Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Cold.

The first thing that he, yes he -he was sure of that- was aware of was that he was cold.

The second thing he was aware of was that he was really fucking wet. There was no other possible phrase that he knew of that could describe the amount of wet he was, other than him being fucking wet, and even then he wasn't sure where him being fucking wet came from.

The third thing he was aware of was that he was laying down on the wetness, and it irked him just so. He would absolutely love to get off the wetness, and so he did. Through slots that even he knew were too perfect to be natural, or as natural as the wet tub that he was laying down in was, he could lift himself up.

It was then that he realized that he was naked. Why it bothered him he had no idea, but he was naked all the same, and he just knew in that irksome way that finding clothes, whatever they may be, would help him immensely. It might keep him from being cold, and that alone was enough of a reason to push himself over and out of the tub. He then fell on his face.

It wasn't long before he was back on his knees, holding the edge of the tub like a desperate toddler. It was maybe a little bit long before he stood up on legs shakier than a newborn doe's, and slightly less long before he finally stopped looking at his hands, clamped white on the tub's edge. It was more of a grey, really, given just how dark it was in wherever he was. The walls had at best a puny orange glow to them, dotted around like stars. He didn't know what stars were, but the wall lights were like them, so at least he wasn't an idiot. He hoped he wasn't one, for reasons he couldn't really explain.

There was a pillar, not much taller than his chest, if he had to estimate its height, and though it glowed the same dim orange as the walls, it wasn't nearly as pretty as the walls, or as the sword propped up against it. The sword, he had to note, was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, and he had seen some walls. It was resplendant in its glory and a huge number of other positive things. That number had many zeroes after it, and while he isn't quite sure what that means, he does know that someone smart told him what the numbers meant, and that's what matters. Except it isn't, because what matters is the sword. Even in the dim lighting, he can see the elegance of its blade, the swooping wings of its crossguard, the ornate triangular bevel in its forte, and the slightly frayed wrappings around its hilt. Those would have to be replaced, no ifs, ands, or buts, and it started to glow.

Slow, rhythmic pulses of a dull, blue-white light helped to get a better view of the blade's shockingly tarnished edge, and he realized that he needed to repair it sooner rather than later. Whoever owned it last, which might have been him of all people given the lack of a door and the proximity to where he was laying down, did a number to it and hadn't learned how to maintain it. He didn't know how right then and there, but he did vow to learn from whoever knew. Something about this sword was special, no matter how he sliced it. It fit better than well when he held it, be it in one hand or in two, and it made an appropriate whooshing noise whenever he swung it around.

Sure, hearing the phrase master link over and over, seemingly from nowhere and everywhere at the same time, was starting to get old, but he knew, for the same irksome reason he knew what stars were, that going out there, wherever out there may be, and admitting that he was hearing voices was not the right plan of attack. He had no clue what the right plan of attack was, but hopefully he'd find out before he starved.

master link listen!

That gave him pause. The voice was changing what it said, and now he was certain he was being attacked by something. He didn't know what the master link wanted with him, but it would have to get past his admittedly alright sword before it had his head meats.

brain, master link.

Ah, brain, that was the word. This master link would have a challenge ahead of itself if it wanted his brain. Perhaps he could eat it, since the voice did say it was his head meats, and he knew meats were good. Either that or he was on the wrong end of starvation, and if he didn't get out soon he would be missing a limb by the time someone found him, lying against the pillar because it hurt to stand.

master link, retrieve the slate from the pe... ...the pillar

Now, he knew he had no reason as to why he should trust the other voice in his head, but at the same time, perhaps it wasn't a villain's voice. Perhaps he had just gone mad in the dim light of this glorified bathroom. It didn't even have a toilet.

there is a twenty-five percent chance you have become mentally unstable, master link.

That didn't sound too bad, all things considered. Perhaps the number would go down if he could get on his legs already so that he could get out of here. They were like jelly, and he wasn't in the mood to eat jelly, so he had to suck it up and try to stand up. Really, it was hurting his arms more than it was hurting his legs, but he did eventually manage a loose standing position. He could see the lines of light on the top of the pillar, and they did form a solid shape, so it couldn't be wrong to assume that that was the slate.

...you are correct, master link.

At least his broken mind agreed with him. The slate itself came out of the pillar without much fanfare besides changing the room's color to blue, but the wall behind it had other things to say. What he had previously thought to be a particuarly rough patch of ornamentation had opened up into a passageway through the wall and into another, similarly lit room, furnished with odd, rounded boxes and normal, flat boxes.

open the chests, master link. they have clothes within them.

Perhaps he could trust this master link voice. It certainly seemed as if it wanted to help him. Maybe they simply got off to a bad start. Whatever the case was regarding that voice, he needed to get on with it already and open these damn chests. Their lids were unreasonably heavy, but they weren't insurmountable, and eventually he had the most tattered clothes known to anybody. The legs of the pants were little more than threads on a string, the sleeves of the shirt weren't much better, and both items had at least three more holes than they were supposed to have, but they were clothes that fit him, and that was enough for him.

At least they were somehow warm. They weren't toasty by any means, but they were warmer than his bare skin, and they had come with enough belts and loops to keep the slate and his amazing sword on his body and not in his hands. It freed up his hands enough such that he could hold them, and himself, against the wall as he made his way towards another orange-lit pillar. It had the same shape of lights as the previous pillar, but when he felt for another slate, there wasn't anything there. Sure, he could possibly fit the slate into the hole, but then he wouldn't have the slate, and the voice did say he should have grabbed the slate. Maybe he could grab the slate after he put it in the pillar, but then what if the passageway that was opened up closed? He knew that the slate opened holes in walls, but would it close them back up if he removed the slate from the pillar?

Well then. Perhaps he could get an answer as to why the master link voice had a speech impediment while he put the slate in the pillar. Perhaps he could learn what a speech impediment actually was. Perhaps he could learn so many things that he'd blow up, but before that happened, he had to take the slate out of the blue-lit pillar and get the fuck out of here.

master link, i do not have a speech impediment. i am refering to you by name when i say, 'Master Link'.

Oh.

Oh fuck he had a name.

What kind of name was Master Link? It sounded goofy, like it wasn't just a name.

A speech impediment, Master Link, is the broad term for when a person's body parts, such as their vocal chords, their tongue, or their lips, are incapable of facilitating speech in part or in full. Examples of speech impediments include stutters and lisps, although more impairments do exist.

Well shit, guess all he has to do now is blow up and get the fuck out of this dusty ass place. Perhaps that really bright light is the way out. It kinda hurts to look at, so he doesn't look at it for too long, even though its the only natural light he can see. Why Master Link knows it's natural he has no idea, but at least it's a good way to tell the right direction.

That is, until he steps in even more wet. His mood is soured, his head is frankly starting to hurt, and is that another fucking wall in front of him? There's that bright light above it, but it must be very high up, since his hand can't touch it above his head. There were stairs leading down in the other room, but they just couldn't bother with stairs leading upwards in this room, couldn't they?

There was a ninety-five percent chance of this occuring, Master Link. There used to be stairs here, but they eroded away over the years.

Well shit. Now Master Link has to climb up this wall, which apparently hasn't been seen, much less maintained, in years. He had been laying in that cold, wet tub for years, and yet he couldn't remember any of it. He had gone down stairs that didn't exist anymore.

At least the stairs left some holes in the wall for him to stick his hands and feet into. They weren't comfortable, but they were enough for him to slowly make his way up the wall. He laid down in a heap against some ruined stairs, added another tally mark to the idea that the voice in his head wasn't all that bad, and promptly got back up when he heard some light rumbling. It followed Master Link even as he left the dull room, not fading away until he fell over his own feet and ate dirt. It didn't taste good, so he spat it out and promptly slid over towards a red thing. It had spots of a darker red on top, was soft and malleable, and came out of the ground easily enough when he pulled on it, so it must have been something he could eat.

Laccaria Rubrum, Master Link, otherwise known as the Hylian Shroom, is an edible mushroom that-

There wasn't anything else that needed to be said. He couldn't quite hear the voice in his head over the chewing noises he was making, because the first food in apparently years was good. It was basic, but it was everything Master Link needed, and yet it wasn't enough. Luckily, there were a few more mushrooms below the trees, and they too found themselves eaten.

Stop, Master Link. If you eat any more mushrooms, you will vomit them all back up.

"Wouldn't that mean I could eat them again?" asked the man who didn't know he had a rasping voice, and then he immediately realized he could speak. Master Link could voice his opinions. He was free to say what he wanted. He kinda wanted to puke up the mushrooms so he could eat them again. They tasted good the first time around. Perhaps they would taste good again. However, he first had to do something very important.

No, Master Link, the mushrooms will not taste as good as they did the firs-

"FUCK!"

His axe still in hand, an old man mused, "Well then," and faded out of view.

Chapter Text

His body had slumped against one of the many skinny trees that littered the cave’s opening, and though his mouth was filled with at least one mushroom, all his thoughts revolved around how he kinda just knew things. Master Link was fairly certain now that he wasn’t stupid, or pray tell something worse that he couldn’t quite name just yet, but he certainly felt that way whenever his mind was on the cusp of knowing what something was called. Just a minute ago, he had to ask the voice what the hard, leafy pillar he was sat against was called.

That is a pine tree, Master Link. Pinus Strobus, to be precise.

He nearly threw up from laughter alone when he heard the name Pinus Strobus. Some time in what must have been the distant past, long before he can remember, he must have watched a funny play -imagine that, a play, whatever that was- where someone was named Pinus Strobus.

He hoped the voice wasn’t mad at him for laughing at that name. Master Link liked it when she -he knew she was a she the same way he knew he was a he- told him the old-fashioned names of things, even if they were stupidly funny. Maybe the voice had told him the names in the before times, as he was wont to call it. It was certainly better than simply waving his hands in the air and calling it quits.

Once he had put his hands back down, there wasn’t much for Master Link to do, other than grab some more identically red mushrooms and shove them in the slate pouch for later use. With his food reserves at an all time high, he slowly slid his back up against the tree so that he could stand and muse about how none of the sticks around him were long enough. He had half a mind to use his awesome sword as a walking stick, but that would lead to a blunt tip and he just couldn’t possibly live with being the cause of that.

Instead, he compensated for his weakness by doing nothing about it. He just started walking like an overconfident toddler, complete with the shaky stance and legs that just wouldn’t cooperate as they should. It shouldn’t have been surprising that he fell when he did, but Master Link wasn’t having any of it. He hadn’t even gone ten steps before he had planted himself firmly on the ground, face first.

Master Link, someone is coming.

If the tone of her voice was anything to go off of, perhaps it would be prudent for him to start biting the ankles of whoever was coming near him. Then again, she had strayed from her basic, unemoting voice, so really he should be running from the person.

You will not be able to escape them, Master Link. They are… here to help.

That didn’t help at all. He might not want to be rescued, especially if the one doing the rescuing was able to instill emotion into his emotionless bookworm of a voice in his head. Master Link, however, was not given the option to stay unrescued, and instead was hit several times in the head by a metal something.

Looking up at the unfortunate sod that had tasked themself with rescuing him, Master Link trembled as he saw the thick, luscious beard, white as cotton and just as fluffy. He didn’t know why he trembled, but the voice in his head must’ve been running a lot of stuff trying to figure that out, since he didn’t get an immediate answer from them.

“Oho!” the wizard sneeringly cheered, “You live!”

“Well,” Master Link asked, “what if I didn't want to?”

For a moment, the wizard was stunned. It wouldn’t surprise Master Link if the wizard really believed his words. A slow drawl proved him right when the wizard raised his staff and asked, in no uncertain terms, “Do you really believe such a thing?”

“No, but it couldnt hurt to ask and pleaseputyourstaffdowngently!”

A slow, almost gentle prod of the staff to the back of his head got Master Link to look up at the wizard, who promptly asked him another question: “Do you not know what my walking stick is, young man?”

“It’s your staff,” Master Link hesitated, “because you’re a wizard.”

“Oho!” he chuffed, “A wizard? Was it the flame of my lantern at the tip that tipped you off?”

To his surprise, there was indeed a lantern at the end of the stick, and it did in fact have a small light coming out of it. He didn’t quite see it the first time however, and so, with a nagging feeling in his gut that told him not to lie to this not-wizard whatsoever, Master Link admitted, “It was the beard and stick, sir. They’re very wizard-y, if you can believe it.”

With misty, almost forlorn eyes, the plain -if rather old- man recounted, “It’s been a good while since anyone told me I looked like a wizard.” Silence followed his statement; Master Link had been properly hushed by the voice in his head before he had a chance to offer his condolences, but the old man eventually came back to himself. With a drop of his shoulders, he gently thrusted the stick into Master Link’s hands and told him, “Come with me. If it’s just down the hill, then I won’t need that old stick of mine nearly as much as you do.” Quick on his knees, shaky as they may have been, it wasn’t long before Master Link had risen to his feet with an iron grip on the iron stick and professed his thanks, even if the old man laughed it off. “You might want to save those, young man, for you’ll have a lot more of them to give before the day’s end.”

There was something almost sacred about the baked apple in his hands. Whether it was the soft yet crisp crust or the sweet flesh revealed from within, Master Link could not say with any sort of certainty. He did, however, love it all the same, and believed that it likely was both things, and maybe something else as well. He simply couldn’t imagine what that something else was. Maybe it was the relative silence he sat in. The wind was blowing his somewhat long hair over his shoulder, the birds were making their chirps off in the distance, the old man had shut up for once, and the voice inside his head didn’t want to stop for anything.

The sweetness of the baked apple, while not too distinct from the sweetness of an uncooked apple, is caused by what is now known as the Maillard reaction. Rediscovered one hundred sixty-seven years ago by the Rito chemist Maillard, the Maillard reaction is responsible for the taste and brown-adjacent color of many cooked foods, including meats, breads, and fruits. Under high heat, like that of an open fire, the carbon and oxygen atoms in the present sugars react with the also present amino acids, creating glycosylamine, a biochemical compound derived from hydrocarbons, and water.

The glycosylamine molecules created are unstable, however, and will rearrange themselves into ketosamines. Ultimately, a lot information on the reaction as a whole is currently lost,...

He liked listening to her. His chest hurt a little whenever she talked, especially when she said words that were way too long to be used by anyone but her, but it was the kind of pain that he liked, and yet he knew he didn’t actually like feeling pain at the same time.

You are not a masochist, Master Link, do not worry.

That was nice of her. It wasn’t an issue he thought he might have had, but it was nice of her to remedy it all the same.

Thank you. Now, as I was saying, given the amount of erosion that has befallen the pavers, no maintenance has been conducted during the entire time you have been asleep. It is highly unlikely the Maillard reaction, much less any form of chemistry more advanced than what is required to tan leather, is currently known.

Master Link, for all his newfound knowledge, still couldn’t quite come up with the feelings he felt just then. As bad as he felt, missing out on years and years of things, events, happenings, and all the pizzazz that time brings, knowing that the world itself went backwards brought a profound downer to his feelings. Perhaps it was sadness, but then it wouldn’t be so strong. Perhaps it was anger, but then it wouldn’t be so unfocused. Perhaps it was a weariness.

“Ah, you’re back.”

Turning towards the old man, Master Link caught the sight of a pot of water, boiling away over the fire, and all he had to say was, “What?”

“You mean to tell me,” huffed the old man, “you didn’t know you were lost in thought?”

“I suppose,” Master Link supposed, and then he actually saw the boiling water as water. “How long until that there,” he pointed, “cools off enough to drink?”

“Ten minutes,” he quaffed. “In ten minutes, I’ll pour it in my waterskin.” After a quick glance towards Master Link, the old man said, “You have a waterskin, right?”

“I don't know what that is, so no?”

“Well that just won't do,” he huffed. “How else will you carry drinkable water with you?”

Master Link thought for a moment, then said, “I could drink river water?”

“And die of shitting yourself to death, yes,” growled the former wizard, “That wont do at all, so I’ll tell you what: I will lend you mine,” and at that he held up a modest bag made of some animal’s skin, “until you learn to make your own. All I ask is that you show me what's in that pouch of yours.”

Despite the voice in his head sounding so many alarms it might have hurt, Master Link removed the slate from the pouch on his hip and held it out to the old man. “It’s called a-”

“A Sheikah Slate,” he rudely interrupted, “yes. I have no idea how it works, if that’s what you wanted. All I know is that I haven’t seen one of those in years, my boy, and that down the way there’s a pedestal for that slate.” With less effort than someone his age should have needed, the old man stood up and beckoned, “Come with me, I need to point some things out.

“That,” he pointed towards possibly the most decrepit structure that’s still considered a structure, “was the Temple of Time. An old place of worship to Hylia, reduced to just another ghost from better times.” Turning on his heels, he indicated a particularly tall, golden brown rock, saying, “Over there is where I found the pedestal. It’s hidden inside, but you should be able to fit in there.” Then, he handily slapped Master Link’s back and laughed, “Until we meet again!”

This time, when Master Link stumbled forwards for an unreasonable amount of time, he didn’t end up flat on his face. It was a marked improvement, and should have been enough to bolster his spirit. However, when he turned around to try and glare at the fool of a man who pushed him, he saw nobody at all. It wasn’t as though the old man had run off, and Master Link certainly thought that he couldn’t run off like that, but rather it was the odd lack of an old man. No one was there, when someone ought to have been there, and he had a sneaking suspicion that the voice in his head wouldn’t know where he fucked off to either.

There is a thirty-three percent chance that the, “Old Man,” is not a hylian, Master Link.

Any chance that the old coot isn’t normal is too much, and maybe he should have listened to her when she nearly deafened him, but that had already happened and he can’t change it now. All Master Link could do now was follow the path down to the big fucking rock and use the slate when it came to it.

He didn’t think too hard about it when he pulled out the slate that time, but Master Link did think it odd that he couldn’t feel the mushrooms in his pocket, even though he distinctly remembered putting them in there.

That old fucker better not have stolen his mushrooms. He worked hard for those, and they tasted good.

Master Link, the Sheikah Slate is capable of storing items, food, and clothing within itself. Take it out and I should be able to run through how it works.

The Sheikah Slate will convert any object into pure energy, depending on what the object is. For example, an apple, which typically weighs one hundred grams, will be scanned by the Slate so as to ascertain what it actually is, and then the apple will be losslessly converted into eight-point-nine-nine petajoules of energy, and then subsequently stored in the Slate’s memory until it’s retrieved, where it will be converted back into a physical apple. For reference, all objects have an energy equivalent to their mass. Larger objects have more mass and thus more energy, and the same is true for smaller objects having less mass and energy.

Objects are stored in the Slate’s inventory, accessible via a labeled tab on the Slate’s screen. There are tabs for a map of Hyrule, the inventory as mentioned, and a journal where you can take notes and write down objectives you should complete. The map tab does not work as of right now; there is a ninety-eight percent chance that the pedestal as mentioned by the, “Old Man,” will reinstate the map’s functionality.

Master Link nodded; he paid enough attention to know that he, or rather they, should get a move on towards Fuckoff Rock, even if he was busy eating a no-longer-fizzling mushroom. He was also lucky enough to have kept the waterskin, if the man’s ravings about bad waters were anything to go off of.

With little more than a broad idea on where he was meant to go, Master Link continued down the weathered path, grateful that someone didn’t leave anything overly sharp on the stones beneath his feet. Somehow, he figured that pointy doodads littered on the streets were a real problem, back before he woke up.

An axe on the side of the road and a stick or two here and there were all the tools he managed to scrounge up before he saw a blue ball of goo. Like water, if it was innately wrong, it stared Master Link down with an almost mindless intelligence, jiggling its fluids in a clear display of its power. It would be intimidating, if Master Link was two feet tall, and even then, the slime monster would still be a head shorter than him. As he was now, Master Link was only a little wary of the wee scamp, and easily sidestepped it when the blue ball lunged forwards.

That is a Chuchu, Master Link, also known as Pituita Regularis. You should consider yourself lucky it is of the small size class.

The axe, heavy as it was in his hands, was more than enough to split the Chuchu in two. One horribly telegraphed overhead swing was all it took, and once the deed was done, all that remained was a slightly damp axe and two small balls of goop. They were fragile, yet solid enough for him to hold them, much like an egg, and the slate accepted them without issue.

Down the path, a small, pig-like creature stood in the way. Its squat nature and grubby little hands told Master Link that maybe he could just avoid dealing with it. Said hands were filled with the hilt of a rusted broadsword, and it was of no surprise that the rest of the sword was still attached. Threadbare as he was, Master Link did still see himself winning against the surly beast if it came to it.

Master Link, only half of my predictions say that you will win this fight against the Bokoblin as you are now.

That didn’t sound too bad. Master Link knows, in that horrid way, that he’s won with worse odds than that before.

While that is true, Master Link, you should still consume at least two mushrooms. Doing so will increase your odds by fifty percent.

Faster than she could blink -and that’s saying something alright- two mushrooms went down his gullet. “If it guarantees victory,” he chewed, “I guess I better do it.”

Unfortunately, Master Link, the odds do not work out like that. Saying that the odds have increased by fifty percent does not mean adding fifty to the number. Instead, the odds are a seventy-five percent chance of defeating the Bokoblin. I will explain why that is the case after you defeat the Bokoblin.

To his knowledge, that was the first time that she denied him knowledge, even if it was dangled over his head by a very portly string. She didn’t even tell him the Bokoblin’s name! Hopefully she’d tell him it after he split its skull. It was his only option, given how cumbersome the axe in his hands was to use in any other way.

The poor thing saw him coming, and yet it was of little use. If it had a brain in its head, like he did in his, then surely it should know to run away from the axe-wielding maniac briskly jogging towards it. However, since it had no brain, or at least he thought it brainless, it stood its ground, held its sword out, and got split in two down to the neck. One swift chop down from the heavens was all it took for the foul creature to disappear into purple smoke and dust, and like a petulant child, Master Link awaited his due explanations.

I was too focused, Master Link, on making sure you lived to tell you that Bokoblins were once known as Sus Ferus. -“Heh, sus,”- However, I did tell you that I would explain why percentages do not add up like you thought they would, and so:

Adding fifty percent to something means to add to something half of what is already there. As an example, adding fifty percent more apples to a group of ten apples would mean adding five apples to the group.

“That’s fifteen apples, right?”

...Yes, Master Link

As I was saying, adding percentages means adding parts of a whole to that whole, and subtracting percentages is much the same way. Finally, if we were to take your example; that is, assume that we were adding fifty percent to fifty percent, then we would in actuality be adding a hundred percent of that fifty percent to fifty percent. Fractions and percentages are not the easiest things to grasp on your first try, so do not assume yourself stupid for thinking the way you did.

“...Thank you,” he muttered, maybe to himself or maybe to the voice. Somehow, he knew she heard it anyway, just as he knew he shouldn’t try and get an answer from her on why his face burns a little. He didn’t hurt it during the fight, and when he touched it, all he felt was an odd warmth.

Maybe someone less connected to him could give him a straight answer.

Shaking himself out of his funk, Master Link stepped forward, peering into Fuckoff Rock. When he couldn’t see anything, he crawled further in, and promptly hit his head on a pillar. No, not a pillar; a pedestal, like the ones back in the cold, weirdly smooth cave he woke up in. It even had the glowing orange lights and a slot for the slate to slot into. That slot was promptly filled in, and then…

Nothing. At least, nothing yet.

Sheikah Tower activated. Watch for falling rocks.

Dropping to a praying kneel, Master Link squealed, “Falling rocks?!” as he felt the ground rumble underneath him. Though he couldn’t see anything due to the fact that his head was firmly held underneath his hands and arms, he could still hear the crumbling of stone around him. He could still feel the air rush onto and past him as his stomach lurched. He could feel the slight weightlessness as whatever wild ride he unwittingly and unconsentingly got on came to a creaking halt, and he didn’t like that at all. Scrambling over towards a not-so-small hole in the floor, Master Link lost his lunch, except for a small piece stranded within his hair.

It still tasted good.

Once his legs were deemed still enough to stand upon, in a process where he stood and fell over and over again until he didn’t fall anymore, Master Link dared to look around. Whatever had happened to Fuckoff Rock had resulted in him and his guiding voice ending up somewhere so high up that when he looked down to the ground, he knew that he wouldn’t survive.

You would have a zero-point-three percent chance of survival, but a zero-point-zero-zero-one percent chance of surviving unharmed, Master Link. Do not risk the odds.

Somehow, he knew not to question her that time. Instead, he kept the gory images out of his head by filling said head full of landscape imagery. From a fucking volcano to a chilly mountain or two, and a giant bird. That, off somewhere in the distance, was undoubtedly the largest fucking bird known to anybody, ever. He thought it was just a normal bird moderately far away, but then it went behind a thin pillar of stone and revealed to him the truth of its size.

What took the cake -whatever a cake is- however, was quite possibly the worst ever castle that he had ever seen. Decrepit was a word that came to him just then, and while he didn’t know what it meant exactly, he wouldn’t feel guilty whatsoever if he told anyone that the castle over there, cloaked in a weird shroud not unlike the dust and mist the Bokoblin poofed into, was decrepit as hell. Furthermore, the longer he looked at the castle, the more certain he was that one, the fog was actively swirling like it was alive, and two, that there was an ungoddessly bright light shining from atop the castle. It hurt to look at, and yet he just couldn’t peel his eyes away from it.

As if the light itself spoke to him, a very melodious voice chimed right between his ears, Link? Is that you? Why aren’t you in the Shrine of Resurrection?

Chapter Text

The words around him were jumbled, scrambled, and all around a befuddled mess full of implications he really didn’t want to piece together. He knew what resurrection was, and he knew what a shrine was, and for fuck’s sake he knew that he woke up in a tub in a sealed room that looked suspiciously similar to the ornate carvings on the tower itself. The pedestals were the same, the not-stars were the same, and he wasn’t crazy for thinking that even the weird hut structures off in the middle-distance, tucked away behind crumbling walls, a sheer cliff face, and the cold, cold expanse that looked over the whole landmass he, no, they were on, all shared a distinct architecture with the tower, the room, and goddess forbid, the slate.

Link!

He knew that this odd, lighty voice couldn’t read his mind, but it didn’t matter to him, since he couldn’t find the right words to get it to scram. Hell, for all he knew, it couldn’t see him with eyes like his own, and instead relied upon a similar sense of detection to her. If so, he was going to have some sort of fit with it.

Master Link? I am sensing speech where there is none. Your brain’s activity is split, and only the far greater partition resembles your normal patterns.

Well shit, if that isn’t a confirmation, Master Link didn’t know what was. It was enough to get him to I know you can hear me! fucking run. Behind the pedestal, behind an actual support pillar, behind a wall even. He did not want any line of sight between him Don’t you hide from me, Link! and the crazy golden light who knew him on a last name basis. It was a basis he wanted to keep that way, at all costs. It didn’t matter that the voice was that of church bells and choirs, of sugar, spice, and everything nice. It was a voice that spoke like the not-a-wizard, that held secrets beyond his comprehension.

And it had an honest to the goddess literally foul-mouthed friend.

What cretin have you dragged up now, Zelly? Care to allow me a look through the glass?

Oh, Ganon, it’s that hero from so long ago, come to slay you at last.

Now, he knew that the right thing to do would be to snatch the slate from the pedestal and fucking book it down the tower. The wall he hid behind was convenient in that it also hid a hole with a climbable wall down it. It, however, did not extend to the pedestal, and unless the two bickering voices, light and dark personified in all but personhood, kindly ignored him Slay me?! Zelda, my dear princess, from how you were screaming his name repeatedly, I thought him deaf. he would be able to grab it and dip.

Third anomaly detected. I presume these are the voices you alone are hearing, Master Link?

“Indeed,” he whispered, barely a hair above silence itself, “Can you make out what they’re saying?”

I will try. Beat the odds, Master Link.

With a nod of his head, he was off. His fingers caught the LINK! That’s your hero?! slate, pulled it out of the He’s hardly a twink, much less a hero like I’ve faced before! What’s a twink? Sheltered royal… pedestal, belted out, “I KNEW IT!”, and promptly fell down the hole.

Master Link?

Dazed, Master Link uhguhhed vaguely knowingly.

The two voices you reported hearing are of the divine. One is the late Princess Zelda, thought to have died ninety-nine years ago, while the other’s identity lies in what the late princess referred to it as.

Ganon, otherwise referred to as Ganondorf, Calamity Ganon, and thirty-eight other names and epithets, is by far the most common recurring evil to grace Hyrule’s lands and peoples. Incarnations of you have slain him since before I was first forged eons ago, and, due to a curse put upon the lands by the Demon King Demise, he shall return time and time again.

“So I have to kill him.”

Normally, Master Link, I would agree. However, due to the as of unheard-of friendly relationship Princess Zelda has with him, it is a seventy-three percent chance that we may take our time on this quest.

“That’s good,” he breathed. He could just breathe, and not have two utterly divine voices crawling down his neck. One of them was kind of alright, in that it, apparently the Princess, had pleasant tones to her words. She spoke like sleigh bells ringing, while her dastardly counterpart had a scathing fire to his words. His voice spoke of rotten eggs and decaying flesh, of crumbling walls and insurmountable pain not his own, and while he wasn’t one to police people’s choices in friends, Master Link just got bad vibes from that vile scourge on his ears, and that was before the admittedly emotionless backstory.

To think that those two nigh-insufferable tones would be able to see him, to try to talk to him everywhere he went, was in no small order terrifying. Like two stalkers, he would have no free time to himself.

With shivering hands, Master Link climbed back up through the hole he fell through. Immediately after he popped his head over the small wall he had hidden himself behind some short time ago, he heard the golden girl squeal.

LINK! Oh, I knew you’d come bac-

“shut up shut Up Shut Up SHUT UP!”

Link?

Clawing at his head, his ears, his eyes, Master Link writhed, “Shut up! Once I step off this tower, I don’t want to hear you ever again! I don’t want to see you! I don’t want anything to do with you or your stalker boyfriend! And I REALLY don’t want you two sicko lovebirds to EVER try and talk your stupid fucking words at me!”

Sheesh. Who pissed down your pa-

“AAAAAAAAAA

One rough rung after another slipped through Master Link’s hands as he slowly marched his way down the tower’s system of ladders and landings. They, like most of the Sheikah architecture he knew, was carved into a state of persistent wear and tear; sculpted into a form resistant to change, yet showing signs of that very change. It was rather puzzling, and if nothing else, Master Link could get behind a good puzzle.

Thoughts about why the Sheikah would go so far as to create artificial decay in their towers filled his mind until he reached the solid, earthy ground. His arms shook mildly with a fervor he swore he’s felt before, while his head couldn’t seem to shake off a fog growing thicker by the minute. It took all he had to sit down against the tower, and it took even more than that to keep his eyes open. Fighting a losing battle, Master Link felt himself nod off, only to be shaken awake by a familiar cry.

“Ho!” cried the old man, somewhere oddly above Master Link’s resting place. Feet touched down with a start as he started to ask, “My boy, what happened?” but when he truly saw the young lad’s face for what it was, he had to concede to himself a necessary strategic retreat. “No, don’t answer that just yet. If your screams are anything to go off of, something terrible must have happened. And yet… you don’t look anything but tired.” Picking Master Link up, he laughed, “Come. You may rest at my cabin until you feel like answering my questions.”

“...Hokay…”

By the love of the goddess, his back hurt. Whatever he was laid upon was nothing less than stone, solid as it was, and upon further inspection, his pillow was just as stupidly hard. “I swear,” he groaned, “if my knee starts to click,” as he lifted the nicely weighted blanket off of his body.

“At your age?”

“Hwah?!”

“Well I’ll be,” he proclaimed, his old-man head bent uncomfortably upwards to see the hylian man-spider crawling on his ceiling, “There’s that youthful vigor.”

“Hwu-”

“Oh my.”

“-uuf!”

The rush of air that accompanies someone as they fall was not new to Master Link, or at least it didn’t feel new to him. After running through his mind palace’s charade hall for what must have been the nineteenth time, Master Link found himself on the wrong side of the ground. Any side besides rightside up was the wrong side! cried his back, but all he did was whimper, “Oww…”

Amused, the not-a-wizard tapped his not-a-staff and did his best stage whisper as he spoke, “It seems as though you’re awake,” before he laughed it up and waved off what rightful concerns Master Link had for the man’s mental health by saying, “Care for some breakfast? It’s just a couple of meaty rice balls.”

From the sad layer of dirt that was the floor, Master Link couldn’t not accept the food for what it was: a fucking godsend. Somehow, the browned ground beef and its juices made the plain ass rice taste better than good. It was almost enough for him to get back on his feet and run off, but maybe one more couldn’t hurt.

Besides the horribly raunchy picture books he saw underneath the old man’s bed, there wasn’t much to say goodbye to in the single room cabin. “For you see,” the old man started, clearly just as nonplussed about leaving his cabin as Master Link was, “I am most certain that you know the reason for why I had come to you, sitting at the base of the tower yesterday, right?”

“Was it the shouting match I had with the voices?”

“...Voices?” he asked, with an astonishingly undue amount of weight put upon the end of his single-word question.

“You expected me to hear one of them?” he forwarded.

“In truth,” he admitted, “yes I did. I know not the nature of the other voice you heard up there, nor what they must have said or done to warrant an uproar of your own, but the voice I expected you to hear was that of Princess Zelda.”

With a groan, Master Link stepped forward, “Oh I heard her alright.”

“Good!”

“She’s a stalker that knows me on a last name basis, and I hope to keep it that way. Her and her rank ass boyfriend.”

“...I’m sorry, my ears aren’t quite as good as they used to be. Did you just say, and I quote, ‘her rank ass boyfriend,’?”

Master Link huffed, “You heard me.” Squeezing an oddly concerning amount of folds on his forehead, he continued with a good smattering of labor in his tone, “She calls him Ganon,” -”WHAT?!”- “he calls her Zelly,” -”IN THE NAME OF HYLIA-!”- “and I’m pretty sure she, and also him, let's be honest, can see me anywhere that light,” he pointed towards the forsaken castle, “touches.”

Despair filled the old man’s eyes as they crested a small hill together, and for a while, Master Link thought that he’d burst into tears. However, the geriatric beside him steeled himself, even as he uttered a blasphemous prayer, and growled, “I suppose you will one day want off of this plateau. If so, then I can only suggest that you complete the four shrines sitting atop it.” With his stick, he pointed towards a black-and-orange hut, taller than it was wide, and said, “That is a shrine. Make it through there, and decide for yourself if you wish to leave the plateau.” Dropping himself not nearly as far as he expected to, he whispered, “There are many villages out there that cannot see the castle, and I would not fault you now for staying in them.”

Slowly, Master Link came around to say, “Thank you,” even as he hid behind the old man’s castle-born shadow.

Besides a pond with a floor of stairs and some horrendously acidic congealed grape soda that she was calling Malice, there wasn’t much in the way of scenery between the sendoff point and the shrine. Then again, there wasn’t much space between the two points either, but that wasn’t a pressing issue. No, what was pressing was the fact that the slate wouldn’t fit in the shrine’s pedestal. He tried putting it in normally, and when that didn’t work, he turned it upside down and tried that way. The fact that the slate went in when he returned it to the way he had it before was a nothing less than a fucking miracle.

It can not be a miracle, Master Link. Ancient Sheikah technology was infamous for this exact error and its accompanying fix.

He huuuuahghed and ohhhegged about how all these shrines might be barely functional messes, and most certainly didn’t think about how he might be one of them. That’s for losers, and besides an omniscient stalker, Master Link’s doing fine for himself. Even if he did rush right into the very small hall inside the shrine, he knew that people wouldn’t disapprove of his actions. Maybe stalkers weren’t an issue after all, but he couldn’t say for certain.

He could say, however, that behind another, thankfully fully operational pedestal, lies the longest tube ride in the world. Three minutes on the dot, the voice chimed in, and while he wasn’t sure about that, he definitely wasn’t going to guess his own time. All he can say is that five minutes is four and a half minutes too long for a ride that ends in another fucking pedestal.

“They’re like turtles,” he joked.

All the way down.

He always looked over his right shoulder as she talked, for no reason besides it feeling right, and yet the speed at which he snapped his neck must have torn a muscle somewhere, because the pain distracted him from the glowing blue liquid dripping onto and over his slate. His hand tingled a little as he wiped it off the slate, and the same unfamiliar, and perhaps unwelcome, feeling graced his tongue when he attempted to clean his hand like an alley cat.

It tasted like the result of a messy night between some sad blood and a Voltfin Trout’s discharge.

However, his slate had a red horseshoe rune now, and boy did it seem fun. With a flick of his wrist, Master Link sent one of the metal panels on the floor flying, and the hole it revealed…

Well, Master Link suddenly felt quite good about these shrines he was supposed to solve. Through a distinctly sewer-like tunnel, he ended up in another closed off area. Three walls rose to the ceiling, while a fourth was made of shoddy stones aligned quite un-bricklike, complete with a metal cube in the middle.

Another flick and it was gone with a resounding thud.

Through the hole in the stones, Master Link can see the cube, heavily dented and with a weird amount of legs. Shambling over the rubble, there isn’t much left of the poor whatever that must have guarded the final challenge of this shrine, if a single gear is all that remains usable of it. However, in spite of its newly dented status, the cube still counts as a metal object, and so Master Link flings it about in the widest, openest space he can.

It splashes in the water. It knocks over a chest that he oohs and ahhs over. It hits a large metal door and oh Hylia is that a large metal door?

He can’t believe it. If he works it just right, he can lift the not-a-cube-anymore with the door, while he stands on the cube. It fizzles out after a second or two, but that's all he needs. Surely, if he finds some things more suitable to his purpose, he can make a flying machine. However, he needs to nurse his mildly broken ankle, first. He fell on it weird. He also fell on his wrist weird, and it’s making the slate be held in one hand, which isn’t a good thing whatsoever.

Talk to the Monk, Master Link. He will heal you.

“The dude trapped in the voltfin juice?”

Freeing the monk was a task easy enough, but the raw psychic barrage Master Link got when the dude, creature, whatever, talked without talking was getting old.

Get used to it, Master Link. They all use telepathy.

His body was working right, and Master Link was more than thankful that he didn’t have to sadly limp through ankle-high water and a sewer system to get back to the tube he came in. It lets him fling more shit around, too.

He must have been on and through his second wind already, because seeing the old man waiting outside the shrine does nothing to Master Link. Neither his white beard nor his indeterminately kind words faze him, and before he knows it, Master Link is nodding off.