him, the adrenaline high as the light dragon dives down to catch him.
He can’t wait to tell Sidon all about this. To tell the sages and Purah all about this, to tell… to tell Zelda.
The thought of her face is sobering.
Now what? Link thinks as the light dragon matches his speed, radiant eye staring into his soul, everything about it so... wrong . How can I bring my Zel back?
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It’s been months since the defeat of Ganondorf, and Link is getting restless. He’d prayed to Hylia, but the only response he ever got was that he must be patient.
As if I’m ever patient.
Purah is equally restless to have her lab buddy back. She spent months researching ways to bring Zelda back, but in the end, she wasn’t able to find even one reference to draconic-fication in what remained of Hyrule Castle’s records.
It seemed like they were forced to wait.
Purah spends her days trying to finish what she and Zelda started a month before the upheaval. Link had been kept in the dark about what it was, but apparently Zelda had wanted to make something for him.
It was finished only two months after shelving the de-draconicfying project, a feat likely achieved by many late nights spent at the lab instead of wondering about how long will we have to wait—
The hero spends his days clearing monster camps along the main road, work undone every time the moon glows red.
The good news is that the blood moons have been getting less and less frequent, the last one occurring almost five months ago. Only the depths still have lynels left now.
The bad news is that this means fewer monsters for Link to distract himself with.
He’d found the last shrine last month—a stupid blessing, really, Raru —and had switched to experimenting with Zoni devices more. He tried helping the Zoni Researchers study the contraptions, but apparently, actual experiments require rigorous procedures that must account for all variables and—
Well, he had gotten bored again fairly quickly.
Right now, Link is catching Zelda up about what she’s missed this past month, the hero lying atop the Light Dragon’s fluffy hair as he recounts the latest Purah sighting.
“I swear, her hair was in a worse state than mine!” Link exclaims. “Anyway, she dragged me into the lab, yoinked your Pad directly from my belt, plugged it into some kind of apparatus, and had me wait outside!” He throws his hands into the air, head turned to the side, towards her ears, as he speaks.
“After what must’ve been a solid five hours —five hours without the Pad, stuck waiting outside because I can’t teleport and you know how she gets about wandering off before she’s done with you—she bursts open the door and yeets a new Pad directly at my face!”
He continues waving his hands, one slapping his forehead in a recreation of the event. “I had a bruise for a week! It was worth it, though, to have the old Sheikah runes back.” He unclips the new Pad, one bearing resemblance to his old Slate, and holds it up.
“Thanks, by the way. I really missed having access to limitless bombs.” The hero’s smile falls, hands following. “We all really miss you, Zel. I know that ‘The Light and Time Dragon’ is still needed for something, but Hylia’s being a little slow on the delivery.” Link chuckles.
Suddenly, someone speaks to him in a voice that sounds like the Goddess’s.
“You have been patient, Wild one.” The words are not heard, but rather form in the hero’s head. “It is time you set off on your next journey.”
Wait, right now? Link thinks, scrolling through his Pad’s storage. Can’t I restock first?
“I’m afraid not, little one. But don’t worry, you will have time later to fill your Slate.”
The hero disappears, his body dissolving into light as the sun sets.
—<<<<<^^^^^>>>>><<<<<^^^^^>>>>>—
…
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A wolf runs through the woods, his strong legs burning from exhaustion. The air carries the rancid smell of monsters, the scent getting stronger as he nears the town. He prays that he’ll make it in time, before anyone falls, before the children get taken, before he never sees them again.
Please , Link begs to all the gods that will listen, please let me see them one last time. He reaches the familiar trail leading up to his old home, hoofprints in the mud. Strangely, they are hooves of a horse, and not a split-toe like a bullbo. Link can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not. On one hand, that means that the Bulblin King is upholding their tentative peace. On the other hand, he’s never faced an enemy that rode a horse before, at least not as a wolf. He has no time to ponder it further, though, as he races past the treehouse—his former home, a place that hasn’t felt like home in a while—towards his peaceful hometown, the closest to it he’s been since that fateful day over a year ago.
Every time he’d tried to enter as a wolf, Rusl chased him away—the man who became his father, who raised him as his own, now treating him like he was some sort of rabid animal. Last time he tried, he didn’t even make it to the village proper before Rusl noticed him. That was two weeks ago. Link hasn't tried since.
But now’s not the time for doubts, not when lives are at stake. His fear of rejection can wait until his family is safe.
He can see the gates now, the hinges hanging on to splintered wood.
He’s too late.
Quickening his pace, pushing his screaming muscles as far as they would go, the wolf emerges from the forest path and bursts onto the scene awaiting him.
<-<-<-<-<->->->->->
The Hero of the Wilds reforms on top of an odd, natural stone pillar in a village he has never seen before. People wearing odd clothes go about their day, carrying wood inside, fishing in the nearby pond, and chatting with one another. One young woman—dressed in a white, sleeveless tunic with orange pants—notices his sudden appearance and visibly does a double-take as Link gives her an awkward wave. She approaches him cautiously and shouts something in a language he’s never heard before.
“I don’t understand,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “Do you know Hylian?” The woman frowns and says something while pointing to one of the houses along the river, right next to a pumpkin patch.
I thought only Kakariko and Hateno had pumpkins? Link wonders idly. Wait, not the point.
He tilts his head, motioning towards the building. “Do you want me to go there?” He doesn’t understand her response, but assumes that her pointing again means yes. He jumps off the strange formation, startling the poor villager, who stares at his right hand—Rauru’s hand. Ignoring her surprise, Link sets off towards the house, taking a moment to collect his thoughts on the way.
Did Hylia really just throw me into a random village? He steps onto the wooden bridge spanning the river. Everything here is so… peaceful. What here warrants a hero? He’s so caught up in his thoughts that he fails to notice the sound of hoofbeats approaching in the distance. Will something here help Zel—
The gates of the village burst open, the sound of wood splintering breaking the calm. The villagers run into the nearest homes, curiosity about the newcomer forgotten as they shift their focus onto the threat. Link turns around as a strange, electric blue Lynel charges directly at him.
Well, that answers that question, he thinks as he dives off the bridge to avoid being trampled. Link dashes out of the water on the other side as the Lynel skids across the hoed ground of the pumpkin patch on the other side of the bridge, uprooting a pumpkin plant. Reaching behind his back, his hand closes on thin air where the Master Sword should be . Hylia’s damned—
He pulls out his Purah pad, remembering that he broke almost every other weapon he had wiping out the Gleeok population. The only things left were a decayed knight’s broadsword and a pristine giant boomerang that he found in the depths.
This is gonna be an interesting fight.
The hero takes a moment to examine his opponent: a bright blue monster, probably a Lynel, but with a slightly more humanoid torso, somewhat scrawny (for a Lynel), back-facing horns, and dual-wielding broadswords. No bow. That’s a relief. He can try to snipe it from a rooftop, and it won’t be able to do anything about it. Link starts towards the nearest building to do just that when the Lynel swings its swords in his general direction, a good twenty feet away from the Hylian.
Normally, this would have no effect.
Normally, a Lynel’s ranged attacks are well telegraphed before they happen.
But this, as Link finds out, is no normal Lynel.
Two short energy beams fly out from the beast’s swords, catching the hero off guard as they tear through the grass. The beams woosh overhead and slam into the opposite riverbank as he manages to duck out of the way in the nick of time.
That rules out sniping.
Link pulls out his broadsword and runs diagonally towards the beast, ducking under beam after beam before getting close enough for it to switch to regular attacks. The Lynel sweeps low with both its swords, Link backflipping over the attack. Time slows down as the hero rushes in, dealing blow after blow with his only sword…
Which he neglected to fuse anything to. Just great .
He ends his flurry rush with his sword shattering into a million pieces, then backing away. This time, he remembers to pull out something to fuse with his remaining weapon, but gets interrupted by yet another pair of beams aiming to separate his head from the rest of him. The blue Lizalfos horn is sent flying, lodging itself in a house a few yards away. Crap.
Link rolls under the next set of beams and has just enough time to pull out his giant boomerang before sidestepping even more sword beams.
They really do look like swords… Huh.
He quickly fuses the horn to his weapon, and—after two more beams—throws his only weapon at the blue beast. The great boomerang slices through the Lynel’s blue skin with ease, the blades leaving two gaping wounds where they pass. The monster staggers, momentarily stunned. Link seizes the opportunity to jump onto its back, pulling out—
The hero realizes that he’s made a grave miscalculation when no weapon materializes from the Pad.
The strange Lynel is not pleased by the development and tries to buck Link off. Link, being the master animal-rider that he is, stubbornly refuses to fall off. The giant boomerang swishes past the two as they fight, Link’s only weapon splashing into the river and silently sinking to the bottom. The beast switches tactics, reversing its grip on one of its swords and instead tries to stab the hero, who in turn responds by grabbing the lynal’s arm, tightening his legs around the beast’s body, and attempting to pry the sword out from its grasp.
Beast and man, locked in a battle of raw strength.
…
On the other side of the river, up the trail, a wolf emerges from the shadows.