Archive of Our Own ^beta

It happened quietly. The sun touched her cheek and held it up to the low sky. She was so beautiful that Link’s hands ached, and he knew that he was going to kill her. 

Everything on this island will be gone forever…and I do mean EVERYTHING. Anything could have a face. Trees, clouds, shadows, anything that shifted in the wind. The owl said it was Link’s choice. Link knew he didn’t have one. There were statues that called him a hero. Faces laughed at him from somewhere he couldn’t see.

He hauled around the end of the world in his backpack. 
“What’cha got in there?” Marin nudged his arm. 
He tried not to let his skin and tongue bloom. 
“Come on! You’re no fun.” 
Link held the bag tightly. The leather was melting in his hands.
“Fine, if you’re going to be like that,” Marin huffed and crossed her arms. “Keep your secrets.” 
Link was quiet. Everything was melting in his hands.

Nothing on the island itself scared him, and that was the problem. The monsters looked familiar, although he couldn’t explain where he had seen them before. Marin too, looked familiar, although her skin held more freckles and her eyes more sun—than who, though, he only had a faint idea. All Link remembered was his name, and the one he had called her before she smacked a pillow over his red ears. 

Who is Zelda? What a good question, Link thought. Marin speaks of wishes and instruments, and the world beyond this island. He wonders if she knows that these are all the same thing. He pretends to forget her song so she can teach it to him again, and again. Every question on this island has the same answer.

He kills monsters until he can do it in his sleep; this brings him no comfort. He plays the claw game until he can feel the boredom sift it through his fingers like sand. Always thinking of boundaries and how to cross them, Marin picks up the owner by the head. Link screams in laughter. Joy has started to hurt him, Beautiful, and almost close enough to touch, the cloudless sky is so flat that it becomes another kind of sword.

The monsters behind locked doors were called nightmares, but it was everything that lay above that he eyed with suspicion. One day, Marin’s laughter became indistinguishable from the fizzle of the ocean against the sand. He started running into dungeons headfirst and burying himself in darkness. Fear was a steady chill. 

"Why are you shivering?" She asked, "Are you sick?" Her hand on his forehead burned. He pulled away. He could feel the sky pressing on the crown on his head. 

“You know,” she said. “You really don’t talk that much. But that’s okay. You are still the kindest boy I know.” 

Link hated kindness; he wanted to crush it up and kill it in the palm of his hand. There were too many butterflies here, too many flowers.

If it weren’t for you, nothing would have to change!!

One day, he would run out of monsters to kill, and would have to find something new to do with that sword. But was what waited for him beyond the illusion really that bad? What kind of nightmare made its victim afraid of waking up? What kind of nightmare made him shrink away from the sun, made him sick at the thought of touching a girl’s skin? 

She invited him to go swimming once, but the moon blurred the bare parts of her. The dark waters swallowed her. He couldn’t see anything here he hadn’t seen before. He stayed on the shore next to her discarded clothes and buried his feet in the sand. 

“Come in!!!” The moon made a path bright enough to walk on, and she pulled a lock of hair over her shoulder that he knew was bare, although he couldn’t see it. Two illusions. “Just splash on in, it’s easy!!” Three. 

When he tried to bring Marin to the mural, it was gone. The village had picked itself up and walked to the other side of the island. The mysterious forest flipped itself all the way upside down. Marin walked with her head in the sky and laughed. 

“Look, Link! I’m already flying like a seagull.”

Nothing scared her; not the ocean, and not even loss. "Some day, you will leave this island, I can feel it in my heart." She was brilliant and blinding. It was like having an encounter with the sun, and he was jealous of the places it touched her skin.

You don’t ssseem to know what kind of island thisss iss…

The day the sun touched her, he knew. Kindness made him sulk, joy made him sad. It didn’t feel fair, to him or to her. 

“Don’t forget me.” The waves are breaking against the sand, he can hear them from anywhere on the island now. “Promise? If you do, I’ll never forgive you!”

If he was indeed brought into this world to destroy it, then he wants to break off her smile and wear it like a locket around his throat. But he won't. He won't even touch her. That’s not the type of relationship they have. The path the moon makes on the water will drown anyone who tries to follow it. There’s a reason the owl can fly. 

The sky is everywhere now. He can feel it in his lungs as his aching hands play the instruments he hid from her. Choice is no more of an illusion than anything else. Every question on this island has the same answer. She is beautiful. There is no other truth in this world, or the one that lies beyond. She is beautiful.