Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Link huffed, tying his hair up and out of the way as Yunobo gave him the sixth run-through of his hodgepodge plan. 

“Okay. Go up, look around, come back down.” Link rolled his eyes, tightening the tiny leather strip that held his hair up in a bun.

“ I’ve done this before, Yunobo, I’ll be alright .” Yunobo sighed, hands fisting his scarf anxiously.

“I sure hope so,” he mumbled, watching Link carefully. The youth sucked a deep breath in, and charged at the ledge, pushing off the side of a rock for leverage and whipping his paraglider off his back, shooting into the air using the updraft of a geyser. The hot air blew up his tunic, bringing an uncomfortably dry warmth to the newly exposed skin. He could swear his sweat was sizzling off him, boiling into a cloud of steam. He directed his attention to the loud booming steps of Vah Rudania, climbing across the lava-covered face of Death Mountain.

“What do you see?” Link counted the sentries left on the way up to the beast. 15. It’d take a while to maneuver Yunobo through all of them but as long as he listened to the signal, they’d make it. Probably. Link’s arms grew tired, the sweat of his palms making it harder and harder to keep his grip on the paraglider. He looked through the rock of the mountain—quickly before his strength diminished and he couldn’t hold on any longer—for an alternate route but all he found was lava, lava, and oh! is that some land—nope, more lava. Link sighed, he’d have to figure out a way to get Yunobo through there since he refuses to roll through and ignore the sentries and can’t run nearly fast enough to dodge the falling rocks. He let go of the paraglider, falling about 20 feet before pulling it back out to land a little less than gracefully on the opposite side of the updraft from where Yunobo stood.

Yunobo quickly hobbled over to Link, wiping the sweat from his brow.

“Wow! I was certain you would die! Good thing you didn’t though! Imagine how difficult it’d be to break that news to everyone. Hi! I’m Yunobo, I know we’ve never met but—Oh? Where’s Link? Here’s his body! Or…What I could pull out of the lava, it’s a little burnt but maybe if he rests—”

“Yunobo!” Link shouted, though careful of his volume considering how easy it was to start a rockslide up here.

“Calm. Breathe.” Yunobo blushed, apologizing for the tangent he went on. Link sighed, pressing his palms to his cheeks, flushed red with heat, and warm to the touch. Though they had dried a little on his updraft adventure the sweat was quickly returning, dripping uncomfortably down his face from his forehead. The only plus side of this was the fact that his skin would be smooth as ever from all the constant sweating. Oh, and Goron City and everyone who lived in it would suffer a horrible fiery death but that's irrelevant. Link pulled out a fireproof elixir as Yunobo regulated his breathing, downing the vial in one gulp. It stung on the way down and tasted of coal and burnt lizard, but the effects were almost instant.

“Okay, what did you see?” Link cleared his throat before looking up the steep path.

“15 more sentries, tightly packed with very little cover. I could use Magnesis to hold a metal pallet over our heads and block us from their sights, but I don’t know if I can hold it that long.” Yunobo’s face dimmed, his shoulders slumping.

“So, we can’t get up there? We—We can’t stop Rudania? All of this was pointless!?” Link shook his head adamantly, placing, what he hoped was, a calming hand on Yunobo’s arm, though judging by his reaction it wasn’t calming nor welcome.

“We’ll stop her, trust me, I’ll find a way.” Yunobo looked at him skeptically. There was no surefire way to get up there. They knew they wouldn’t go back to Goron City unscathed but with the number of sentries, and other possible monsters, from their current position to Rudania it would be a blessing from the goddess herself if they made it out with all of their body parts.

“Do you promise?” Link looked at Yunobo’s pleading eyes. He was only a kid, granted Link was only a few years older than him at the whopping, mature, adult age of 18. He’d seen casualties and fought countless battles, leading armies of men and women 10, 20 years his senior but Yunobo? He couldn’t hurt a fly. Literally, that isn’t hyperbole. He's never hurt a fly, scared of them actually. Link smiled sympathetically, just as unsure about this as he was, and pat Yunobo’s shoulder.

“I promise.” He said, you know, like a liar.

Hylia save us all .

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So, to bring you up to speed as briefly as possible. Hylia didn’t protect shit.

 Link cowered under Yunobo’s arm as he surrounded them in a protective shield, watching a barrage of boulders come crashing down around them. Link peeked up over Yunobo’s arm, looking around.

“ I…I think it’s over .” Link held a hand out, walking ahead of the Goron to survey the damages done to the terrain.  They’d have to tread lightly, Hylia knows what those rocks unearthed. For the most part, the sentries had been taken out in the fall. He whistled, telling Yunobo to follow him, and continued to walk carefully up the path.

Link whistled for Yunobo to stop, eyeing a chest a little ways up the path.

“What is it? Another swarm of sentries? A guardian? A guardian stalker?! ” Link walked ahead, kneeling down to pick the lock on the chest. Yunobo stared at him in shock.

“I—Are you being serious right now? We are in a life or death situation and you’re stopping to steal some treasure?” Link shushed him, mumbling something about not being able to concentrate before returning to picking the lock.

“There aren’t any sentries for a few miles. You don’t know what could be in here.”

“Exactly! What if it’s a trap!? What if it’s—What if it’s—”

“Ah-ha!” Link cheered, opening the chest and pulling out its contents. He hummed a happy little tune, tucking the leather patch of rupees into his pack.

“Here you go, you little worrywart, have a sapphire. Maybe it’ll calm you down.”

Yunobo rolled his eyes, eating the sapphire. It did calm him down, though it was a little more cooked than he’d like. Yunobo hobbled up to Link walking cautiously behind him, stopping when he stopped and turning when he turned. Link’s eyes widened happily as he saw another chest buried in ash in the distance. He ran over to it, trying to pull it out of the ground with his hands but, inevitably, using magnesis when they proved in vain.

“I’m gonna go ahead. You can keep treasure hunting.” Yunobo sighed, walking past the Hylian. Link’s ears perked up, looking away from the chest as Yunobo walked up the path. He moved from the goron to the path ahead of him panicking as he saw a sentry. Yunobo was heading right for it.

“Yunobo stop!” he shouted but it was too late, he’d already stepped into the sentry’s line of sight triggering Rudania to send down a scourge of molten boulders. There was an archway up ahead, but Link was too far from it. He could run, make a last dash to it but there was no promise he’d make it in time. He stood up, running for the archway and then--

“Link!”

A boulder fell from Death Mountain’s peak, knocking him off the side of the pathway and down the mountain’s rocky, lava-covered, face to the ground below.

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Chapter Text

Do you know those moments when you’ve hit rock bottom? When you’ve reached the tipping point of your mental stability? When you’ve made every bad choice and decision available to make? Link’s having one of these moments presently, and it’s the funniest thing because...He’s at the bottom of a pit, both literally and metaphorically, and his immediate thought is

“The universe underestimated my ability to be a disappointment. ” and then to grab a shovel and start. digging.

Metaphorically, of course.

Because--while he was at the bottom of a literal, physical, pit--it was pure, solid, lava rock made by the impact of a boulder crushing him to the ground. Even if he had a shovel, or really any mining device, he wouldn’t be able to even fracture the surface. His way of metaphorical digging was to wiggle his crushed, bleeding, burnt body as far out from under the boulder he could until he was in a sitting position against the wall of the pit. 

He was tired and dizzy and his head hurt like a motherfucker, but he pushed that aside. He took the sheikah slate from his hip, pulling up the map with trembling hands. His plan was to get to Zelda, surely Yunobo had run back to Goron City flailing like a mad man for help but there wasn’t any help for him at Death Mountain. He needed to get to Kakariko Village as quickly as possible, which happened to be by traveling to the Ta'loh Naeg shrine and stumbling to Impa’s house.

Unfortunately--probably due to the fact he was suffering from heatstroke, dehydration, and seven different concussions--the old sheikah the map was written in blended and morphed into a jumbled mess of gibberish and general shapes, causing him to press the closest glowing blue thing within the area of East Necluda.

The Ne’ez Yohma shrine. 

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Link braced himself against the cool stone walls of the shrine, still a little disoriented from traveling. A sharp pain sent him grappling for purchase on the smooth wall as he sucked in a deep breath. 

Great, so that’s one, maybe two, broken ribs? Spectacular.

He’d known his condition wasn’t the best, he’d taken a rather grievous tumble down a cliff all while being crushed by a flaming boulder that had to be a half-ton minimum, but he was starting to wonder just how close to death he really was. Link wiped the sweat from his forehead, not bothered to look and see if his arm came away bloody, and shuffled his numbing legs forward. He needed to get to Impa, to the shrine of resurrection, to somewhere that could help him.
Though, by the looks of it, he was far from Kakariko Village. 

The glittering pillars of stained glass, the sculptures, and fantastic ornaments of luminous stone only pointed to one destination. 

“Zora’s Domain?” he breathed, head pounding in the glittering sun.

It wasn’t...the most favorable destination and whatever was wrong with him he assumed Mipha’s healing powers wouldn’t help much. But the Zora had to have doctors, right? Granted, they’d be fish doctors, qualified to heal fish ailment--he was almost certain he didn’t have a swim bladder for them to remove any infections from--but they’d be doctors nonetheless. 

Hylia’s name, he was so tired. He doubted he’d be able to make it to anyone capable of helping. Granted, most of the Zora, at least the younger ones, liked him but not enough to carry his bloody, unconscious, body to a hospital. Link wasn’t aware of exactly how much he weighed but, going off how hard it was to drag himself up a seemingly small flight of stairs into the town square, he’d say he was pretty heavy. 

Pulling himself up the remainder of the stairs he squinted, head pounding harder in the unforgiving sun. He’d run out of wall at this point, having reached the edge of the shrine’s temple. At the moment, with how much trouble he had had getting to this point with help, he didn’t think he’d fair well without it. Still, he’d have to try. 

“Come on Farore,” he mumbled, trying his best to imitate a pep talk--a difficult feat when you hate yourself.

“You’ve made it this far, anyone would’ve died or been, at the very least, comatose before you even got to this point.” His jaw clenched, gazing around the shops until his eyes landed on a little caduceus carved out of luminous stone. It was a hospital! Oh, but it was so far away. 

Almost exactly parallel from him, the walk had to be at least 80 to 90 feet. He gulped, sucking in the deepest breath he could take. 

“You can do this.” 

It was simple, really simple, just...walk. You’ve been doing it nearly every day of your life since you were 9 months old. Walk . It would seem walking wasn’t that simple a concept with more fractures and breaks in your legs than there should be, which is saying a lot since there should be zero. 

A battle calloused hand was the last of Link’s body to support him on the wall, and when it slipt off, he was flooded with fear.

His legs shuddered and wobbled and hurt, oh great golden goddess they hurt, with his weight. His shoulder’s tensed to his ears, jaw clenched, his eyes pooled with tears and he bit into his lip, willing them away. 

“You can do this,”

With a featherlight sigh to still his hyperventilating, he moved his right leg. Goddess above did it hurt like fuck, the pain seared through him, reaching every corner of his body. He moved his left leg, hand flying over his mouth to mute a scream of pain. He continued slowly, right leg. Breathe. Left leg. Breathe. Right, breathe, Left, breathe.

Soon enough, the pain lessened enough for him to move a little faster. He tripped on his heels, stumbling, shivering, having to bite into his lip or the side of his palm to silence a horrific scream, he was thankful no one was outside to see him at the moment, save for the spare singing child or elder Zora who eyed him skeptically. 

He’d made it about 10 of the 80 feet in half an hour and with each step his legs grew heavier. He was running out of energy. But he needed to make it, he didn’t have time to wait, if he sat down now he might not have the strength to stand back up. 

“Y--you can d--do this.” 

He moved a little faster, a stabbing, burning, pain in his legs screaming at him to stop but he couldn’t slow down now. He had to get to the hospital. It was much closer now, though it would likely take him another half hour to get the rest of the way there. 

There weren’t any more breaths in-between his steps, and his slowly growing hyperventilation threatened him fainting, but he continued on. Right, Left, Right, Left. 

Link’s eyes widened at the white-hot pain that coursed through him the second he put his right foot down. He sucked in too deep of a breath and keeled over, falling to the ground. He landed in the water with a strained scream. He dirtied the water with soot and blood as it continued down into the lake beneath the domain. 

His vision blurred and clouded and he threw a hand up to cover his mouth as he screamed again, tears leaving streaks in the dirt on his cheeks. 

He was going to die, every muscle clenched and aching. He was going to die, here, because of his own foolishness. 

It was almost comical, being a supposed hero destined to save the world, wielding a centuries-old sword that sealed the darkness, a nd dying because of hubris .

It would be a relief at the least, he’d no longer have to carry such a burden anymore. 

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“Fuck.”

Oh fuck. Oh fuck fuck fuck fuck. Oh fuck. Oh shit. Oh fuck fuck fuck shit fuck fuck. Oooooh fuck. Dammit, dammit all, damn the universe, damn the goddesses, just--just-- fuck .

Mipha had entrusted him to rule the domain in her stead while she was off doing work as one of the Champions of Hyrule. It had been easy at first, given he’d done it for the good half of a hundred years. But this? This was catastrophic, horrific, abhorrent, it was--it was just--

“Fuck .”

And he was never one to curse! Never! But he was also not one to let you pee down his back and tell him it was raining and this was just--

“Fuck fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck!”

It wasn’t as bad as Sidon had thought it to be, although it was far from inherently good when he’d first stumbled upon the presumed-to-be-dead Hylian in the town square. No, not just any Hylian. Link fucking Farore. The Hylian Champion, The Savior of Hyrule, The Chosen Hero, Link who saved the domain and surrounding areas from perpetual flooding, Link who practically raised him, Link who was his sister’s first love ! That! Link! Was dead in the middle of Zora’s Domain. 

Just kaput. Gone. Hunched over and bleeding. He’d hoisted him up and taken him to the freshest, cleanest, bed in the hospital--though the dirt and blood covering his body immediately transferred to the surrounding water--saw to it he was in the best providable care and then fled to pace. 

He’d have to contact Zelda or even King Rhoam, but what would he say? 

“Hello? Yes? Your prized hero is in the ICU of our hospital, in case you were wondering where he was. Oh! By the by, would you like lilies or carnations at the funeral?!”

It’s probably obvious at this point Sidon doesn’t do the best under stressful situations, his headfin wagging nervously as he trudged back and forth and back and forth in his room. If he wanted the letter to reach Hyrule Castle before the boy died he’d need to get it out now, no time for stalling. But he didn’t just want the letter to say 

“Link’s probably dead right now but come to the domain anyway. Last goodbyes and all that kelp.”

He grabbed a piece of foolscap from a drawer and started scrawling out as neatly as possible something that resembled formality. 

"To whom it may concern, 

Most regrettably, Link has fallen ill and is currently in one of our hospitals. 

Please make your way to the domain as quickly as possible.

Sidon.”

Capped it off with the royal seal, addressed it to Zelda, and sent it on its way. 

By the goddess Nayru, did he hope they’d get it on time. 

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