Archive of Our Own ^beta

Everything around him changed the moment Link stepped through the locked door. The dark, damp dungeon walls of the Water Temple deep below Lake Hylia gave way for a wide, open field of shallow water, shrouded in an infinite fog - the occasional tall rock pointing outward into the open sky. Most noteworthy, though - a small island rose out of the water, a lone dead tree standing at its center. 

Then, suddenly - the door behind him shut closed, large metal bars slamming into the base of the doorframe. Locked in.

How many times had this happened before? Four? Five? He was starting to lose count, honestly. The monsters, the dungeons. It all blended together. He tried not to think about it too much. Navi was worried about it, but really -

-Hey, wait. Where’s Navi?

No fairy was floating out from his cap, or around his head. Navi was nowhere to be seen, nowhere to be heard.

Link was alone in the room, with whatever monster the dungeon had in store for him. And given the appearance of the room being so drastically different, so alien compared to the rest of the Water Temple, it seemed the encounter would be sticking in his memory, whether he wanted it to or not. 

As Link walked towards the center, he was at the very least grateful that whatever this monster was, it didn’t seem too reflective of the dungeon’s central water idea. He was tired of being so water-logged, having his tunic and equipment sticking to him after getting out of the water. Then again, after sleeping for seven years with the master sword, he didn’t want to think about his body much at all. It's a tool, nothing more, like his hookshot or bow and arrows. 

Usually whatever monster he’d face would have shown itself by now. Link’s at the central island, now, as empty as the rest of the room - it’s noteworthy because it’s a single island in the middle of a foggy, empty room, not because there’s anything unique to the island. 

There’s a tiny carving, on the side of the tree, that he notices. He recognizes the image - and willingly ignores it. Out of sight, out of mind. Easier to let it blend together, necessary if it’s needed for a puzzle, otherwise forgotten altogether. 

He hopes there isn’t some kind of puzzle to this room, but groans as he walks off the small island, assuming there will be. Why do these dungeons have to have so many weird brain-teasers? 

Link notices, now, a door at the other end of the room - a perfect mirror to the one he entered the room in. He walks towards it, examining the details. He thinks it could be an exact replica - the bars, the door details, the framing itself. Link turns around to observe the other door and test his theory-

- And there’s a person, cloaked in shadow, sitting at the base of the tree.

Their face is obscured, sitting crouched, head down resting on their knees and arms wrapped tightly around in a ball. All details obscured - they look as if the empty, dark void of a starless night was given form, condensed into personhood. 

Caution was the key approach, in this scenario, Link assumed - it hadn’t attacked yet, but was in the same pose as many redeads he’d unfortunately encountered before they started screaming loud enough to rattle his soul. With a hand at the hilt of his sword, Link crept forward, each step through the puddle sounding out through the room like a bell’s toll. 

As the toe of Link’s boot reached the shores of the central island, the creature finally moved - its head rose slightly, making its long hair, cascading down its back, covering its face all the more noticeable, alongside the two blood-red eyes peering at him through the darkness. 

And then, it spoke - in a voice made of many, condensed into one. Link could recognize those of Saria, Malon, Zelda, Impa, Ruto - and somewhere within the cacophony, his own. “What do you want?”

Link felt his throat tighten. Suddenly, with its eyes on him, everything felt too open, too visible. He wanted to run, to hide in his bed back home in the forest, to have a body he at least tolerated back - his body, not this aged flesh. He wasn’t old enough, strong enough, prepared -

“If you’ve nothing to say, then please, leave.” The thing continued, once again resting its head on its knees. 

What? What kind of monster is okay to just let Link leave once it's noticed him? It’s not like he could even leave anyways, what with the door -

“I’m not a monster…” the shadow mumbled into its chest. 

WHAT. He didn’t even say anything! How did this thing respond to his own thoughts? What kind of weird monster is this? 

“You’re really talkative, you know…” it spoke again, still not looking up. “...you don’t need to keep all your thoughts to yourself.”

Okay. Definitely reading his thoughts. And it doesn’t seem hostile either, since it seems to just want to be left alone? For some reason? What is it even doing here, in the middle of this dungeon?

“What are you doing here, anyways?” the thing asked him, slowly unfurling itself from the floor and standing up. 

As it stood, Link could see its body looked almost like that of a young person - maybe somewhere around his age? At least where his age is supposed to be. He couldn’t make out much, but it seemed to be wearing a dress, sleeveless, with a deep v-neck collar. Something about it was familiar, but he couldn’t place it.

“I said, what are you doing here?” it repeated, a bit more forcefully this time.

…why does it matter what he’s doing here? It’s a dungeon, he’s the hero. Ganondorf’s monsters had taken over the temple, and he has to fix it. It’s the order of things. It’s not like he has much of a choice, really. 

Who else could do this sort of thing, really? Zelda’s missing, Sheik’s off who knows where, the sages are trapped in these same temples. He’s the only one who can do this. He has to be the hero. 

“But you don’t.” it finished flatly. 

Oh, this is what the monster wants? To get him to stop-

“I’m not a monster!” It shouted now, stomping a foot into the sandy shore and pouting, sharp red eyes staring him down. “You just have all this pressure to be something. Something that’s making you tense. You don’t have to give in to that. Help people, rescue the sages. As Link, not The Hero. It hurts to pretend, y’know…”

It was looking down now, into the water, without a reflection, away from him, almost bashful.

It’s not like he could be anything else. It’s not like he had anything else. He couldn’t be a child, even if he was one. He couldn’t be a kokiri, even if he felt more at home with them than anyone else he’d encountered. He couldn’t be himself. He only had the title, the goal. What was he without it? Link was The Hero.

“You were something before, though. Someone before.” 

Even if he could go back in time, it’s not like it erased everything he’d seen, lived, needed to do-

“That’s true, and it's a shame.” it added, nodding solemnly. “You shouldn’t have to, this burden, far bigger than your own shoulders. But you don’t need to conform for the task at hand. Do what you need to do to make living easier for yourself.”  

The thing was staring at him now, forcing him to hold eye contact, bangs framing the sides of its face. It was hard to look anywhere else, with the intensity in its glare. 

Link didn’t have time for this, didn’t have time for these weird personal questions, for being reminded about how wide his shoulders had gotten in the future, didn’t need to think about anything. The path was already laid out, he just. He couldn’t be anything else, he couldn’t change his fate, himself, anything. All he knew how to do was what he’d been told, about himself, about his mission, about pulling that damn sword that he wishes he could just throw off into the distance and never see again. 

The shadowy thing started approaching him. 

Link drew the master sword, and stepped back.

It stopped, halfway between the tree and Link. It seemed… sad. 

“Fighting this will hurt you far more, for far longer, than any of Ganondorf’s monsters could, you know.”

It started moving again. Link stood still, frozen, and it continued talking. “The monsters can hurt, the monsters can make you bleed, break, kill you. This will ache, fester like an untreated wound. This will poison you, slowly, steadily, until you are nothing but the sword you’re holding. A sword you’ll put down, eventually. The monsters will stop coming, the evil banished.”

It was within arm’s reach, now, and halted its movement. “And then what will you be? Link, the Hero? Or The Hero, Link?”

“Or perhaps even, The Man, Link? Stripped of title and goal, once it's been accomplished?”

He started to feel ill, now. He couldn’t keep this conversation going. He couldn’t keep any conversation going, with how much his older, deeper voice grated against his ears. He let this go for too long.

The monster smirked at him, now. “Seems that one struck a nerve. Wonder why?” 

And so, he slashed his sword at the thing, and-

It jumped, balancing itself on his blade like a tightrope. 

“It’s okay to be scared,” it called down to him, “as much as you loathe me, we will walk forward together, like always. We will walk together.” 

With that, it backflipped off his blade - landing right at the base of the tree. The thing shimmered a bit during the landing, as if recoiling from the landing, or something else. When it stood again, it changed. 

It now stood tall - maybe slightly shorter than him. It had some sort of short hooded cloak covering its shoulders, overtop a flaring dress, tall boots reaching up to its knees. The hood of its cloak was up, rounded at the end, but its face changed the most -

It was his. Link was looking at his own face, darkened by shadow, with deep red eyes to peer into his soul. Briefly glancing into the water, he finally noticed that he didn’t cast a shadow or have a reflection. 

It spoke again, but in a singular voice - a solidly feminine one, one Link didn’t fully recognize, but somehow still knew it was his voice - “The only ‘thing’ you’re fighting here is yourself.” 

With that, it reached to its back, and drew its sword and shield with a flourish - exact mirrors of Links own equipment.

“If you choose to bury yourself beneath your duty, then I will show you the consequences of that decision.” 

With that, it rushed him. Leaping into the air with its sword raised high, it crashed down onto the sand where Link stood a moment before with a mighty slash and thud. Link sidestepped moments before the hit would have connected - and used the opportunity to strike at the monster’s side.

The monster had other plans, however, pivoting and deflecting the blow with its own sword - before reaching to its side with its shielded right arm. It pulled out a hookshot, aimed it at Link’s chest, and fired. 

Though he moved back before the blow hit, he was still scraped - the hook sailed against his forehead, leaving a thin, skin-deep scratch. 

The two stood apart from each other, circling the other, prepared to see who would move first. Then, they both rushed at the same time - drawing their blades in the same way, the same vertical slash. The swords clinked off of the other hopelessly, and then again, as both followed up with a horizontal slash, drawn yet again in perfect sync. 

Then, with the benefit of close range - the shadow tried to punch him in the jaw, but Link deflected with his shield. He slashed at its side - it deflected with its shield. 

Link then, following its example, reached for a left hook, sword still in hand, while the shadow instead kicked him in the stomach with more force than Link knew it had. He was shot back across the room - landing in a heap near the island at its center, dropping the master sword and his shield somewhere along the way. 

He quickly picked himself up - to find the shadow’s blade drawn, pointed at his head. Link waited for it to make a move - but it simply stood, watching him, not even speaking a word. So, Link made the next move - rolling to the side, pulling out the megaton hammer to deflect an incoming horizontal sword slash. 

The monster rushed him now, but Link instead slammed the hammer into the ground in front of him. The shadow thing was stunned, frozen, and fell into the water it stood on - Link breathed a sigh of relief, hoping that whatever had altered his reflection could simply stay a reflection. 

Then, steps from behind - Link jumped out of the way again, back towards the island, to see the shadow monster finish a jump slash exactly where he had been standing before. 

Link rushed the shadow now, trying to slam into it with his hammer - only for it to deflect the blow with its shield. Again, Link slammed down with the megaton hammer with the same result. 

The shadow tried for another horizontal slash, and Link side-hopped out of the way, bumping his foot against his sword. As he quickly picked it up, an arrow flew past his hand and struck the water where the sword was just laying. The shadow had brandished not a reflection of his bow, but a crossbow, pointed his direction, and fired again.

Link dashed across the room again, standing in front of one of the large rocks he had noticed before - the shadow kept unloading bolt after bolt where he had stood previously, before ultimately resting one in the rock, right next to Link’s chest. It brandished another, prepared to fire, and Link instead drew his own bow and fire arrows, aiming directly at the shadow. The two stood still in this standoff for a breath, before both fired at the same time, and simultaneously dodged - Link rolling to the right, the shadow to the left. Their arrows plinked uselessly against the ground in the locations both previously stood. 

They circled each other again across the room. Link with his sword and hammer drawn, the shadow with its sword and a crossbow, loaded to fire a bolt. Link ran to close the distance first - the crossbow missed him by a hair, and he unleashed a vertical slash with his sword that was deflected by its blade. Then, the hammer was swung to its opposite side- and the shadow jumped out of the way, sheathed the crossbow, and drew its shield again. 

Link rushed again wildly, slashing horizontally, to be met with its shield. Again he slashed with his sword, but now parried with its shield. Again and again and again, alternating hammer and sword strikes, all deflected or parried. The shadow slowly approached in spite of Link’s onslaught - not a single hit reached, and slowly Link conceded more and more ground, until eventually he was backed against the tree at the center of the room. 

Back against the tree, slowly panicking and losing all options he can process in the moment, Link goes for another series of slashes - horizontal first, blocked. Vertical next, blocked. Vertical again, parried. Stab to the chest. 

Connect.  

The sword reaches through the shadow’s chest, still slowly rising and falling - Link, panting heavily, nearly out of breath, draws the sword out from the monster’s frame and sheathes it with a flourish. The shadow dissipates in a ball of smoke, and Link collapses to the ground, desperate for air to fill his lungs, as if he just swam for days without a single breath. 

The sandy shore of the island was jostled and shaken by the fighting and movement, some areas splashed by water that was kicked up in the rush. More water slowly dropped onto the shore, though. Small, tiny drops. 

Link’s breath caught in his throat. He tried to be stoic - this was his job. This was his mission. This is what The Hero has to do. He can’t - he shouldn’t -

A sob rang out from his throat as he tried to calm his breathing. His tears kept flowing as he collapsed completely on the shores of that tiny island in the middle of nowhere, sobbing as if his heart ached, like his was the one stabbed through. 

“Things don’t have to be this way, you know.”

A voice from his left. He looked up, struggling to register the face looking at him, crouching next to the tree. Until his eyes focused more, realizing it was the shadow monster again, in the form of the little girl it took before the fight. 

“The future’s scary, and rough. You know that as well as I do. But you can make it better - easier on yourself. You don’t need to be what the people want out of a Hero, if it does nothing but restrain you.” 

Link sat up, facing the shadow and the tree, knees to hide his chest, burying his still damp face in his legs, embarrassed to even be sitting here. 

“A job, a duty like this isn’t something that can really last. It’s fun to be a hero, but the pressure of conforming to expectations will break you - it seems like it already has. It certainly broke me.” 

Link looked up in response, only to see the tree - the shadow was nowhere in sight. Nothing to obscure his vision from the tree, and the small carving present that he tried his best to forget. 

It’s a girl. A girl with a long pointy cap and ears, beautiful flowing dress, sword in hand and a fairy at her side as she fought off a giant monster. 

Link recognized the drawing, of course. She drew it herself as a child; an attempt at a self-portrait. 

But he couldn’t be that. He couldn’t be that as a kokiri, not when he was told by everyone but Saria and the Deku Tree that he was a boy, so he should play and dress like one. Not when he left the forest, when he was known to everyone as a fairy boy or messenger boy. Not when he became a man, an adult, the person the world needed. The world expected a man, needed him to be a man. So he was one. There’s nothing else he could be. The bare minimum expectation he could meet; one he assumed he shouldn’t even have to try to meet. 

But try he did. 

“And I guess you’re going to say you’re a failure, now? Now that you’re not ignoring it?” 

Link turned his head around slowly, to find the shadow, in its adult form, standing behind him, hand outstretched, palm open.

Link reached out, and the shadow pulled him up, and now that he was standing on his own two feet, pulled him into a hug. 

“Saria said when we were little, y’know… she only wanted us to be happy, to be ourselves.”

Link buried his face into her cloak, in a desperate hope to stop the tears from starting again.

“We can be a hero and still be that. Not everything needs to hurt. Not everything is a challenge, and you’ve faced more than most.” 

The next spoken words were light, airy, misty - almost as if said through a fog, in a voice that wasn’t Links. 

“This is the only gift I can give you, now, chosen one. Take care, and know that I watch over you.”

Link’s eyes opened, and she turned her head slightly - she was hugging a bright golden and green light, solid, and yet, it almost felt like she was about to fall through it.

“Link…”, it continued. “Link…” it called again.

“LINK!” Navi cried out, circling around her head like a healing fairy would. 

Slowly, he came to - he was in a room filled with mirrors, a perfect square room, with very little detailing that would suggest anything other than it being any other room in the water temple.

Mirrors covered each wall, and in them, Link saw -

-herself. Long flowing blonde hair framed her rounder face, a green cloak over a sleeveless green tunic, much like the one she’d worn as a child, and yet still closer in design to the ones the kokiri girls wore, and boots tall enough to reach her knees, thick enough to withstand the toughest of attacks, all adorned like a glove that fit just right. 

Her breath hitched again, as Navi stares at her form in shock and worry. 

“I don’t know what happened, you just collapsed and started to glow a weird golden light! Do you think this is one of Ganondorf’s monsters’ doing? Is there a cure? I’ve never heard of something like this happening, I was so worried you’d-”

And then, Link cut her off with a sniffle, starting to cry again. Navi approached, and Link hugged her fairy friend. She’d made it. Navi noticed Link’s smile, and decided that this couldn’t have been Ganondorf’s doing, as strange as it is. 

“Thank you, goddess…” Link slowly whispered to no one in particular, before composing herself as much as she could, and examining herself even closer in the mirrors around each wall of the room. 

Her blue eyes shine like Lake Hylia does at midday - complimenting the dark forest greens and messy, dirty browns and dark reds of her pants, gloves, and boots. No dress like the shadow had in the dream, but that seems impractical for combat, anyways. Her messy golden-brown hair, parted at the middle and reaching down past her neck, sat to frame her face in a way that finally made her genuinely smile at herself - for herself, and for no reason other than that. 

And then, she and Navi both noticed something peculiar. Navi had been too busy fussing over Link to notice, and Link only finally saw in the mirror - in the center of the room was a tiny mound, a plant growing on some small object.

As Link approached, her breath hitched, moving from a light walk to a sprint to pick up something she’d thought she lost forever ago in Zora’s Domain - Saria’s Ocarina, with a tiny tree growing out the pointed end. Even if she couldn’t play it anymore, she would always cherish it and what it meant to her. 

So, with the room seemingly empty, Link and Navi both walked out the room’s other exit to explore what else their lives had in store, Link animatedly explaining to Navi what happened in the dream. Her voice didn’t hurt anymore. 

“You know, this was kind of a really impractical time to have one of the golden goddesses magically make your body fit you properly.” Navi deadpanned to the cold stone walls of the water temple, Link nodding in agreement.

Of course, with her body’s changes, the iron boots no longer fit her properly.