Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

After saying goodbye to Saria, Link and Navi spend the night in the Sacred Forest Meadow, tucked away in the grove at the entrance of the Forest Temple. The monsters are defeated, the Wolfos dead, and for now, there’s purity and peace.

It smells of home. Of leaves and wind rustling and the whispers of Lost Woods that remain. He can almost hear Saria’s Song as the breeze tickles him. 

As Link skewers a fish he caught and prepares to roast it, Navi sits on his shoulder, settling in comfortably. She’s quiet for a long moment, which isn’t that odd, but he can tell something is on her mind.

“Do you remember?” she asks finally. Link makes a small questioning noise when she says nothing else. “What you felt when we met for the first time?”

He nods truthfully; it’s only been two years to him. Relief, happiness, apprehension. It had been an odd mixture of belonging and terror, remnants of the nightmare.

Link raises an eyebrow when Navi says nothing else. Does she remember?

The question has been on his tongue before, when he’s wondered about the better part of a decade that he’s lost. How did Navi feel, watching the world go to pieces? Did she know he would awaken, or did she believe him lost to eternity? What did she do, as time flew by him?

Fairies live immortal lives, and their memories are nearly the same. But their hearts are not. Link has heard the whispers, quiet on the air in Lost Woods: sometimes, when a fairy loses their companion, grief drives them to hide themselves from the outside world, burrowed away in hidden fountains. They turn to each other, other broken fairies who never speak a word again, and heal the wounds of weary travelers.

It’s admirable, the way fairies grieve, even if it makes Link’s throat tight. How immense their love must be, to turn their pain into healing.

On the occasion that Link himself requests the power of a pink fairy, he wonders about their lost companion. How long has it been since they passed? What time of the world did they see?

“I remember,” says Navi eventually. Her voice is quiet and pensive. “All I was supposed to do was lead you to the Great Deku Tree. And when he told me to follow you, guide you…,” she laughs to herself, the chiming bell sound of it familiar. “Nevermind. I was just thinking.”

She shakes her head, as if dissipating the thought, and even that makes a small twinkling noise. Link wonders what she’s thinking, and then he wonders what he’d do without her. The opposite, too—what she’d do without him. Every time he engages in battle, when a sword swipes too close to his side or he gets knocked back a few steps, he wonders.

He had seen her face when they looked at the hardened and blackened form of the Great Deku Tree, rotting from the inside out. Navi had fallen quiet when they met the Deku Tree Sprout, and she’d only spoken again when Saria made contact.

If this feels like coming home to Link after just two years gone, he wonders how it feels for her. 

He thinks about these things but never voices them aloud; he figures if he did, Navi would just tell him to focus his attention on more pressing matters. The dark plumes around Death Mountain’s summit, for example.

Link sighs quietly and ignores the way the ground trembles beneath him, echoes of the volcanic rumbling. Tomorrow. He’ll do it tomorrow.

Tomorrow comes, as it does, and so does the day after. On the fourth day, Link makes it to Goron City, meets someone named after him, and Navi waits until they’re out of hearing range to laugh lightly and concede that it’s a sweet gesture from Darunia, even if she thinks he’s horribly loud.

He huffs out a small laugh and rolls his eyes.

When they come across the first caged Goron in the Fire Temple, Link feels sick to his stomach. The Goron looks so scared and small, curled up like a babe on the ground, captured to be eaten.

Navi does what Link can’t and slips between the bars, awakening the Goron with a gentle nudge. She heals him to the best of her ability—although Navi’s healing magic isn’t cultivated yet—and when they eventually free him, she lands on his head and buries her face in his hair.

“Give me a moment,” she begs, and Link hides them away in an empty room for a stolen bit of rest. He wonders what’s wrong with him, that he can look at the dark red stains on the ground so clinically, when Navi, who’s seen everything he has and more, still has it in her to cry.

Zora’s Domain is just as horrifying, and it hits Link the hardest when he stares down the waterfall he used to dive from, now frozen over. There’s something in his eyes, maybe, as he contemplates the height he so fearlessly jumped all those years ago, that makes Navi flit around his head nervously.

“Come on,” she tugs at a lock of hair, pulling him back through the tunnel, back to steadier ground. “We need to find the Princess.”

Link spares another look at the Zora King, frozen in peculiar red ice, before he follows Navi out to Zora’s Fountain. Onwards. Onwards.

They’ve told him that he has a mystical and powerful object of pure Courage sitting in him, bound to him, but sometimes Link doesn’t feel it at all. The air here is frigid, and it burns his lungs. Sure, he can breathe underwater now, but the Zora’s Tunic doesn’t help with the cold. Onwards.

When he fights his shade, a creature that’s him but Dark, Navi yells, “Conquer yourself!” Link backflips from the swipe of a shadowy Master Sword, and realizes it doesn’t have a fairy of its own. That’s how he knows he’s still himself, afterwards: Navi, her wings rustling like bells.

Link thought he was used to fire. He’s walked through flames, through lava, and he’s braved precarious paths between rolling waves of magma. He’s thrown bombs into the mouths of giant monsters, and he’s killed with fire arrows.

But nothing could have prepared him for the screams of the Kakariko people as their homes burn to the ground. Wood smells of so much more than smoke when it’s burning, Link learns. It’s a reality he could have done without.

He runs through the town, avoiding the stream of people running towards the entrance, seeking someone who might have some answers. What is this? Ganondorf? Did he attack, and will Kakariko be transformed as Castle Town had?

Then: Sheik! Link runs to him, sees him staring into the empty well. Link suppresses a shiver at the sight, reminded at the ghastly and gruesome secrets hidden within. 

“Get back, Link!” Sheik calls, and Link has the presence of mind to take one or two steps back, preparing himself as he feels a dark presence quickly snaking through the tunnels below them.

It doesn’t take long for it to emerge. Link looks on in horror as it—What is it? There’s nothing there. It’s just… a shadow?—picks Sheik up and throws him a few lengths away. It slithers over the ground, the buildings, and the mountainside as Link runs to him.

“Link! I can’t read its signature. I have no clue what that is!” Navi calls, flying around in a panic around him. She darts down to check on Sheik and then returns to above Link’s head. A conspicuous lack of information is better than nothing at all, at least, but her words are far from reassuring.

The shadow turns and begins charging at Link. He prepares himself, but there’s nothing he can do. What good is the Master Sword when a sword won’t work at all? He pulls out his shield but instinctively knows it’ll be useless.

“Link!” Navi shrieks, her bell tones loud in his ear. But there’s nothing he can do. His muscles tense, ready to strike, but even when he can see it coming from lengths away, he’s too slow. It’s a shadow. There’s nothing there for him to slice through, fight against.

Link gets thrown backwards, hits his head hard enough that he sees white, and then there’s only black.

When he comes to, the first thing Link sees is Navi, hovering right over his face. This close up, he can see her clearly—her hands are on her face, running through her hair in distress, and she’s biting her lip anxiously.

“Link!” she says, her voice full of relief. She shakes herself off—an action that makes a small chiming sound—and smiles at him. “I was worried.”

He manages to smile back at her, struggling to sit up as he rubs at the back of his head. Sheik is kneeling next to him. “Looks like you’re coming around,” he says.

Link nods. Sheik helps him up, and Link drinks half a bottle of milk after he dusts himself off.

Slowly, Link turns in a full circle, taking in the damage. The rain has doused the Village, and them with it. His hair and hat hang heavily from his head, and Link has to brush some of it out of his eyes, wiping the water off his face.

“What was that?” he asks. Navi shivers where she’s sitting on his shoulder.

Distractedly, Link lifts the edge of his hat enough for Navi to slip under it. She disappears into the relative warmth and safety, but he knows she’s still listening.

“Something terrible,” Sheik answers. “The evil shadow spirit has been released. Impa once sealed the spirit, but the dark forces have grown too strong of late.”

“Where is Impa?” he asks, surprised she’s not present. Even more than Sheik, Link would have expected Impa to be on site.

“She’s gone to the Shadow Temple, to try to seal the beast there.”

After that, Link knows what’s coming. This is no simple Hyrule Field monster, nor a random but dangerous encounter. You have to go, Sheik says. Of course he does. Of course.

The Shadow Temple is the worst of them, so far. Link thought the misdeeds of Ganondorf at the three previous temples had been egregious enough, but that was nothing like staring at the decayed skeleton of some unfortunate prisoner, half the skull missing.

The smell is overwhelming, thick enough that Link chokes on it when he enters. Navi curls into a ball on his shoulder, covering her nose and mouth with a bit of cloth, but she keeps her eyes peeled for danger.

Before they even reach the first door, there’s an “Eye of Truth” sign. Navi reads it to him, then sighs and says, “At least we know we’re equipped for this.”

It’s less confident than she’d like. Because of the Lens of Truth is required here, then Link can already guess what kind of monsters and puzzles he’ll be facing. Why can’t things be easy? How much more must he endure?

The next room has a ring of skulls on fire, which is the absolute opposite of reassuring. “What is this bird?” Link asks, looking at the statue. It’s nothing he’s ever seen before.

Navi shrugs. “I don’t know. But look, a sign.” She squints at it, then reads, “‘Make my beak face the skull of truth. The alternative is a descent into deep darkness’…?”

Link huffs out a combination of a hysterical laugh and a deep sigh.

“Use the Lens?” Navi suggests. Link does so, and he finds the illusion immediately. One of the paintings on the wall disappears as well, showing him a hidden hallway. Great, thinks Link wryly.

He deactivates the Lens and reports his findings to Navi. After that, it’s child’s play to turn the bird statue, but getting across the giant abyss in front of him proves more difficult. Hidden hallway it is, then.

Past a heavy steel dungeon door, Link is immediately faced with a skeleton picture. It’s red, as if painted in blood, and its eyes seem to glow. Whispers pick up around Link, like the weak spirits that he hears in the graveyard sometimes.

Navi clutches a lock of his hair tightly, and she’s close enough to his ear that Link can hear her suck in and hold her breath nervously. As he approaches slowly, Link hears, stronger than he ever has before, “Eye of truth… darkness.”

It’s Navi who hears it more clearly, who’s more sensitive to supernatural and magic than Link. She shudders hard enough that he’s able to feel the minute vibration, and then says, “It says ‘One who gains the eye of truth will be able to see what is hidden in the darkness.’”

Link nods and grits his teeth. He can do this. He’s been in worse situations before, right?

Honestly, he’s not so sure. There’s something about this place that sets all of his nerves on edge, and his instincts scream at him to run. It’s a cloying darkness, threatening to reach out and grab Link from the shadows. The air is thick with more than just death—it feels hostile and vengeful.

The hair on Link’s arm stands up as a chill overtakes him from behind. He turns wildly, hand on the hilt of his sword, but there’s nothing there.

“Calm, Link.” Navi says. She takes off from his shoulder and hovers in front of his face. “We can do this.”

Link wets his lips and tries to think of something to say. He doesn’t point out that the tremble in her voice betrays her unease. Eventually, he elects to just shake his head and roll his shoulders, trying to shake the fearful tenseness from them. The weight of the darkness here makes him feel heavier than when wearing the Iron Boots.

He’s stood in graves before, fought ghosts, and explored a haunted well-bottom. He’s run through a town of hungry ReDeads, but now his blood feels thick and frozen; the Ice Cavern had nothing on this cold.

Move. Link forces himself to take a step forward, and his foot disappears past the skeletal painting wall he knows is an illusion. Move. Another, and he’s through. The hallway opens up into a large room filled with more of the same painting. The skeletons’ eyes glint at him, following him as he moves. That’s no illusion, he’s sure. They’re watching.

He makes his way through the room, eyeing the paintings nervously. In the torchlight, they look even more menacing. Navi flies above him, looking closer at some of the skeletons than others. Suddenly, she stops at one, staring at it so intently that Link doesn’t realize at first, used to her simply calling her findings out to him.

“Navi?” he asks.

Her voice is quiet when she replies. “This one. It’s saying ‘Shadow Temple… Here is gathered Hyrule’s bloody history of greed and hatred.’”

Link feels his body go colder, his veins ice. He’d known of course, from talking to the townsfolk, to the Zora royals and Darunia. To Impa, Sheik. Zelda. But it makes him tremble where he stands, to see the consequences of war and execution so clearly, to feel the distorted presences of people past and hear their haunted calls.

Are they friendly or foe? Are they neutral, watchful parties only? Will they hurt his chances of making through this alive or not?

“Come on,” he says, prompting Navi to return to him.

No time for questions he can’t find the answers to. Move.

Next is: “Tricks full of ill will. You can’t see the way forward.” Navi’s voice trembles and Link hates that her usual bell-like tone is tainted with fear. 

He’s never been in a Temple that actively wants him to fail.

Then a Dead Hand, which Navi helpfully gives him a few tips for beating. Like Link could ever forget fighting one at the bottom of the well. He sighs and charges into battle, trying to ignore the smell of blood in the air, so thick he can taste it.

The golden Hover Boots are seemingly worth it at first, but when Link wears them, he slides around too much. Unstable footing is one of the most dangerous weaknesses in fighting. He pulls them off with a huff, and Navi manages a small laugh.

“The abyss,” she says, as they wander back through the hallways of skeletons. “The boots will carry you across. Be brave!”

That’s how the rest of the Temple goes. Move. Link shakes as the darkness soaked into the ground seems to travel up his body on every step. Navi notices the hidden air drafts that betray illusionary walls, and she memorizes the locations of platforms so Link doesn’t need to deplete his magic to see them.

He comes across the bird statue a few more times, but neither he nor Navi has any ideas what it means. Giant fans in the faces of cats and rats holding guillotines, too. Every Temple Link has explored so far has always referenced or inspired by their protectors: underwater caverns for the water-dwelling Zoras and fire and magma for the heat-resistant Gorons.

But Link is pretty sure the Sheikah cannot see through illusions, no matter how in-tune with magic they are. There are more invisible enemies in this place than visible. Is this what the Sheikah swore themselves to, when they aligned themselves with the Hylian Royal family?

He shudders and decides he’ll ask Sheik about. Maybe Impa, if he doesn’t succumb to the pull of the darkness first. Later. These are questions for later. For now, he has to move.

Navi warns him of creatures on the ceiling and alerts him to Skulltulas about to land on his head. Without her senses, noticing what can’t be seen, Link is sure he would have taken a mortal hit by now. He’s grateful. At least, in this darkness, he has her. When it’s pitch-black and Link can’t see two feet in front of him, Navi illuminates the way.

There’s a ferry at one point, that floats in the air instead of the water. Link is confused for a moment before Navi notices the Triforce painted on its deck; when he plays Zelda’s Lullaby to activate it, both of them think of better and brighter days. In the past or to come, Link doesn’t know.

A Stalfos jump out of the darkness to clash swords. Link throws himself at it, and then at the next one, too. He just can’t seem to break its defenses, the shield seemingly impenetrable, when Navi darts towards it and shows him a weak spot.

How much more do you want? Link screams in his head as he fights another Stalfos, another Gibdo. Navi memorizes the way through a maze of invisible walls so that Link can focus on fighting.

How much more do you want from me? He snarls in pain and stumbles, and Navi cries out in alarm when Link is ambushed from behind. He’s quick to summon Din’s Fire to clear the enemies away, but the damage is done; Link clutches his side and feels blood soaking through his clothes.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t see them,” Navi says, flitting around the wound. Link shakes his head and drinks a red potion, sagging slightly in relief as he feels the effects.

They come across a blood-soaked room with a torture cross at its center. Link doesn’t think the Shadow Temple has been active in decades, but the floors are still red, and the stench of death and decay is thick. Link stumbles to the corner and dry-heaves, only to kick a femur so blackened by ash it blends into the floor.

Fuck, Link thinks deliriously. How much more do you want from us?

Navi pulls Link out of it long enough for him to dispatch the invisible enemies with Din’s Fire. He stumbles out of the room, looking for safety, for somewhere to rest. But there’s no respite. Move. Link and Navi keep going.

Bongo Bongo is a carelessly chopped neck without a head and two disembodied hands. Of course it is. Who died to create such a despicable, haunted creature? Link kills it with Navi’s help, her voice directing him when he loses his footing on the vibrating ground, and shakes the thought from his head.

Keep going, he tells himself, even as he grabs the heart container and portals out. They have to keep going. Move.

Link is seven years younger as he wills Nabooru to listen to him. Navi flies around their heads as if her presence will convince her; the interjections into Link’s stumbling storytelling are welcome, but he can see it start to annoy Nabooru, who watches Navi suspiciously out of the corner of her eye.

When he’d filled her in on his travels as an adult, Navi had eyed Link consideringly. This Navi, who hadn’t spent seven years waiting—mourning?—wasn’t as predisposed to blindly trusting him yet, but she’d taken his word for it after a moment.

Link had taken great pleasure in transporting them to the Sacred Forest Meadow, just to show off, just a little. Navi had laughed and clapped her hands, delighted, and she’d glowed happily next to Saria’s fairy.

“Now you can’t drag your feet everywhere!” she exclaimed, and Link rolled his eyes fondly. But they both knew the trip had been as much for him as for her.

At least he had her, when all else in the world was either too old or too young or too soon or not soon enough. Link knows now, and he knows seven years in the future. But he doesn’t know the years in-between; Navi is the only one he trusts with that weak spot. With Saria, Darunia, Ruto, and Impa in stasis in the Sacred Realm and Zelda missing, all Link has are Navi and Sheik. And Sheik is… well, distant.

Honestly, Navi is enough.

Nabooru clears her throat, and Link ducks his head, a little embarrassed by his wandering thoughts. But it’s not his fault she’d started in on a story about the history of the Desert Goddess. He’s heard it from her already, seven years from now.

Okay, Link thinks, as he steels himself from what comes next. He’s purified four Temples at this point, and the formula of ancient protection for each is fairly similar. It seems the Spirit Temple will take more than his sword, though. But that’s why he has Navi.

It takes longer than he expects to get the Silver Gauntlets. Probably because Nabooru told him it was just a matter of “going through this tiny hole and doing her a favor.” He huffs his frustration to Navi when yet another locked door opens to reveal yet another puzzle.

She muses that at least the air here is dry. Link knows what she means. He’s still trying to stop tasting blood and spirits.

“Bright, too,” he agrees, and Navi twinkles happily. She loves the puzzles they solve and flies around each room looking for clues. Link smiles at the sight, enjoying seeing her so enthusiastic.

The Iron Knuckle is a surprise, but Link relishes the challenge. This is straightforward, at least. No more re-animation or fire-breathing. No more disappearing into shadows or teleporting behind him. Kokiri Sword on giant axe might not be even, but Link has Navi and seven future years behind him. He can handle this.

Nabooru is gone when he returns seven years later, but that comes as no surprise to him. His first time visiting the Temple had been as an adult, and Aveil had informed him Nabooru was missing then, too. Or now. The Spirit Temple entrance is the same, untouched by what feels like decades.

This Temple is filled with suns and light, snakes and mirrors, statues and bricks. Link finds himself in the tallest room he’s ever been in, staring up at the giant carved image of the Desert Goddess. So this is from where the Gerudo got their garb.

There are inscriptions on the walls. By studying the characters, Navi determines that they are poems. Prayers, maybe. But neither of them can read the language. The air around them hums with heat and energy.

He fights another Iron Knuckle, and gets the Mirror Shield for his efforts. Pulling at his collar, Link takes a moment to be glad for the ease of light redirection it brings. He’s already wearing his Goron tunic, but it seems there’s a difference between heat so hot the air burns and the stifling desert’s dryness.

And then there’s another Iron Knuckle, seemingly the favored of Koume and Kotake. It’s different—Link has fought two in just recent memory, and neither walked like this. Navi senses something, too.

“This is not an ordinary enemy!” she says, and it sounds more like a question than a warning.

What is he missing? Link backflips and thrust his sword into the weak chink in its armor. The Iron Knuckle roars and swings at him, and he backflips again.

Navi circles its head, looking for openings and directing Link to them. The Iron Knuckle downs two pillars and Link gets clipped on his shield-arm before he’s able to get another hit in.

It’s a long, tiring battle. Link feels weak by the time he’s finished, and he’s grateful for the red potion he has stored. The armor comes off the Iron Knuckle as it falls to pieces, and Link watches for its body to burn in blue flames.

Except it doesn’t.

Navi gasps first, while Link just stares in open shock. Nabooru, he thinks faintly, and he thinks he might fall to his knees right there.

She was meant to be the Sage of Spirit. He’d been sure; Navi thought so, too. But Link… he had just killed her. He feels sick.

Nabooru is on her hands and knees, but Navi gets between her and the floor to gaze up at the wound in Nabooru’s stomach. “It’s not that bad,” Navi offers, but her voice is tremulous at best. She helped Link do this. To Nabooru, who’d been silently undermining Ganondorf since before the Demon King even reigned in full.

Before he can do anything, Koume and Kotake are back, speaking of brainwashing and capture. Nabooru screams and tries to run, but they hit her with magic and she’s gone. Link flinches back, looking around wildly.

He was too late. Too late. One step behind. What has he been missing?

Koume and Kotake’s tricks play with Link’s perception of the world, shaking his very core. Was every monster he’s fought and killed originally a friend? He thinks of the Mad Scrubs in Sacred Forest Meadow and the White Wolfos of the Ice Cavern. Or the Stalfos of the Shadow Temple, originally guardians corrupted to obey Ganondorf’s will.

It’s Navi who pulls him out.

“No time for this,” she says, her hand on his cheek. “Time to fight, Hero. At least these two we know are evil.”

Link nods. He nods to himself and he nods to Navi, and he nods over and over as he pulls his Mirror Shield off his back and prepares for battle. He can do this. There’s no time for anything else; he has to know what he’s been missing.

The battle would have been lost if not for Navi, guiding Link easily between the two witches, then directing his aim when he reflects their magic back. By the time the battle is over, Link is panting on one knee, and his tunic is both covered in ice crystals slightly singed. Still, they won.

Then: Koume and Kotake are Ganondorf’s mothers, and it gives them a glimpse into the Demon King’s intentions and background. Oh, as things fall into place: Ganondorf’s rise to power, backed by ancient magic, and his ambition for power, greater than any thief’s.

Link isn’t sure whether he’s grateful for the insight or not. Perhaps things were better, easier even, when Ganondorf was just a black-blooded terror riding his stallion into Castle Town, towering over a young Forest child.

When Sheik reveals himself as Zelda, Navi nearly throws a fit. A quiet fit, that only Link hears, but a fit nonetheless.

“All this time, she let you suffer,” she hisses. Link privately agrees, although he figures that if Zelda felt it must be this way, it surely had to be.

When the crystal closes around Zelda, enveloping her in a magic that sets Link on edge, Navi bangs against it, bouncing off uselessly. He reins her back, and they watch Zelda ascend and disappear, taken by Ganondorf.

“He’ll have two Triforce pieces now,” Navi says. Link swallows and stays silent. The back of his hand aches ominously, as if pulled towards its sisters.

He scratches at it through his gauntlet, and Navi narrows her gaze, watching shrewdly. We’re out of time, Link thinks. He doesn’t say it out loud; he knows Navi’s aware. This is what they’ve been working towards for seven years and counting. 

Not for the first time, or the last, Link wonders what Navi is thinking. For all the time he’s known her, she’s been remarkably single-minded, driving him to the next Temple, the next Sage, the next, the next, the next.

He doesn’t blame her for it. But sometimes he wishes he could just rest.

“One more,” says Navi, as if she’s reading his mind. One more, Link nods.

Onwards.

Eventually, the Sages create a bridge, glowing rainbow with their combined magic, as a path for Link to reach Ganondorf’s Castle. Link stands at the beginning of it, his back to Castle Town, and wonders about going back.

What would happen if he put the Master Sword back and just… lived? Surely someone else could kill Ganondorf. A Hylian Knight, maybe, or Impa.

Did it have to be him? The Triforce thrumming through his veins tugs at him with an urgency he has trouble ignoring. Does it have to be him?

“Did you know,” says Navi. “That the Great Deku Tree was my companion before you?”

Link looks at her, his eyes wide and his mouth slack. He can’t even bring himself to shake his head no with his mind reeling, but his shock is answer enough. Navi doesn’t turn to look at him. She hovers by his shoulder and looks up at Ganondorf’s Castle, their destiny.

“The greatest pain a fairy can feel is the death of their companion. But not the loss, if either fairy or companion chooses to leave. The Great Deku Tree knew he was dying, and he knew that the world would call upon you soon enough. So he broke off our partnership and sent me to you, instead.”

Link swallows thickly and clears his throat. “I didn’t know,” he manages, although the words feel like bomb flowers.

“You weren’t meant to know,” Navi says after a minute. Then why did she tell him? And now? “But that order came from the Great Deku Tree. I’m not his anymore.”

“Oh,” says Link, his mind still blank. All this time he’s wondered what she’s been thinking, and now he has even less of a clue than ever.

He takes a step back, almost involuntarily. He can’t do this. Not right now. The immense darkness he feels emanating from the castle is a constant tidal wave washing over him, at odds with the energy flowing in his veins, through his sword.

Another step back. He’ll return, after preparing a bit more. He’s sure there’s still more he hasn’t done. He’s sure there’s something that can make him stronger.

“Don’t run,” Navi says. “You can face him. We must save Zelda.”

He stares at her, his eyes wide. Navi looks at him like she’s seeing the boy from seven years ago. That might be true—Link certainly feels like it. Navi has been there from the very beginning, and now… is this the end?

“Why did you tell me?” he asks. Why did the Great Deku Tree deem him worthy of such sacrifice?

The pain of a companion leaving is lesser than them dying, sure, but Link imagines Navi leaving and feels something inside him hurt in a way he’s not used to. He thinks of Navi lingering behind and looking back at the Great Deku Tree for a long moment to say goodbye. He wonders what she was thinking then.

“The Great Deku Tree was alone, in the end. But he still fought. You needed to know, so you can fight, too.”

Link swallows audibly. “I won’t be fighting alone,” he says as a statement, but he can hear the underlying question.

Navi smiles at him, broad and fond. “You won’t, but you could if you need to. You are the Hero of Time, Link. You hold the Goddesses’ blessings and one part of the Triforce. There is no one else who can do what you can. You.” 

But Link doesn’t want to fight alone. He’s been beaten, cut, stabbed, and thrown across rooms. He’s fallen from great heights and clung to precarious ledges. He’s tasted his enemies’ blood in his mouth and been burnt by others. And through it has been Navi, the single constant.

Why would he have to fight alone? Her words are little encouragement considering they should be irrelevant.

Hours later, he’s grateful for them. Link pushes open the doors into Ganondorf’s chambers and a dark wave crashes over him, separating Navi and dulling Link’s senses. Navi screams, “Link! I can't help you! Because of the waves of darkness, I can't get close! I'm sorry, Link!”

Link closes his eyes as he’s buffeted, protecting his face with his arm, and wonders if Navi had somehow seen this, that she’d primed him for it beforehand. Maybe, he thinks darkly, Navi isn’t trying hard enough to reach him because she believes he can face Ganondorf alone.

He shoves it aside and focuses. Alone. He doesn’t want to be alone. He hasn’t been alone since he was a young child having nightmares about fire and demons and a princess beckoning. Alone.

Move. Link feels the insidious darkness at his pores, his follicles, trying to worm its way into his body, but he shakes himself off and draws the Master Sword. He readies himself. He’s not alone; Navi cannot get close to Ganondorf, but she’s still here.

Link fights, the same way he did Phantom Ganon, during what feels like years ago. It was a mistake for Ganondorf to believe no one would be able to beat his Phantom; now Link knows his fighting style even without Navi’s instruction.

The moment he shoots a Light Arrow at Ganondorf’s prone form, Navi is there. “Link!” she yells, and gets in close enough to investigate the Demon King. “I have no idea what his weak point is!” she yells, but she keeps a cool head about it. They’ve been in difficult fights before.

Again. And again. Every time, Navi is there to guide Link’s hand. “Look!” she says. “Hey!” Link stabs and cuts, thrusting his sword with all his strength.

And then it’s over. Link nearly falls to the ground and weeps when Ganondorf finally collapses, disbelief on his face. His sword feels so heavy in his hand. Is it truly over? Navi approaches Ganondorf’s fallen form carefully, looking for signs of life.

She pokes at him, then darts back to Link and shakes her head, prompting a long sigh of relief. They both look up when they sense magic from above—Princess Zelda lowered in her crystal until she touches down. She looks over her shoulder. “Ganondorf… pitiful man.”

And then the tower starts coming down. Link gets Navi secure in his hat before running after Zelda. Door after door, she opens, and enemy after enemy Link slays. Navi stays close, either assisting Link or highlighting Zelda for him, so he can see her when the smoke is thick and acrid in his eyes.

Navi. Just run towards Navi. Move.

The castle collapses just as Link exits, and Navi bounces around as it levels. He takes his place by Zelda’s side, and they watch the remnants of what, just seven years ago, was a beautiful castle of glittering stones and flowers.

The back of his left hand itches. What is he missing? Why does it not feel like this is over?

“Link, I’m sorry I couldn’t help you in battle before,” says Navi. She lands on his head and looks down at him. Link doesn’t bother looking up; he just nods and reaches a hand up, allowing Navi to touch a hand to his finger.

It’s okay; it truly is. She was there when she could be for him, brave and strong and smart. Link wonders of fairies are potential bearers of the Triforce pieces. Navi deserves one. Hell, he thinks that if she had tried to take the Triforce from the Sacred Realm herself, it might never have split.

A loud rumbling interrupts his thoughts, and he draws his sword as he returns to the wrecked battlefield. Every hair on Link’s arm and neck stand up, and he has a split second to think trap before a ring of fire traps them.

He pulls his shield out, his blood and Triforce thrumming. Something clicks into place in his mind. If Ganondorf died, why has the Triforce not been pulled from his body? Link braces himself, kicking rubble and debris out of his path so he won’t trip when the fight begins.

And then Ganon arises, and Link just… looks.

Seriously? he thinks, his shoulders sagging even as the Triforce on his left hand glows brightly in response to Ganon. Please. No more.

The monster roars, so loud and dark that Link feels trapped, transported back to the claustrophobic, deadened Shadow Temple. He adjusts his grip on the sword with weary arms, preparing himself. Move, he tells himself, and steps into a more optimal position. Where does he even begin to attack this thing?

He looks at Ganon, four times the size of an Iron Knuckle with dual swords proportional. Ganon roars to the sky, breaths hot and moist at Link, and knocks the Master Sword out of Link’s numb fingers.

No. Link looks back in shock. Navi darts over to it, but there’s no way she can carry it over the flame wall. Fuck. What now? He gave his fight with Ganondorf everything he had, and now… he can’t do this alone.

“You’re not alone,” Navi says from somewhere over Link’s head. He hears her over the roaring of blood and adrenaline in his own ears. “There’s no way he’s going to hold me back again. This time, we fight together!”

Together. Link can do together. Link can do together with Navi for the rest of his wretched life, when this is all over and he’s living in a body both too young and too old.

When Link dodges to avoid Ganon’s swings and Navi charts a path for his quick avoidance, it feels like fate coming together. He brings the Megaton Hammer down on Ganon’s tail, where Navi says it’ll hurt, and hears the monster roar.

Zelda, calling for him to recover the Master Sword; Link, disoriented from the circular battlefield finally running to it; Ganon, roaring in pain as Link downs him; and Navi calling, “Link!” as she directs his sword between the beast’s eyes. 

Ganon bleeds green, and it sinks into his tunic. Link wipes his face off but gives it up as a lost cause when his hand comes way smeared in blood.

“Is it over? Is he dead?” Navi asks. She doesn’t approach the body this time. Link doesn’t know, so he turns to Zelda, who should have some idea, at least.

The sealing of the Ganondorf happens beyond Link’s sight, and he watches Zelda converse with the Six Sages on a different plane, in a different realm. The Master Sword hums happily in his hand at the power channeling through its home.

“What’s going on?” Navi asks Link, but he just shrugs.

Ganon disappears, enveloped in an explosion of white light that forces Link to close his eyes. When he opens them again, he’s floating midair surrounded by sky. Zelda is in front of him, Navi by his side.

Zelda says words that Link is too exhausted to hear or understand, but when she holds her hand out for the Ocarina, he gets it. His eyes flick up to Navi, but her face is inscrutable and her aura is unchanged.

When Link places the Ocarina in Zelda’s hand, it feels like turning back time. And then she actually does; Link feels the magic envelop him, seep into him. He lands in the Sacred Realm, in front of the Master Sword’s pedestal.

He takes a deep breath, and it fills his small lungs. His Hylian Shield is heavy on his back. The Master Sword looks huge, the altar they’re on bigger, and the walls of the Temple higher. He feels small. Link looks up at Navi, and only she is unchanged.

“I remember, this time,” she says. “Zelda sent me back, too.”

Link gives her a smile. Maybe now he’ll be able to figure out how to live again. Maybe he’ll go to Lon Lon Ranch and help raise Epona or visit Saria at the Sacred Forest Meadow. Without the Master Sword on his back, he feels lighter.

“Link, I love you,” Navi says quietly. There’s a lilt in her voice that reminds Link of the Great Deku Tree. “This land will flourish under your watch.”

She looks at him with eyes so fond it hurts, and Link feels the time he’s lived and lost bundled into his chest, vast and immeasurable. And then she flies backward, upwards, still looking at him until she’s so far away that Link can only see her aura, glowing softly.

Of course she wouldn’t want to stay. There’s a reason fairies live in Kokiri Forest, with an immortal people who don’t age. The Kokiri and the fairies are the same, and Link is not. Why would Navi want to be his partner until Link is too slow shielding himself or dodging a sword or even until he grows old and withers away?

Is this what she’s been thinking? It hurts. But he doesn’t say anything or yell for her. Navi, his fairy companion. Navi, his friend. Come back, he calls in his head, wondering if she can read his mind. She can’t. At least, she doesn’t turn back.

Navi’s wings leave small sparkles behind, and as she disappears through the window, Link wonders what she’s thinking.

He turns around, ready to step off the pedestal, and the world feels empty. How are his feet so heavy, when his body is so small? Move.

Four months later, Link has done his duty. Ganondorf is arrested before his coup, Zelda gives him a standing invitation to the Castle. He wanders instead and befriends Malon and Epona again. Nabooru doesn’t know him, but Link doesn’t bother re-introducing himself.

He spends four days with Saria, playing her melody and every other song, too. He makes it rain with the Song of Storms and changes day to night with the Sun Song. She teaches him music with no magic that the Skull Children taught her, and they dance around the Meadow.

Saria’s fairy chimes as she joins in, and Link tries not to ache.

When night falls, five months after Navi left him, Link calls Epona to him and sets off through the Woods. Navi will be here somewhere—she must.

Except he doesn’t have her to guide him through the Lost Woods this time. The whispers are louder than ever, and Link is so small. He misses Navi. He can’t hear Saria’s Song anymore.

Where is he?

Chapter Text

Tatl is not a replacement for Navi, but she is just as brave and intelligent.

“Night of the Second Day,” she says when the sun falls beneath the horizon. They’re knee-deep in snow, and Link wonders if the Gorons will ever recover from this blow. At least the Zora were water creatures; can the Goron even breathe?

“What the fuck?” Tatl asks, as she helps Link spend the night chasing aliens from Romani Ranch. Her sarcastic comments are welcome when Link traverses these wide, open, and unfamiliar fields to help the people in his Notebook. She reminds him of Mido a little bit, and the thought curves his lips upwards.

Link has known himself at age nine, and he has known himself at age sixteen. He never got to meet the person he was in-between, because there wasn’t one. Now he’s ten, or he would be, if he hadn’t turned back time so many times.

“Does it count as half a year passing if it’s only been three days?” he asks one day, sitting on the bench by the Laundry Pool. It’s the second day, and Link and Tatl watch the rain. Anju will be coming soon to wait for Kafei, but they’re not working on that problem this cycle. Link is just here because it’s quiet.

Tatl shrugs, and the movement chimes like bells. “That’s a stupid thing to worry about,” she grumbles, shaking off her wet wings.

Link has more fun here than he ever had in Hyrule. Termina is full of people who want to talk to him, who appreciate his help. Here, he’s not the Hero of Time with the Triforce mark as a brand. He’s only Link. They’re Link and Tatl, and he’s anonymous every time he turns back time.

“Dawn of the First Day,” Tatl says as he steps out of the Clock Tower, and he’s a fresh face in town for the tenth time.

But he suffers here, too, more than he did in Hyrule. At least when he pulled the Master Sword from its pedestal, he was still himself. But when he wears the masks of people past, Link can feel their spirits in his veins.

Mikau is grateful for Link’s help and teaches him how to swim like a born Zora. Darmani is unsettled, and Link never truly feels at home in his skin; he doesn’t know if the chill seeping into his bones is from death or the ice. But the Deku boy? He just screams. Link doesn’t even know his name.

Link has time at his fingertips in a way he didn’t even in Hyrule, but three days is never long enough. Time after time, he has to go back before he clears a Temple or solves a problem. He slows down time, starts again. And again. And again.

Faster. Go faster.

No matter how fast Link moves, Mikau is always too close to dying to heal when he reaches the Great Bay.

One time, he even cuts down the guard blocking his path to the ocean and ignores Tatl’s horrified screams as he calls Epona to him and rides her hard to the shoreline. Mikau is already dying that time, too. When Link turns back to Tatl, she looks at him like she did at Skull Kid atop Clock Tower, one day ago, fifteen days ago, three days from now.

It takes him a few days to win back her trust, during which he says desperately, “I had to know. I had to know if there was any way.”

She hisses angrily, “The power over Time is changing you. You think I don’t know the signs?”

Navi would have understood, he thinks bitterly. But that’s not true, Link knows, and he’s doing Navi a disservice to even think it. Navi wouldn’t even have been faced with a situation like this because the Link of Hyrule would never have considered such an act. Maybe the power of Time really has gone to his head. 

He gets more careful after that. There’s something wrong with him. He misses Saria so much it hurts, like a constant ache in his bones.

There are fairy fountains here, too, and even though the Great Fairies look a little different, their laughs are familiar. The first time they come across a fairy fountain, Link tenses, and Tatl looks at him curiously.

He collects two fairies willing to travel with them, and a third heals his existing wounds. “Thank you,” Link says, his voice thick, and tries not to think of Navi. But she left him; she won’t be grieving enough to join the ranks at a fountain. He wonders what she’s doing.

Sometimes, when he stares into the mirror as Darmani and Tatl calls “Link!,” he sees the echo of Darunia’s son. That was a long time ago, though. A long time and a long place ago.

On the night of the third day, there is a man cowering in the corner of the Skulltula House, begging for his life. Link feels sick, but he ducks his head and moves on. He can turn back time after he’s finished. Tatl follows him and doesn’t look back.

Tatl has a harder heart than Navi, although Link doesn’t know where it comes from. She’s younger than Navi but seems more world-worn. Maybe Navi just hid it well. Unlike with Navi though, Link can tell what Tatl is thinking by the huff of her breath, the subtle change in her aura.

She’s unfazed by many things that Navi would have ruffled her wings at, but she’s quicker to anger as well. He appreciates it; people treat him like a child in this world, in this body, and sometimes he’s really just too exhausted to speak, to try and make them understand. Tatl’s loudmouthed nature is welcome, then.

With Tatl at his side, Link becomes unseen, a Gibdo, and the leader of a frog choir. When he wears the Great Fairy mask, the pink fairies flock to him, and Link feels a quiet but immense satisfaction. He thinks the fairies look happy, and he looks at Tatl and smiles.

The moon falls, and Link calls a Giant to carry it, just to see what will happen. The moon falls again, and Link calls two, and they can’t hold it up either. The moon falls, and Link turns back time.

They come across a crude but cute carving at the base of a tree, and Tatl’s aura glows blue in wistfulness. “He was good once, y’know,” she says, and Link thinks to himself: We all are.

The moon falls again, and Link turns back time.

Anju stays at the Stock Pot Inn, convinced Kafei will show, and he doesn’t every time but one. Link stays with her once, until there’s just an hour left, and wonders how a loyalty this deep can even exist. He carefully doesn’t think about Navi.

Ikana Canyon and its Temple take something out of him. It’s like the apathy of the Spirit Temple and the cruelty of the Shadow Temple have combined. How can one place be home to so much twisting pain?

Even Tatl is disconcerted by the lifeless statues he conjures. By the time he flips the Temple upside down and walks on the sky, he’s tired to the bone. He thinks about turning back time and starting again—maybe it’ll be a little easier this time around—but Tatl doesn’t let him.

“Don’t you dare!” She bops him on the head. Link glares at her without heat. “We didn’t come this far to do it all over.”

He transforms into Mikau, because at least he’s better at this whole slow death thing, and plays a song that pulls life out of him. He moves; the statue doesn’t.

Eventually, Link has checked every box in his Bombers’ Notebook, and he’s collected every mask the Salesman has heard of in this land. The four Giant spirits are freed. The moon is still falling.

Link sits atop the tower that the carpenters are building and stares up at it. There’s almost no sky behind its grinning face.

“What are ya thinking about?” Tatl asks him. Skull Kid and Tael are up there, but Link has no plans to join them tonight. Next time, he thinks. Next time.

Link shrugs and stays silent. He’s thinking of the Composer Brothers, and how he learned the Sun Song from a grave in Kakariko Village. Of Skull Kid and the imps of Lost Woods. Of Romani, brainless on the Ranch, abducted and ripped apart by aliens and sent back to her grieving sister.

He wishes he could save them all, every time. But there are simply aren’t enough hours in the day. There are horrors in this land that he could never have imagined, and Link is running out of time.

When the moon begins falling in earnest, Link pulls out his Ocarina. The fireworks are loud in his ears, drowning out his music, but he knows the notes and tune by heart. His fingers move almost instinctively.

“Hey, Link?” Tatl says, right as he finishes the song.

They’re pulled into the time warp, and Link falls, falling, falling, tick tick tock, falling, falls, and then he walks out of the Clock Tower.

“Dawn of the First Day,” Tatl says obediently. This cycle, Link is going to re-beat his record at the archery range.

He doesn’t ask her what she was about to say, but Link looks at her and feels himself smile. He thinks he gets it, just a bit.

He spends three days preparing for the battle. He fills his quiver and his bottles with fairies. On the third night, Skull Kid laughs so hard the moon rattles, and Link shudders where he stands. He’s been here almost ten times before, and each time, he’s convinced Tatl will leave him when Tael asks. But she stays, every time.

She tells him to call the Giants. The moon falls, Link plays the Oath to Order, and the four hold it up. Link feels relief flood through him like Volvagia finally collapsing, beaten at last, like Gohma crying out, all those years ago.  

“It stopped!” she cries happily, circling with Tael over Link’s head, over Skull Kid’s crumbled body. It stopped, Link echoes in disbelief.

Tatl lands on his shoulder and gazes up at the moon. The sky is hidden from view, but Link feels like the stars are roaring in his ears. He wishes he could give Tatl a hug. The last time he’d had one was Saria.

Then Skull Kid’s body begins floating, hanging limply from Majora’s Mask, and Majora speaks, its voice a quiet, deep menace that makes Link’s bones quake. Even Ganon’s roar doesn’t compare. What power is this? he thinks distantly.

Majora rises, the moon glows with his eyes, and Link eyes the portal speculatively.

“Play the Song of time!” Tatl says, then pauses when she sees his face. “No way. I’m not going.” 

“I’ll go,” Tael offers, and for a split second, Link is scared that this is how it’ll go. Another fairy leaving? Another fairy to replace her?

But again, even as Link’s fears gnaw at his insides, Tatl stays. The world on the moon is a grassy, glorious illusion full of a brightness Link hasn’t known since the Sacred Forest Meadow. But the whispers of greed and consumption remain, pulling him to the lone tree.

Four masked Moon Children run around its trunk, uncaring of their surroundings. A fifth, wearing Majora’s Mask, watches him.

“Who are they?” Tatl asks at a low, concerned whisper.

Link stopped caring a long time ago. It doesn’t matter who they are or where they come from. All that matters is what they can do, to and for him. He approaches the first and is portalled to a Deku trial.

With a sigh, Link places the mask over his face, and screams.

“I wonder, do you think those people think of you… as a friend?” The Moon Child asks, when Link finds him eventually.

Link has no fucking clue. He has known them for months, seen their every moment of the day. But to them, he is a passing traveler, three days in their lives and then gone. No, he bets. Probably not.

“What makes you happy?” the next one asks Darmani’s body.

Link sinks a little bit, like the currents of his past are lapping at his ankles, threatening to pull his feet out from under him. He doesn’t know.

“If you do the right thing, does it make you happy?” asks the third Moon Child.

“No,” Link says truthfully.

The fourth leads Link on a chase through room after room of monsters. Beyond the walls, Link can feel the thrumming of something powerful. It calls to him, like it was meant to be his, like he alone can channel its energy.

But first, an Iron Knuckle. Link swallows and readjusts his grip on his sword. He thinks of the people in this world, so many possessed by the ghosts of their pasts. Creatures in need of healing, whose spirits he carried with him in masks.

He thinks of Nabooru, wearing the mask of an Iron Knuckle until he pulled it off her, but he kills the Iron Knuckle anyway.

“The face under your mask. Is that your real face?” he is asked. Link tamps down on a sudden rush of anguish. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know. He wants Navi.

Link stands in front of the fifth Moon Child and feels dual powers emanating from him. Majora, and the same power he felt earlier, during the last trial.

Fierce Deity, he soon learns. Link receives the mask with trembling fingers, and the magic singes the hair on his arm off. Tatl keeps her distance, flitting around nervously. “I knew this was a bad idea,” she groans. “Don’t tell me you’re gonna wear that.”

The Moon Child pays her no heed. “You’re the bad guy, okay? And when you’re the bad guy, you just run. Got it?”

Link takes an involuntary step backwards, but it’s too late. White light comes over his vision, and next thing he knows, he and Tatl are in a rainbow chamber, made entirely of stained glass and magic.

When Link pulls out the Fierce Deity Mask, he can feel himself giving up. If this is it, well, let it be it. What else does he have to live for, estranged from home, lost in a new land with people who don’t know him?

Where does Link belong in a world that turns one day and not seven years at a time?

Who knows who he’ll be when he pulls the mask off again. Who knows if he’ll be able. Maybe he’ll end up like Skull Kid, body limp and unconscious, with no knowledge or memory of the atrocities he’s committed.

“Link,” says Tatl, apprehensive. She cuts herself off.

There’s no time to just move, one step at a time. Link runs.

He slots the mask over his face, opens his eyes, and screams. He thought he knew pain before. But no, the Deku boy, Darmani, Mikau… their pain was of death and disappearance. The Fierce Deity’s pain is of restraint. It’s the pressure of an ocean fit into a bottle and corked shut.

His body was not made for this kind of power. Immortality is not meant for mortal bodies. Link is not Kokiri or Fairy, who live forever; he’s not even Gerudo or Goron or Zora, who live longer than Link can even fathom. No, Link might be the Hero of Time and age might mean little to him, but his body is Hylian. The Fierce Deity is a God.

He screams. Move, he tells his body. He recognizes this size, the height and the width of his shoulders. This should be familiar. Run.

Tentacles emerge from Majora, licking the air like whips, and he knows he needs to move. The Fierce Deity stands still, watching the threat. His eyes can see ages ahead, ages in the past. He sees Majora moving, transforming.

The Fierce Deity grips his broadsword and feels his magic spiraling through it. He looks at Majora, and sees a fairy darting between the tentacles. “Link!” she shouts, pointing at what the Fierce Deity immediately recognizes as a potential weak spot.

He doesn’t need it; as he charges his magic, it swings out of his blade like a sword itself, cutting through Majora’s defenses. Still, the fairy takes it in stride. She circles Majora’s Mask, guiding his energy propulsions.

What is this fairy doing? He growls and continues his barrage. Slowly, something pushes against him, from within this time. Fierce Deity blinks. Tatl continues calling to him: “Link!” “Hey!”

You’ve met with a terrible fate, haven’t you?

Link attacks. He feels the power of the Gods at his fingertips, within his veins. The Triforce of Courage is coursing through him. Majora dies, then returns stronger. That’s okay; Link has more than enough power to push him back.

Majora can only be brought low by the one who rules three days of time. That might have been the Fierce Deity once, who played a song for dance until Majora dropped, but now it’s Link. Link has the power of Time.

Believe in your strengths… Believe…

Link does. He wins. And the Moon ascends back into space, its face gone. The last thing Link remembers before he collapses is Tatl pulling fruitlessly at his face, trying to pry the mask off.

Don’t worry, he wants to tell her, but his mouth is sealed shut. The next thing he knows, Link is waking up, Tatl and Tael above him. “He’s awake!” Tatl says, and her wings flutter happily.

Link’s head swims when he sits up, and he feels like there’s water in his ears. The Skull Kid approaches and says something, Tatl and Tael dancing around above. Link tries to hear him over the monsters screeching in his head, but he can’t.

The Happy Mask Salesman takes Majora’s Mask back, and because there's no energy within it anymore, Link lets him take it. Foolish man, Link scoffs to himself. Epona kicks the grass behind him, as if agreeing.

Tatl makes no move towards Link, and he looks at her as he feels the roaring in his ears begins to die down a little. He remembers little from the fight with Majora’s Mask, but he has a general awareness of Tatl guiding him, a beacon of light.

Link stands next to Epona, supporting himself on her flank, and allows Tatl time to think. He doesn’t have to wonder what she’s thinking, because he already knows. He’s ready, when she says: “Well, both of us have gotten what we were after. So this is where we part ways, isn’t it?” She shrugs a little helplessly. “It was kinda fun.”

She hovers towards him slowly, and pats him on the head, just enough for Link to feel a lock of hair move with it. Tatl kisses his cheek with a soft, sad smile and joins her brother and the Skull Kid. When she turns to look at him, even from just a few feet away, she looks like Navi.

Link has known life and he has known death. But he never knew dying, the actual part in between, until he took off a young Deku boy’s face and put it back on again. But this comes close.

“It’s time for you to go about your business, isn’t it? The rest of us have a carnival to go to.”

Link knows this is just Tatl’s way of wishing him good luck. He knows with his entire being, and he understands exactly what Tatl is saying. But it hurts another part of him, the part that isn’t exactly himself: the Deku part, the Goron one, or the Zora, maybe.

Still, Link nods and climbs on Epona’s back. He directs her towards the Woods and digs his heels in. If he lingers, he might never leave. But he must; to everyone here, Link is just a traveler who stayed at the Inn for a few days while the Moon almost fell.

“Link!” he hears as he rides away.

She’s going to say “thank you,” Link thinks. But he doesn’t look back.

He doesn’t hear what comes next over the beating of Epona’s hoofs on the dirt ground. Right now, something undefinable crumbles inside Link in a way that reminds him of waking up seven years too young in his hut in Kokiri Forest, all alone because Navi didn’t come.

Run.

Chapter Text

Link returns to Hyrule and finds that three years have passed. Was it truly that long in three-day cycles, or did time pass unevenly in the two lands? Without Ganondorf’s influence, Hyrule is nearly unrecognizable, set on a path different and more peaceful than the one Link experienced the end of.

Still, there are battles to fight and enemies to vanquish. Hyrule's past will forever haunt the land and its people. So at twelve years of age and infinitely older, Link fights. It’s what he knows to do.

Link lay on his back in the middle of Lon Lon Ranch and stared up at the sky as Malon sang. Day seemed to stand still. He took out his Ocarina and joined Malon, right there in the grass without sitting up. The dew was wet below him, kissing his skin.

Malon greets him and Epona with a grin. But Link doesn’t linger. He allows the horse to roam the fields of her home, and then he turns and leaves. He’ll come back, probably. Eventually. Epona is the only one who never left, and he has a soft spot for Malon, too.

The first time Link came across a Big Poe in Hyrule Field, its whispers didn’t leave his mind for three-and-a-half days, even after he delivered its spirit to the Poe Collector at the Ghost Shop. It told him how it died and how much it hurt. Link didn’t understand then.

It’s a Poe that get the best of him, eventually. There are five of them, and their lanterns are bigger than he’s ever seen before, even in the Forest Temple. He’s occupied by two when a third and fourth sneak up from behind and throw their lanterns at him. The glass catches his right eye and Link screams. His hair catches on fire, then his Kokiri tunic. The flames lick up his body, searing it, and by the time Link summon’s Din’s Fire, the damage is done.

His cheek is melted, sagging along his skull, and all the skin is gone, the flesh below red and raw and burning. 

Link curses himself. Navi would have seen them and charted a path for him to move through all five Poes like butter. Tatl would have warned him and helped keep track of the creatures. Alone, Link has no one to watch his back. And now he’s lost an eye and his shield-arm is slow to react.

The first time Link ventured into Lost Woods, it was with Saria and Mido, years before he began waking up with nightmares and premonitions. He didn’t have a fairy then, so it was Saria’s and Mido’s who guided them. They found Sacred Forest Meadow on that trip, and when Saria stood in the clearing and played her Ocarina, the music seemed to resonate through the Woods.

He runs out of time, eventually. How low, that the Hero of Time would get lost in the Woods he grew up next to. He plays Saria’s Song once, twice, thrice, desperately, but she doesn’t respond. He’s too far away, and he’s run out of time.

He plays the Minuet of Forest, but there’s no lift of magic to warp him to where she waits. He plays the Song of Time, and nothing changes, nothing falls away. The Lost Woods absorb all magic Link attempts.

He finds Sacred Forest Meadow eventually, but Saria isn’t there. It’s empty and overgrown. Link sits on the stump there and plays, and he plays, and he plays, until his fingers bleed and his lips are chapped. He stands on the stump and he dances. He plays, because that’s all he has left.

Link blinks in and out of existence, sleeping in the shadows when his presence isn’t needed, and the world around him transforms. The whispers of Lost Woods become clearer to him than ever before; it’s through them that he hears of a Hero, emergent, and rumors of the Triforce. Of a darkness sweeping the land.

How long has it been? 

Like wind, he feels regret sweep through him, rattling his old, weary bones. The vines growing through his ribcage flutter shyly. All he wanted was someone to share his will with. He has lived for so, so long.

Eventually, his spirit touches Faron, who sleeps nearby. Pink fairies float around Faron’s form, and Link reaches out and through one. There’s nothing left of him for them to heal.

“Fairies who lose companions feel immense loss,” Faron tells him, when Link asks about the Great Fairies he’d known in his times. “But those few that do not sequester away to a fairy’s fountain, that do not become pink… They gain stronger magic and become the Great Fairies. Great loss, to great power.”

A deep, hidden memory seems to vibrate through Link’s bones at that. Navi. Maybe there’s a part of the Triforce of Courage in him still, that Link is able to hope so hard, for so long.

So, he searches. As he travels as a wolf to meet the new Hero, Link listens to the whispers of the Forest, of the Mountain, of the Lake. He listens to the fairies and the fish, and he follows the footsteps of power-hungry monsters.

The desert sun forces him into a corporeal form, more physical than he’s taken in longer than he can remember. The sand is course and grinds against his skeleton, and he worries about abrasion until he reaches the entrance to the cave and finds that it’s stone.

After that, it’s easy to fall fifty floors deep, to a magic that Link remembers. He might have only been nine and sixteen. But he remembers.

At some point, Link drops his sword and shield. He looks at her: she’s standing in surprise, her hair is longer than before, and she has more wings. She looks nothing like the Great Fairies he once knew, but the power is the same.

Link feels recognition bubbling inside him. It feels like the white light of the Sacred Realm, like the falling, falling, falls of the Song of Time, like the ocean spread out before him at dusk. Do you know how long I looked?

“Link,” she says. She puts his hand on his cheek, and it’s finally large enough for him to feel it. Even with just bones, he feels it. “You’ve suffered, haven’t you?”

I did this for you! Link wants to yell. He doesn’t. Instead, he just closes his eye almost reverently.

He sinks to his knees into the pool of water Navi is in, and his old bones rattle with it. The water flows over them, through his body, and fill his boots. For the first time in a long, long time, Link feels tangible.

The quest is done, the battle is won and lost and won, and this is real. He reminds himself: this is real.

If there’s one thing Link has realized over these years, it’s that Time has no concept of mercy, not even for its wielder. Navi understands that; she’d understood it then.

She leans her head on his shoulder and smiles quietly. The cave around them is dark and quiet and peaceful.

Link wonders what she’s thinking.

“I’m glad you’re here with me,” she says. Link’s bones shiver, then settle.