Link was at a bridge when he saw her.

For hours, he crawled slowly and painfully, dragging himself forward. He was a twitching, mumbling mess of exhaustion and to be frank, he wasn't even sure if he were dreaming or not. He was sleepy, but felt as if he couldn't bear to close his eyes for more than a second at a time. Couldn't bear to sleep, to rest. Anytime he stopped to close his eyes, the darkness that overtook him began to suffocate. It felt like hell. The cold, stubborn reality that confronted him said that he would die soon, and that he couldn't do anything about it. It said that he might as well make his last moments peaceful.

But he didn't rest. He didn't stop. He simply kept moving and moving and when she stepped into his view, he saw her-an old, almost ancient woman with a bent back and silver hair, tied into a compact bun. Her bow-legged stance only seemed to exuberate her short stature to an almost comical extreme. Synapses fired in his brain, triggering a sort of recognition, though it was incredibly vague.

She approached closer until she was standing just before him, hands behind her back and with an inquisitive stare. She was clothed in a robe with muted colors that he could just barely recognize as Sheikah. A razor-sharp sickle hung on her hip and though she seemed brittle, something told him that she knew how to use it well.

"A… A man?" She muttered under her breath, softly enough so that he had to strain to hear it. He tried to get up from the ground but couldn't even manage a kneel. At that, the woman crouched down and dug her hands under him. With surprising ease, she lifted him up in a bridal carry and began walking. Where she was headed, he had no idea-all he knew was that Kakariko Village was in the opposite direction.

He tried to struggle against her grip but only managed a pathetic flail. She whispered something to him that he couldn't quite catch. When he looked up at her, he could only see a deeply etched frown and eyes filled with both worry and excitement, as if finding a half-dead person lying on the ground was the most eventful thing to happen to her in years.

Link tried once more to slip out of her grasp despite knowing fully well that it was useless to try. Even if he managed to fall back down to the ground, she would just pick him back up. Then all he would have gained was a mouth full of coarse dirt and dead grass.

"Rest." The woman muttered quietly, bony fingers digging into his side. His eyes fluttered in an attempt to stay awake, though he felt his body obeying her command. He didn't want to rest. He wanted to walk. He wanted to get away from her. He wanted to ask her who she was. He wanted to save Hyrule. He wanted for everything to go back to the way it was. He wanted to save Princess Zelda. He wanted to meet her again. To talk to her again. A glimpse.

Why couldn't this person just understand that? The woman walked at a steady pace, hands and arms cradling him stiffly. Why is she doing this to him? What did he do to her? Hundreds of questions bounced around in his mind, and yet all he could do was glare up at her. A face, twisted and unrecognizable. A face, melded and folding into itself. A face, sinister and taunting.

A pang shot through his head. He clenched his teeth, barely holding back a groan of pain. It was horrible. It was cruel. He could only stare as static began to cloud his vision.

It didn't take long for him to fall into unconsciousness.

"Take Link to the Shrine of Resurrection. If you don't get him there immediately, we are going to lose him forever. Is that clear?" Zelda commanded them. Her voice was steady and left no room for question. The Sheikah men nodded and Link felt her move to hand him over to them. "So make haste and go! His life is now in your hands."

He wanted to protest-the Princess couldn't be left alone. Not in a situation like this. But his voice, which remained complacent in his vow of silence, was now refusing to be used. All he could do was stare up at the sky and try not to feel overwhelmed from the agony coursing through his broken body.

It didn't seem fair. So much preparation, gone to waste. Massive excavations of the Divine Beasts. Searching out and training the pilots. Countless hours of research into the mechanics of the Guardians. And for what? For Calamity Ganon to turn the beasts against them. To turn the Guardians against them. To steal all of their work and effort within the span of a few minutes.

A heavy, dragging sensation settled on his chest. Worst of all, the trials and suffering Princess Zelda went through to awaken her powers. To think, that at the very moment that she finally received Hylia's blessing, he was there with her. The perfect pair. The avatar of the Goddess and the chosen knight by her side.

Only, it wasn't so perfect, was it?

She was alone. He had failed.

No.

Even worse.

He should have been left to die. It made sense. He didn't know what he looked like, but he could well imagine. A limp ragdoll, half dead and with bloody wounds all over him. He might as well be a corpse. Why should he receive this special treatment? To be escorted by a party of capable Sheikah Warriors? To be brought to the Shrine of Resurrection? He wasn't just a failure-he was actively draining resources.

Bitter hatred brewed within him, though for Ganon or for himself, he did not know. Both, perhaps. He hated Calamity Ganon, not necessarily for the destruction wrought upon Hyrule, but rather for his cunning dashing of his hopes. And he hated himself for allowing hope to enter his mind in the first place. It made him weak. It made him complacent. It made him stupid.

'Shut up.' The rational part of his brain told him. 'Enough with the self-pity.'

He squeezed his eyes shut. He was in a perfectly shaped cube, one that was hollow and cut to be as even and smooth as possible. The six walls surrounding him, entrapping him, were all even, at perfect lengths. Down to the atom, most likely. They were colored as an all-encompassing black that seemed to exist passively, planes of void within the boundaries of his mind.

An empty chamber. Empty except for himself and the sword that lay in front of him.

He kneeled and picked up the sword. The Master Sword.

Perfect.

Clean.

Unnatural.

A spell of sickness overtook him as he stared at it. At this very instant, the lands of Hyrule were being painted with the blood of its citizens. Songs of cacophony, of screams and cries and destruction and death and malice.

And yet.

It was so wrong. The sword, so clean. So perfect. Unscathed, as if he had never used it. As if he had just pulled it out from the earth. A sword, the Master Sword, freshly crafted and smithed by Hylia to be the blade of Evil's bane. It shone in the decrepit darkness, gleaming brightly as if it were grinning.

So wrong. But why? For just one second, he imagined. Imagined the sword in death. In a worn state of ruin, just as damaged as Link himself, covered in mud and blood. An image, disturbingly right, disturbingly comfortable. Disturbingly real. Within the span of a second, thousands of incomprehensible images flashed in his eyes. A Rito bard, standing on some sort of tower. Feeding fruit to a Sand Seal. A large, red Zora grinning at him. Whistling as a young Goron scrambled to follow him. A wedding that took place in an unrecognizable town.

He could see it, wanted to reach for it. Wanted to grasp it.

But he couldn't. The sword refused to die.

Link opened his eyes.

Above him, a roof of softly lit rocks, painted a hue of flickering orange, stared back at him.

At an agonizingly slow rate, he sat up. Raw, thudding soreness filled his every membrane, making every movement an act of indescribable torment. Clouds of cold, solid pain seemed to gather within his mind and body; it seemed that he couldn't form a single cohesive thought without feeling the pangs of a headache flare. At the very least, he seemed to recognize that he was near a fire-the almost uncomfortable heat kissing his skin confirmed that much, though somewhere deep in the recesses of his muddled mind, he realized that peculiarly, he couldn't smell any smoke.

"How are you feeling?"

Sluggishly, Link turned to meet the owner of the voice. Behind a campfire, an old woman-the same one that carried him before he passed out-stared at him. In her hands, she held a small bundle of glossy, brown sticks tied together with grass. She stepped around the fire, dropping the sticks to the ground and moving next to him. "It's a rare sight, seeing someone out here, so close to Hyrule Castle. And it's an even rarer sight to see someone bearing something like that slate of yours. Sheikah technology."

He felt his mouth move, but no sound came out. Eyes fluttering, he wondered if she would mind if he closed his eyes. It was just so tiring. So painful. Questions formed in his mind, but died as soon as they came into fruition, disintegrating into mist. All he could think about was how much everything hurt, and how much he wished that he could pass out again.

"I suppose it can't be helped." From under her robes, she pulled out a glowing jar. It shone in a calming pink light, radiating a pleasant coolness that actively countered the warmth of the campfire. With a single swift movement, the woman opened the jar. The light flew out, floating towards him. At that very moment, he felt a sense of calmness, the first time since his awakening. It was almost overwhelming, an alien-like sensation that made everything else seem unimportant. Before he even had the chance to savor the feeling however, the light vanished.

He blinked. Once. Twice. In an instant, the heavy fog clouding his mind vanished without a trace. The pain wracking his every limb and organ receded, broken bones mending, open wounds closing, and crippling soreness vanishing. Something in his nose cleared and at once, the harsh odors of smoke and ash invaded his lungs. He broke into an abrupt coughing fit, pounding his hand against his chest as he did.

"A fairy." The woman said wistfully, as if reminiscing. "Before the Calamity, they were a rare sight. Now? That could have been the last one in all of Hyrule."

"Oh, and by the way…" She caught his gaze, smiling somewhat timidly. "My name is Paya. And you must be Master Link."