Chapter Text
It was a quiet morning as Tilieth wandered the plateau. She made her usual pilgrimage to the Temple of Time to pray at the statue for protection over her family and the princess. Her husband, Abel, had already gone hunting and foraging for the day.
As she knelt in front of the statue, her mind wandered to her son, who lay sleeping several hundred feet away in the stony fortress that locked him away from her and the rest of Hyrule.
Hylia, please grant him healing.
After reciting a few memorized prayers and listening to the morning birds, Tilieth rose and made her way to the entrance of the Shrine of Resurrection. She passed the same pond she'd passed every day for the last ten years, but... something was strangely different.
The lily pads. They were in a circle.
That was... new.
Her body stiffened, and she was immediately on edge. She and her husband had spent ten years living on this plateau and guarding their son. She knew every inch of this place. Anything out of place meant something was afoot.
Creeping ever closer to the pond, she saw nothing out of place in the water itself. She observed that the ring was situated perfectly below the little cliff she occasionally dove off of.
How odd. But something in her compelled her to jump and land in the ring. If nothing else, just for the satisfaction of it.
Looking at her area of approach, Tilieth sprinted and dove off the little cliff, perfectly slipping into the water below. When she arose with a laugh as the cool water startled her body awake, she then yelped upon seeing a bizarre little wooden creature.
"Yahaha! You found--oh," it said as it hovered in the air with a little twirling leaf. "You're not Hestu. But... you can see me? I didn't know your kind could see the children of the forest."
"Children of the forest?" she repeated, bewildered.
"Yes! We're hiding in lots of different places! Don't be shy about poking your nose in suspicious places!" the little critter continued. "Oh, and if you see Hestu, give him this!"
The creature reached under its little leaf mask and pulled out a golden... nugget? It had an unpleasant shape, but it was smooth and had an earthy, wooden smell to it.
Tilieth reached out hesitantly. "What is it?"
"A Korok seed!" the child of the forest answered. "Bye bye!"
"Bye, wait, I--" Tilieth looked up to see the little creature floating around merrily and laughing to itself.
Korok. Like... like the Lost Woods? What was it doing out here?
Causing trouble for this Hestu person apparently.
Tilieth swam to the edge of the pond, still in shock that she had spoken to a breathing creature that could reply to her. It had just been her, Abel, and Link for the last decade.
What a bizarre day.
After the encounter, she finally started to make her way to the shrine when--
What was that rumbling?
"Til! Tilieth, run!!"
Whirling around, she caught sight of her husband and--and--
Goddess above, was that a Hinox?!
"Abel, what the hell did you do?!" she yelled.
"It wasn't my fault, just run!!" he shouted back, dodging a rock large enough to crush him. The rock flew over him entirely, and Tilieth gasped and ducked, though it was clear the Hinox fired too high to really hit either of them.
But it did hit the shrine's entrance.
Tilieth cried out in horror, and it caught her husband's attention. When he realized what had happened, he halted in his tracks. Turning, he faced the Hinox head on, pulling out the bow and arrows he'd been using to hunt. Tilieth's heart stopped at the sight of it - her husband was excellent with a sword and shield, but archery--
She rushed towards him, pulling the weapons out of his hands and shoving him as the Hinox through another stone.
"Til, get away, that thing will kill you!" Abel hissed.
"You can't fight it alone like this!" she argued. "I'm better with a bow, give that to me and take your sword!"
"My sword is at the house!"
Til gawked at him. "Why did you leave it at the house?!"
"BECAUSE I WASN'T PLANNING ON FIGHTING A HINOX TODAY!"
The earth shook and Tilieth screamed as the Hinox nearly stepped on them. She ran far enough away to get a clean shot and aimed for the monster's giant eye. When the shot fired true, her husband looked around wildly and grabbed the nearest thing he could find.
A tree branch.
Tilieth called out to him as he smacked the hinox into submission and then gawked as it actually worked. When the creature stayed unconscious, she stared at him, watching him turn with a triumphant smile and a shrug.
"Whatever works, right?" he offered.
"A tree branch?"
"It worked, didn't it?"
"Oh my Hylia," she muttered, rubbing a hand down her face. "Get your sword."
Abel turned as if to do so, but his eyes trailed beyond her, up the path to the shrine's entrance. His brow furrowed in worry. She followed his gaze and saw the damage to the stone, and her heart leapt into her throat.
Both parents rushed to the entrance and tentatively poked their way down the stairwell. The dark, narrow pathway was usually pitch black, locked away by the sealed stone doors at the bottom of the stairs.
A blue glow was filling the room.
"Oh goddess," Abel whispered, and Tilieth rushed ahead.
When the couple reached the bottom, they found the door half collapsed, and Tilieth was able to squeeze through first. Her husband grunted and struggled a little behind her.
Goddess, please, just let it be this door, please don't--
Tilieth felt her blood freeze. The second door had shattered under the pressure, a pile of rubble the remains of what should have been Link's last protection.
Abel moved faster this time, and she was on his heels as they entered the room.
The hum that still haunted her nightmares was erratic and lower in pitch than she remembered. Walking slowly, her eyes fixated on the large overhanging structure above the bath in which her son was laying.
Its blue hue was flashing orange.
"What do we do?" she asked helplessly as Abel ran to their son.
"The shrine's damaged, there's nothing we can do about that," he muttered, his voice trembling as he brushed a hand over Link's face.
Tilieth finally dragged her feet to the bath itself, and she looked down, afraid of what she would see. Link was still unconscious and mutilated, canyons of cauterized flesh carved into his torso and left shoulder, burns tracing up his neck. The cavernous, gaping hole that had been in his left leg was now a divet, still showing fatty tissue but no longer ripping to the bone and shattering it. The cuts, bruises, and scrapes that literally covered his entire body, though, were gone.
But the larger wounds...
They were bleeding.
Link winced, his face pulled taut with clear pain, his breathing shaky.
"Oh goddess," Tilieth whispered, nearly sobbing. "Goddess, what do we do, what do we do--"
"We have to get him out of here," Abel said, reaching into the bath.
"No!" Tilieth pulled him back frantically. "This is the only place that can heal him!"
"The shrine can't heal him anymore, Til!" Abel argued. "We have to get him to the house."
Tilieth watched with tears streaming down her face as Abel pulled their boy into his arms. Link hissed but didn't awaken, and the water he'd just been in started to drain, though not quickly enough for her to miss the clear reddish tint it had taken on.
"Get the Sheikah slate," Abel added as an afterthought as he headed for the exit.