Beta reader: WhiteKitsuneKnight
"Hello, Link! Wake up."
He could still smell the burning remains of Ganon's castle and the sharp stench of sweat and vomit. The memory almost overpowered the scent of the fresh morning wafting into his forest home.
It smelled alive.
"The Great Deku Tree wants to talk to you! Link, get up!"
Link opened his eyes, just enough to see his room. There was no boomerang on his nightstand, nor sword and shield beside his bed. He was finally back. He would walk out the door to see Saria running up the path to greet him, a joyful smile upon her face once more. Mido would push him around and call him Mr. No-Fairy despite Navi flying around right by his ear. Solre would ask him to help pull weeds, the Know-It-All brothers would pester him with trivia, and in short everything would be exactly the way it was supposed to be.
Until he changed it all again.
Regain your lost time, Zelda had told him, but she had also said When peace returns to Hyrule, it will be time for us to say good-bye.
There was not peace.
By nightfall, the Great Deku Tree would be dead from a curse, and already the Gorons were slowly starving. The princess would be pleading for his help once more. Ganondorf's shadow was moving across Hyrule, and not even Zelda knew the extent of his evil. Not yet.
When peace returns to Hyrule, it will be time for us to say good-bye.
It was his duty to warn them, not just of their enemy but of the danger of what lay behind the Door of Time. He had a duty to the realm, and to the heartless woman who dragged him into her bloody conflict. The first time he had strode from the castle with a spring in his step and a purpose in his heart. Now it wasn't so easy; the dragonfire that had scorched him in the furnace of Death Mountain had never really stopped burning. The holes that the screaming Hylians had torn in his heart as they lay dieing in the streets of Castle Town were still present.
The beast that Link had given everything to seal away still roamed free.
"Hey! C'mon! Can Hyrule's destiny really depend on such a lazy boy?"
It had, at one point.
He had been the only one to take up arms, to fight back against the evil. Even Zelda had sat back and let him save her kingdom alone. She had saved a few lives, true, but she did not dare to defy the man who killed her family and drove her from her home.
No one did.
"Hyrule can take care of itself," Link muttered and went back to sleep.