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His wish – when it comes down to it – is meaningless. 

Ciela realizes this with a horrible sinking feeling after she says goodbye to Link, and the last of the fog turns everything almost entirely milkweed sap-white. 

It was all a Dream. 

Well–not quite all a Dream. It was the Dream of a god, the tissue of which is a whole lot more substantive than a thread that might pass through a mortal’s sleeping mind. A god’s Dream is physical; it moves. It has math and order. 

It isn’t until the fringes of the world–of the Dream–begin to fray that Ciela realizes the implications. That when it ends– when the Ocean King wakes up–

Linebeck won’t exist except as stray fragments of a particularly memorable dream. Not him, not his ship. Not the islands or the fish, not the cuccos, not the rupees; not even the sky or the sea. 

She decides briefly (and heretically) that it was a rotten deal, Oshus’s promise. His ship for a wish, a wish for his ship, something he’s only afforded for the few moments he has left. And he has no idea those moments were ending, ticking fractionally away. 

This isn’t any ordinary sea fog, no mist of the latent heat and cooling damp air. Magic is as magic does, which means something can come from nothing. It can create him; it can destroy him. 

He will disappear soon. She wonders if she’ll remember him after he’s gone, if existence is anything more than physicality; if time, too, holds imprints of other people.

Maybe she should have said goodbye properly. Ciela is stubborn like flint, but she isn’t incapable of knowing when she’d made a mistake. She wouldn’t admit it, of course, not out loud. But if she had known… if she had known…

The Ocean King gives two great Thinks of his oceanic mind. Like pillars, they uphold the fabric of this fraying Dream a moment longer. The fog slows to a molecular crawl. These are their last moments in this ephemeral seascape, this Dream. This is her last chance. 

Her thoughts have hardly materialized when the Ocean King begins reading her mind. The tendrils of their consciences bind, twisting until they are a part of the same rope. She watches while the gears in the mind of a god consider a little fairy’s most human-like plea.

The magic… it is not meant to bring these shells into the light of the real world. The consequences could be dire… They could be catastrophic. 

But he’s not a shell , she cries, betraying herself. He’s a person. You made him. So I think it’s only fair if you—

Shall I save everyone? The shipyard worker? The fortune teller? How about the fish, or the trees or the rocks? Surely, Ciela, if I were to allow him passage through the gate, I must allow everyone. It would be, after all, only fair.

Ciela was no believer in the trolley problem. She was always an optimist, an enthusiast of other ways and different endings. There’s always another way. 

So she asks for a wish, too. Can’t she have one? And if he, of all people, is deserving, then so is she, for saving the seas, and if she could have just this one wish–

It was never a real wish, the Ocean King tells her. Surely you must know that. A trick of a great mind that can will anything into existence. Soon, we will return to our Realm. Come, Ciela, O Spirit of Courage. Return, and embrace your Spirithood. 

Just one wish , she begs. I know you can. Please. I did everything you asked of me. Everything. 

Do not be naïve. Long has been my slumber. Soon I will wake, and once this world ends, a new one will begin. A single man means very little in the scope of your powers. You will see, Ciela, you will forget this nightmare. He is a blink. You are second in majesty only to a god. 

He saved your life. 

He did not. Like his ship, he was a vessel for a more virtuous cause. 

Reality begins to collapse again, pulling and tearing at its threads and she feels like she’s going with it, simultaneously sucked into nothingness and expanding into everything. The Ocean King’s mind yanks once, twice, at existence, and half the world – then half of that – ceases to exist. In a few moments, none of it will have ever happened. 

So she stops time. It’s her power, after all. Her right. 

She freezes the only thing surer than death, to allow herself even a few more seconds – maybe to consider her options. Maybe she does it just to stave off the inevitable. 

But the Ocean King’s great mind resists and pulls at her spell, a temporary bandage she stitched on a larger bleed in the cosmos. 

Time is, literally, running out, and she has to do something. 

And maybe the Ocean King is right. After all, he was never real – just a result of the chaotic flashing of neurons in a celestial battle between a god and a ravenous demon. A cog in a larger game. Only a half an hour ago, she hadn’t even been sure Linebeck would survive the battle. She had resigned herself to the inevitability of his death, thinking he’d die, too, when Link slayed Bellum. 

To survive all that – the battles at sea, the squabbles with Jolene, the tentacles and venom of a horrible demon – only to be unThought, once he’d proven his use. Wasn’t that what the fortune teller had said to him? 

And yet… isn’t it odd? Odd that, someone so unimportant might be so arrogant, so sure of his importance.

He was funny, whether he meant to be or not. His romance with Jolene a poorly-kept secret about which she sometimes obsessively wondered. He was greedy and cowardly and sometimes altogether unkind. But other times he was sincere and proud; and twice, he was even brave. 

He lavished devotion on his ridiculous coat. He lied, often. He was clever. Sometimes Ciela thought he loved the ship much more than he loved even himself. 

And everything about him was insufferable and confoundingly charming. The ego on the man was visible a mile away. His insecurities, though, were well-hidden. You could find them if you looked close enough. She had. 

Surely, in a Dream, there is no need for people like him, unless he is so distinct that he becomes, by his own volition, somehow very real.

It was almost incredible, Ciela surmises, and an enormous waste, to strike from the record a man with enough personality to fill a few rooms, a house, a village - and then some - just because he was a pain in the ass and functionally fictional. 

And while she might not get a wish, she has something better – something she can manage on her own. 

She doesn’t love him. That would be too much, even with her level of impulsivity. She is a fairy, he is a man. And that’s as good a reason as any. 

Plus, well–

I’m me. 

You’re you. 

As a rule, she doesn’t live with regrets. They are worthless tokens of the past, the unfixable, unretractable. You can’t unsay anything. Words and ears are a chemical reaction. But if she could do things over–

She’s almost out of time. The seconds yearning to tick by strain at the edges of her spell. 

A Dream is an unconscious thought. This Dream belongs to the Ocean King, and it created life and water and music (though it’s now three-quarters gone). And if a Dream can be a shade or two shy of reality, a refraction of it, then a Thought, she figures, could be doubly powerful. 

So. She Thinks. And Thinking someone into existence is a lot more difficult than she anticipated. Atoms are heavier than Dreamed whims–they come full of implications, wishes, desires, habits, fears, the will to live. WIth her mind, she lifts and creates. It’s a terribly strenuous process… not quite painful, though certainly not pleasant. 

Her effort is only halfway complete when her spell breaks and time resumes its sanctimonious movement. Creation interrupted. She loses her focus. And the man is only half-made, a disorganized collection of elements, star stuff, nucleic acids, electrons. 

Let me do it. Please. It doesn’t cost you anything. 

My dear girl. Do not grieve his loss, the Ocean King says in her mind. It is akin to grieving  a pet, or a doll. Objects, people, ideas… They are ephemeral for beings such as ourselves. In time, you will forget. 

I won’t, she promises, and she believes herself. 

His temper rises; it writhes like a mirage on a hot summer day. You have always been stubborn. Do you not grow weary, inventing sympathy for the unliving? Your reserves must be terribly drained. 

I’m fixing my mistakes.

Spirits do not make mistakes. They can, however, become one.

I was very unfair to him.

The sailor isn’t real. And like that, another half of the Dream vanishes. Her construct barely squeezes through the purge unscathed. Don’t punish yourself, my dear. Soon all time, all beings, will be little more than fractions to you, the cold beauty of pure mathematics. 

Another half of the world ceases, leaving behind only the oceans, a partial sailor — and poetry.

You and I will still be here when

New Hyrule is founded, 

when new evils ravish the landscape.

When civilizations rise and fall; when

the lettering on the last tomb is worn away by the elements

when the sun has expended the last of its energy

when matter ceases to exist.

You and I will still be here,

in some form

forever, dear girl. 

Gods do not die. 

They do not bleed. 

They do not love.

They do not cease. 

She loses her focus and 

the sailor begins to disintegrate.

she reignites her magic and grasps at the atoms 

like beads from a recently broken necklace.

what harm could come of it, she asks, holding together at the seams a man who had never really existed. Who she could not love 

but did anyway.

These are 

the laws of matter, the laws of magic. 

I am not being unfair or cruel 

when I insist we abide by their frameworks.  

But you are a god

and I am a spirit—

I don’t mean to get too theological, but you’d think

you’d think the immortality

and the omnipotence

would afford some rule-breaking.

You are not a human, Ciela. 

Breaking rules has more consequences

than a scraped knee

a parent’s lecture

a broken heart. 

Like what? She asks in earnest, 

her heart feeling very much broken. 

Taking that which is unReal

and making it Real

gives a poor return on investments. 

The world is balanced like a checkbook between 

Real

and Imaginary. Bring your Imaginary sailor into the real world.

Bring him 

and you’ll see

who it destroys. 

I think you’re lying. 

This Ocean is going to disappear…

Our world is going to disappear…

Our world…

Our… world…

Verily…

It be the nature of Dreams to end. 

The carbon construct

half a man

shimmers like filtered light between

frames of existence.

Then finish the job, Ciela. See what your meddling creates.

Do you like these people? Link, Tetra, and their crew? 

Innocent lives

people you know

people you don’t.

See what happens when 

you favor one of these puppets.

See whom it hurts

See who is destroyed. 

See—

Sea 

sea 

sea.

Who is she

to take the ocean away from him. 

Waves of reality move in and out. 

This isn’t a war. 

But she can’t resign herself to waking up

even if it is a defining aspect of sleep. 

I won’t wait for you much longer. 

Reality sizzles

pops

hisses

at its edges, oil

in a hot pan.  

She’s not doing it for Linebeck, that would be ridiculous. 

She’s doing it for for for

for herself for the sake of the argument for 

truth and honor and the Ocean King can rip her from this world

but she’ll be kicking and clawing and baring her teeth and digging her nails into someone else’s dream. 

So. 

The option most obvious

is to keep the Ocean King from ever waking up,

a Dream that never ends.

She could do it, and hold up a small slice of the world for eons

Hylian Atlas, 

the Ocean King’s Realm on her feather-thin shoulders. 

But even if she wants 

with all her might

wants and wants and wants and wants

That isn’t living

it isn’t Real

and she couldn’t keep him

herself 

couldn’t keep them both 

here

not in good conscience. 

Anyone who ever knew Ciela

knew she wasn’t one for self sacrifice

couldn’t find it in herself 

to lay down her life for anyone. 

It takes an enormous amount of power, but she thinks she can do it– 

why wouldn’t she have the ability? She is

as he said

second in strength only to a god.

I’ll give you one last chance, she says.

Find a way to save him

or I’ll do it myself. 

My child, says the Ocean King, sensing the 

change in the air as her magic rises like telltale smoke

reeking of insubordination. What I once requested I now command, 

I am waking

so follow me. 

Trading herself 

never once crosses her mind.

Maybe she and Linebeck weren’t so different after all. 

I’m going to do it, she says, a promise 

more to herself than him. 

You were good to me, 

so I’m sorry for this. 

It’s not about him. 

It is. 

Not just him. 

It’s a trade that will leave a massive, deity-sized hole in the cosmos, but it serves 

it serves Oshus right for trying to call the bluff of the bull-headed Spirit of Courage. 

Whatever you think you are doing, 

child,

it is wrong,

reconciled in no way by the tissue paper soul of that man.

He is the cheapest of the lot, a half a Thought, a framework

of a person. 

She grants her own wish, and it abides by those messy magical cosmic rules. 

I wish.

I wish…

I wish you weren’t Real. 

The Ocean King is gone. 

In someone else’s stead. 

She balanced, as it were, the checkbooks of the universe. Maybe the scope of these consequences will be catastrophic. She always was hasty, wasn’t she? Impulsive, greedy. Selfish. Cruel. Maybe she had projected when she’d accused him of the same things. Now she’s alone in the macrocosm. The universe howls, wailing, missing the weight of an oceanic god. 

There’s work to be done. 

Ciela Thinks again. And Thinks and Thinks and 

Thinks and Thinks about him until, after the incredible effort, he’s fully formed in front of her. Just the two of them and the sea fog. 

Nothing is left besides the two of them. Not hardly enough language to describe exactly what she’s done. His sad, droopy eyes. Mussed hair. The imprints of a demon on his soul and a scar on his back. That ridiculous coat.

I’m giving you a second chance, she says, before she can stop herself. Don’t mess it up. 

Funny thing, sparkles. I don’t recall ever needing your permission…

The magic has depleted her. The Dream is collapsing in on itself and there isn’t much time left.

He asks, I’m not going to wake up as a seagull am I?

You might. Don’t try me.

Look at you. All this for a proper good-bye? 

It is a little ridiculous, isn’t it?

Oh, definitely. Makes me look level-headed by comparison. 

Now that’s a feat. 

He looks kind of tipsy, but then again – that’s how he always sort of looked. It occurs to her he must not fully grasp what’s happening, that she reconstructed him like a mad scientist, with magic instead of tubes and wires and scalpels. That she killed a god for him. Well, when you put it like that-

This is his Dream now. And when he wakes up, Ciela doubts he’ll even remember this encounter at all. 

Listen, Ciela…

Yes?

He shrugs. Waves a hand nonchalantly. Looks and acts just like him, a spitting image, a crystal clear reflection. She did a marvelous job. 

I’ll see you later, he says. 

He won’t. That’s the thing. Or maybe he will. Ciela’s kind of in unprecedented territory right now. 

And then he’s gone. A wish for a ship. A fish for a wish. 

A wish for a man. This man. 

What has she done?