Genres: Drama – Horror / One-Shot

Rating: +16

Summary: They were all gone. They were all dead. Or not yet born. Or not in the right timeline.

Happy reading!

Corrected by EMSeriff

---

They were all gone.

They were all dead.

Or not yet born.

Or not in the right timeline.

When they learned that the quest that had brought them together had been completed, an awkward silence took over.

No one wanted to be the first to say goodbye, and yet everyone wanted to return home, to their own time, to pick up the thread of their lives and close this strange parenthesis during which they had traveled through time and space, alongside other vessels of the hero’s soul, or just bearers of the Triforce of courage, blessed by Hylia.

And then, one by one, they had passed through the portal destined for them, sending them back to their destiny.

Hyrule had tried, he promised. He’d tried, he’d returned to his Hyrule, which didn’t look like much despite the combined efforts of his two Zelda. He’d brought back everything he’d seen, heard, tasted… he’d scribbled down plans of dwellings, made lists of ingredients or plants to obtain.

He had tried to keep himself busy, never inactive, as much to make up for all those months away from home as not to allow his mind to press on the open wound.

The one that had been caused by every Link turning his back on him after a more or less noisy good-bye, ever more empty promises and no looking back.

He’d been the last to go home, and no one seemed to have noticed.

And here he was, finally, idle and with eyes too dry to shed the tears he needed.

Although his two Zelda had welcomed his return with joy, delighted to see him again and above all pleased with his good health and the physical changes to which his last adventure had contributed, they had been more lukewarm about his eagerness to rebuild everything, to modernize, to enlarge Hyrule.

In fact, he refused to answer to the first name « Link » now, and introduced himself to everyone under the pseudonym he had borne alongside the other heroes.

And when the frenzy of energy had died down, when he had fully realized that if he had changed, it was far from being the case for those he had left behind.

By dint of being surrounded by people like him, looking out for each other and caring for each other’s well-being, he had forgotten that he was far from appreciated by everyone who walked the earth of the kingdom. He had almost forgotten that Ganon’s cultists were after him for his blood. He had almost forgotten that, to survive, it was necessary to keep one’s head down and be discreet.

Reality had caught up with him, and the lessons life had taught him all these years came back to bite him in the ass, with the delicacy of a galloping Lynel.

And that’s why he was currently in the castle library, surrounded by books scattered all over the place, either by him or by careless readers, his empty gaze unable to really see what was around him.

He had chosen this room of all those in the castle because he knew passage was rare and no one would come looking for him.

He had left barely able to sign his name and had returned able to decipher every Hylian syllabary, past and future, with a few notions of various languages, such as Sheikah with Warriors and Legend or Zora with Wild.

The old volumes stored here since Hylia knew when were no longer the insurmountable challenge they once were. But they didn’t tempt him.

Until his empty gaze fell on a few letters that immediately caught his eye.

He didn’t think twice about it, and jumped onto the shelf, curious and eager for answers.

Had he understood correctly?

---

When Hyrule had received too many rejections or demands for him to settle down, he’d made a habit of slamming the castle door and returning to his nomadic life, just long enough for the mists haunting his brain to clear up a little.

Sometimes this took longer than others, so he’d swallow several kilometers before even thinking of turning back.

His kingdom was small compared to those he’d visited on his previous quest. Even smaller when compared with Wild’s!

So it didn’t take long for him to circumnavigate its imaginary borders, keeping an eye out for the slightest sign of a potential enemy.

But in the end, it wasn’t them who occupied his thoughts as he tripped over a piece of pottery, almost throwing it to the ground.

Picking it up, he turned it over in all directions, vexed at having almost broken his neck on a trinket, almost throwing it away in a random direction.

But his heart missed a beat when, beneath the layers of dirt and grime, he managed to recognize the distinctive blue. The blue of Timeshift stones. And, on closer inspection, it was Time’s beloved ocarina in his hands.

It had obviously suffered, it wasn’t the most tender chronology with the heritage abandoned by the fallen hero, but Hyrule had contemplated it too often not to recognize it.

With trembling fingertips, he tried to remove the bulk of the dirt, to free the mouthpiece, but no matter how many times he brought it to his lips, not a drop of magic remained.

It was now just a rare-colored piece of pebble, dirty as a comb.

At least Aurora and Dawn would be happy to have some of their royal heritage back…

But despite himself, the discovery of the instrument had ignited a fire he’d never known existed until now. And so his travels across the kingdom multiplied, even crossing borders despite the risks he knew he ran.

His hopes were slim, and his harvest even more so.

The maps were long out of date, and he had only a rough idea of where the items he was looking for might be, assuming they hadn’t been stolen, lost or looted in the meantime.

But when all he found was an old, rusty and twisted metal frame, all that remained of the splendid Harp of the Ages, Hyrule felt as if his stomach were filling with ice.

He’d run out of ideas and his research had brought him nothing but trouble and waste, gradually smothering the sparks that had been born with the discovery of the ocarina of Time.

The return to the castle had been appalling, and he had shunned even the slightest social interaction, as much out of shame at himself as rage.

He didn’t recognize himself as his fists pounded the thick stone, the blood running from his phalanges long enough to cover them.

When his erratic breathing forced him to stop to avoid a seizure, his eyes couldn’t tear themselves away from the sight so rare.

He’d grown up with the anguish of spilling every drop of blood, long before he’d sealed Ganon in. Blood was life, vitality and health. It was your most precious possession.

And here he was wasting it needlessly and in a very dangerous way…

And yet, the sparks of hope lit up again, his eyes practically lighting up for the occasion.

What if…

What if…

---

Hyrule was running, again and again. He was running for his life, he was running for his destiny, he was running for his survival.

But for once, he wasn’t being chased. No. For once, he was the one being chased.

So as not to arouse their suspicions, he had behaved as usual, slightly exaggerating possible weaknesses, just enough to make them believe he was vulnerable without them sniffing out trouble.

Unfortunately, he’d got them too used to his tricks and they remained sufficiently on their guard that, when he turned around, they caught him unawares and started to flee before he could make another move.

So he hunted them down.

Under normal circumstances, he would never have done so. Nor would he normally stalk – it was much more a Wild or Twilight thing – let alone them, those eternal damned souls who chased him even in his dreams, keeping him awake for hours on end, flinching at the slightest chill in the air.

But this wasn’t normal times.

Despite their differences, it didn’t take long for the young hero to catch up with the slowest of them, throwing him to the ground and sitting on him to immobilize him long enough to catch his breath. He quickly knocked him unconscious and began to search him, turning over all his possessions without the slightest precaution. Nor did he pay any attention to the squeaks he made when he was less careful, nearly tearing his clothes more than once.

But his hands finally grasped what he was looking for and, as he pulled it from the dark pocket in which it lay, a demented smile forced his lips to widen beyond their limits.

Without a last glance at the man he’d robbed, he left the patch of forest in which he’d caught up with him, giving him a swift kick in the head for good measure, already opening the book to peruse its pages.

Ever since he’d been born, Hyrule had always had things in poor condition, dirty, mended, the colors faded and yellowed, and always, always, that sort of sullen filter, no matter how vivid the original hue might have been.

They were a kingdom in name only, subsisting on the legacies of a more splendid age, unearthing the remains of what must have been a golden era blessed by the goddesses.

An era he could now relate to the deeds of his predecessor, Link, the hero of Legend. Legend. Friend. Brother. The only one who knew more or less what was really going on in his time, himself living in the period following the Seal War, which had sealed the Holy Realm beyond the reach of anyone who might want it.

The consequences had also been a depletion of Hylian blood, with magicians appearing less and less, their powers limited… Even the royal family had been affected, divine blood becoming a mere designation instead of the power and divine aura it had previously conferred.

To think that Legend and Fable both had more power than anyone else in their kingdom, foreign nationals aside, spoke volumes.

Of course, his mentor had impeccable theoretical knowledge and had surrounded himself with enough artifacts to always have a solution to any problem fate might throw at him, and the princess possessed telepathy of as yet unknown limits, not to mention other abilities they had been careful not to spread.

And, at the moment, he, Link Hero of Hyrule, had met very few magicians, and all of them had weak magical abilities, often relying on a single spell, which they had passed on to him without really believing in it.

And here he was, avidly perusing the texts, surprised by their careful printing, the colorful drawings, and even more so by the notes all over the place.

The syllabary was slightly different from his own, reminding him of Legend’s. Perhaps this was an inheritance from his era. Perhaps it was an inheritance from his era? But he didn’t care, preferring to plunge into his reading, eager to discover all he could.

The details would come later.

---

When Hyrule returned to the castle some time later, Dawn came to see him, worried.

She had gotten to know the hero, they had supported and helped each other through the two quests, and their similar ages had brought them closer together, seeing each other as two friends, even if said friendship had been damaged when he had joined the Chain of Heroes through the magic portals.

It wasn’t for want of having kept up a correspondence between them, but the time it took for that quest to come to an end had clearly cooled their affection, and even more so since his return, when he seemed clearly changed. And not in a good way.

She knocked on the door of the room he’d chosen, taking advantage of the length of her dress to manhandle her shod feet with concern.

But there was no answer.

Normally, she would have concluded that he wasn’t there and headed back to the central building, returning to her little life or asking those she met if they knew where their hero might be. After all, Link had always been itchy and didn’t arouse many positive feelings among the populace, so it wouldn’t have been the first time he’d decided on a whim to leave the castle and go camping in a cave for a few days.

But no, she knew. She knew he was there. She could see the glow of lit candles, she could hear faint sounds coming from whatever he was doing. And, most importantly, she’d asked if anyone had seen him leave the building.

« Link? It’s me, Zelda. Dawn. Will you open up? » she asked, knocking again.

But again, no reaction.

Should she give up? Should she turn around, go back to her daily routine and come back later?

Or, on the contrary, should she do her royal princess thing and force her way in?

Link may have been her friend, but as the court liked to remind her, he was still the hero, a subject among others.

She played with her hands now, anxiously.

When the door finally opened, before she could stop a thought, she gasped in surprise, a big, delighted smile forming on her lips as she prepared to greet her friend, before her brain correctly processed the information transmitted by her eyes.

She almost cried out in fright, but Link grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her slightly and urging her to be quiet and not to attract anyone here.

But she remained silent, fearing for her life.

« L… Link? » she whispered in a broken voice.

« Dawn! » he practically roared. « I need your help! Where’s the crypt? »

« The crypt? But why do you want to know?

His fingers gripped her tighter and tighter, his blunt nails clinging to her skin despite the fabric of her dress, promising ugly marks when he released her. If he released her.

« There’s no time! The crypt! Now! »

Unfortunately for both of them, the princess had never really tried to find out where this place was, and even shunned it like the plague, as much out of superstition as denial, refusing to believe that her loved ones were really dead, leaving her in a cold, empty world. As for Link, he’d never been able to properly explore the hundreds of corridors, being quickly escorted out of them.

« Impa must know, » she stammered.

He barely took the time to apologize or explain, already running towards the central building in search of the elderly Sheikah. He should have thought of that sooner! Obviously, if anyone here could give him information, it had to be her!

Abandoned on the spot, the young princess watched him walk away, her voice dying in her throat as she made a move, as if to catch up with him, while her whole body froze in place, preventing her from doing so.

Of course, although he’d been the first to address her as anyone else, never mind that she was the reigning princess of this country, and that he’d freed her great-aunt, they hadn’t known each other long, nor were they the world’s greatest confidants. His departure with the other heroes had changed him, and she had seen him become more confident and self-assured over the years, and she had been delighted for him, of course!

But she couldn’t help smoldering with misplaced jealousy as she watched him laugh with them, at ease and relaxed, a world away from the cowering, paranoid shadow.

Why hadn’t she succeeded? Why hadn’t she been enough? Why did Link need others to help him become who he really was? Why was she useless, barely competent to save a member of her own family from a family curse, let alone help her kingdom and its inhabitants to right themselves and brush aside the centuries of abundance of their past?

Stung to the heart, she did what she would never have dared to do before, and pushed open the bedroom door, left ajar after its occupant’s exit with such fanfare.

Moved by an impulse, she didn’t even know what she was doing, and more importantly, what she was looking for.

A stuffed toy of hers? Some clumsy drawings that might give her a clue as to what was occupying her so? Some slightly shameful stuff that would make her smile indulgently, reassured that her hero had remained the same despite appearances?

She took only a few steps inside before freezing, paling, as she slowly brought her hands up to her face, pressing against her mouth to prevent the howl that threatened to erupt from it.

---

As Dawn had mentioned, Impa had indeed been able to inform Hyrule of the location of the famous crypt, albeit reluctantly. She had given him her famous look, the one that gave the impression of probing your soul for anything negative that might displease him and change his mind. But he’d survived Time’s disappointed look, Warriors’ « captain » look and Wild and Wind’s cute pout, so she’d need more to make him flinch from now on!

She sighed before inviting him to follow her, and they made their way through the labyrinthine corridors, losing him faster than he thought possible. But it didn’t take long for his magic to recognize the mephitic vapors, intangible to the rest of mortals, tipping him off to the proximity of their destination.

He had to reign in his nerves to avoid making his feverishness visible. It was out of the question to answer Impa’s interrogation, let alone have her follow him!

Fortunately, having lived for a few months with two heroes who literally had animal personas and others who had the sensitivity (Sky was very good at this, as was Time) had taught him to suppress this kind of agitation and give the impression that he was not.

He settled for a broad, luminous smile at the elderly sheikah as she showed him the heavy stone door, getting only a raised eyebrow.

« I don’t know what interests you here, Link, but bear in mind that the dead don’t like to be disturbed. They’ve earned their right to rest and be forgotten. »

« But what do you and Dawn imagine? » he laughs. « You’d think I was going to raise an army of the dead to protect Hyrule! »

A shiver went through both of them, although if the old woman’s was due to the growing unease taking hold of her, Dawn’s was due to the satisfaction of approaching her goal.

He gave her his brightest, most innocent smile one last time, pulling the heavy door open and slamming it behind him.

On the other side of the stone, he could still hear her mumbling about youth before she signaled that she was leaving, returning in an hour if she hadn’t heard from him in the meantime.

Hyrule allowed himself a sigh of relief as she seemed to move away, the echo of her footsteps diminishing.

Then it was just him. Him, and the strange atmosphere typical of necropolises, where even silence held its breath, lest it disturb the eternal sleep.

But he’d desecrated enough temples and other holy places that he no longer cared, moving swiftly through tombs and cenotaphs, recumbent figures following one another without stopping. It wasn’t that he knew exactly what he was looking for. It was that he knew exactly what he wasn’t looking for.

It had been a strange discussion, he couldn’t even remember how it had come to this, him and Fable discussing the royal funeral and what she had planned for her brother, when it was his turn. Neither of them had told him, and silence had been demanded, which he’d promised, keeping his mouth shut when Legend later came to question them about the subject of their conversation. His twin had drowned the fish by claiming to have wanted to know more about the possible links between Aurora and herself, while Hyrule had preferred to put on his most innocent face possible.

The memory brought a bitter crease to his face, which he quickly erased, frowning as he approached more recent graves. Or less ancient. Of the century he was targeting.

With small, respectful steps, he removed the cap he’d been accustomed to putting on since his return, fidgeting with it between his fingers as he drew closer to the twin gravestones, one sporting the frozen silhouette Queen Zelda V must have become when fully grown, a dragon watching over her soul beyond death at her feet. But it was the other one that interested him, representing a caricature of the hero of legend. Maybe he was the one in the wrong, it wasn’t as if he knew exactly how old his predecessor had died, or what he’d ended up going through, but the beard clearly didn’t suit him. The lion against the soles of his boots was no surprise either. A hero of his level, dead in battle? It was a safe bet that there were many such heroes.

For a moment, the impact of his gesture caught up with him, and he gasped for air.

His cap fell to the ground, raising a light cloud of dust, as his knees joined his and he bent into a figure of prayer, begging for the courage he needed for what he was about to achieve. This famous courage that almost all of them boasted, but of which he was the only one not to be possessed… He needed it cruelly at this moment, even more than to face Ganon and his machinations, than the inhabitants of this country and their stupid superstitions, than the cultists and their obsession with his blood.

His blood…

This single thought suddenly seemed to set him on fire, and he rose to his feet with a jerk, placing both hands delicately on the side of the vault’s lid, tensing all his muscles for what was going to be an exhausting ordeal. Fortunately, he too had a Power Bracelet, otherwise he wouldn’t have dared to imagine.

Unfortunately, he had miscalculated the amount needed and the beautiful marble crashed to the floor, the din amplified as the high walls repeated it far and wide. He froze, shoulders pulled up to his ears, expecting at any moment that the royal guard would come and grab him by the arms, lock him in the deepest pit and lose the key.

But no.

The air was still vibrating, as if in displeasure at this odious blasphemy, but not even Impa seemed to rush to the news.

Releasing her breath, Hyrule wiggled her shoulders and arms, rolling her head to relieve her strained joints.

The moment of truth was at hand. He was nearing the end of his plan. Of his great machination.

With slow steps, he approached the edge, clenched his fists on the edges of the vault, and finally dared to lay eyes on the remains within.

« Hello… Legend. Welcome back. »

---

Legend… couldn’t remember.

Well, to be exact, he couldn’t remember anything.

He’d tried to focus his neurons on specific thoughts, but they always ended up running away, disappearing into the nothingness that seemed to sleep at the back of his head.

Ah, sleep… He used to sleep, didn’t he? Before, before…

What was he thinking again?

This question made him stop, staring thoughtfully at the tips of his Pegasus boots as he tried to turn his memory around to answer it.

But he’d already stopped thinking about it, and Rulie’s small, damaged hand had already slipped into his, drawing his attention away from the turmoil brewing beneath her blonde locks.

He flashed that playful smile he always had in her company, and the sight seemed to make the cold he felt at all times recede, like a spell of warmth.

But the cold always came back, and he was still unable to grasp its elusive memory.

Where were they going? Rulie must have told him, he was always talking, and particularly to her, never getting angry when he had to repeat what he’d already said a dozen times, stroking with his fingertips the bandages firmly fastened around her wrists, or those at her neck. He was forbidden to touch them or try to remove them. It didn’t matter; Legend had full confidence in his friend’s healing abilities, surrendering himself to his science with his eyes closed. Literally, in fact, Hyrule asked him to lower his eyelids while he worked his magic.

It was a strange magic, not like the one he’d known… at a… time.

What was he thinking again?

Hyrule turned to him, holding out a handful of sheets covered in his usual scrappy, round, childlike handwriting. He was so adorable…

He talked fast, a lot, and Legend had a little trouble following what he was saying, but he looked so happy that he didn’t dare cut him off.

« You’ll see, Ledge, when Four joins us, it’ll be even better! »

The cold seemed to become more brutal in his limbs, but Rulie’s smile was so sunny, so he decided not to pay attention to it and imitated her awkwardly, the slight pains accompanying this movement intriguing him. It was as if… as if he’d had stitches and was moving without paying attention. But why would he have stitches in his face? It wasn’t normal; he’d remember if he’d needed them. If he’d been hurt. If…

What was he thinking again?