Chapter 2: Tristan-Truman, Maniac Lachrimae, Walkürenschwimmen
The few days had been a blur. After departing Tarrey Town the same night he had arrived, Link had ridden a few days north to the Akkala Wildlands. After a short and easy exercise against a red lynel in the pale light of dawn, he made his way up to the strange rock formations just east of the Lomei Labyrinth Island. They rose up a few hundred meters above the brine, emerging from the base of the sloping cliff to the west like the massive shale and sandstone teeth of some behemoth buried at the edge of the world. Link tethered Midnight to a tree on the mainland, and spent most of the day free-climbing the shale needles for no reason besides curiosity.
Above the long shadows of the afternoon, he rested at the peak of the tallest of the formation, examining the barren geology and churning expanse below him. Wolf meat from the previous evening's hunt crackled and turned above a small but adequate fire. The apex of the towering tooth was so pointed that it had taken him the better part of the last half hour and several failed attempts to place the logs in a way that was stable enough to actually light. He shook his head at his own foolishness. There was a time when his pack would've been stuffed with a variety of foodstuffs, ranging from inedible pebblit chow to gourmet delights. Nowadays, he had neither the foresight nor the inclination to properly prepare for his fickle jaunts. So there he was, roasting a steak on the tip of a giant toothpick that was perhaps the most geographically distant point from the rotten core of Hyrule.
He shivered at the memories from his time in that castle. It was not the recollection of his battles of Ganon that frightened him; that festering embodiment of power and rage was threatless at this point. What he feared was the sharp pang of his happy memories with Zelda beyond Ganonical Hyrule. He was afraid of the gigantic alien obelisks surrounding the keep and the lurid violet of the demonic energy which coursed through the air between them; the warp and weft of her dark prison. Link could defeat the apotheosis of evil, but he couldn't swing a sword at the structure of their curséd reality.
Sitting sage-style on the tip of the shale needle, he recalled her appearance just a few nights prior, after the bloodshed outside of Tarrey Town. Though ethereal, he couldn't ignore the incredible realism in the details of her phantasm: the gold flecks speckling her verdant irises, the gentle falsetto of her Hylian lilt, the pain and vulnerability barely perceptible beneath her determined declaration.
Goddess, he missed her.
Goddess be damned, he didn't know if she was real, or just the product of the sickness of his own mind. The princess could've died a century ago, sacrificing her life to seal Ganon. Her ghostly presence could just be the strings with which the goddess used to make him dance. If the Hylia was really out there, it held to cruel reason that she could nail even the fibrosity of Zelda's komorebi eyes.
As day slammed violently into night in a splash of oranges and reds upon the sky and sea, Link became more and more convinced that the world connived against him, and that the Zelda he saw and heard the other day and whom had haunted him since his reawakening was either a figment of his imagination or an artifice of the goddess.
In a strange calm he resolved to abandon this cruel country, his quest, his love, all of it, desperate to be free of these passions that led only to pain. As night descended like a guillotine, he went with it, off the sharp edge of the sandstone tooth and out to the north, floating towards the open ocean. Away.
Drifting on a slight breeze fifty meters above the ocean, he slammed into nothing. There was nothing visible in front of him, but he had unquestionably barreled into some sort of invisible wall at the edge of the world. In shock, he dropped his glider and fell down towards the sea, arms and legs wheeling in comic helplessness.
In a short time, he splashed into the sea like a sack of stones. Given his durability after he had made his way through each of the one hundred and twenty shrines spread throughout the country, the fall wasn't fatal. Link sunk down through the deep blackness of the open ocean at night, and the cold abyss spun beneath him. Blearily, he realized he could hardly feel anything at all. An immovable weight sat on his sternum, and there was a pulsing hotness beneath his chest which he couldn't identify: a broken rib, the desperate pump of his heart? Beyond those few stimuli, there was nothing but ink and dizziness. The thought of the unseen barrier which had arrested his flight rose up like a wormy apple in a tub of molasses.
As his consciousness faded, he imagined it encasing the country in which he had spent over a century but only a quarter of a life's worth of laughter and suffering. It was a colossal, transparent, impenetrable eggshell from which no beak, no new life, could ever emerge. It was the spatial counterpart to the temporal loop which Hyrule had been trapped in for the last century, or perhaps from the very advent of creation. Yes, perhaps even the primordial soup from which the three goddesses had stirred and spooned the mythic gobs of man and monster that made Hyrule was just sitting in a bowl, congealing on a bookshelf, until someone noticed the stink and tossed the whole thing out. Link had no regrets as he let himself sink.
Then Zelda's phantom emerged at his side, her mellow luminescence a pupil-tightening brilliance in the absolute dark. He watched her fuzzy form reach for him and pass through his cold palm. He watched her beg, then plead, then finally scream, at him, at it all. Her pain was too much. He reached for her as his consciousness slipped.
Outside the Dueling Peaks Stable a blonde young man with sideburns far too long wore a green hat. His hat closely resembled the cap worn by the hero in the tapestries of legend, but stood more erect atop his head, and also had fitted ear coverings. It was as if some mad soul had chosen to design a parody of the hero's cap. The mad soul in question had actually intended to use it to more closely resemble the fairies whom he so greatly admired, but Link had no use for the intentions of its creator. He wore the hat because it was both atrocious and vaguely, farcically reminiscent of the cap which espoused his most righteous role as the champion of hyrule, the appointed knight, the avatar of courage, the madcap he-
"Link! Are you really wearing that?" The burly Rito standing next to him and holding an accordion interrupted his rambling thoughts.
"For the last time Kass, yes! Busking is about standing out. You just squeeze your box and I'll figure my part out." Link said, a confident smile on his face and a wild gleam in his eyes.
"The hat isn't even that bad, but the rest of the ensemble…" Kass trailed off. The rest of the ensemble consisted of a skintight crewneck made of an unidentifiable material that actually glowed slightly. The black of the shirt was intended to blend in with the night, while the glowing bones on the shirt created an eerie floating ribcage effect. However, in the dusk, the black of the shirt was still clearly visible, and Link just looked like an idiot.
The shorts, well, the shorts were just so short. It looked as if they had been designed for a child, and the person in question, while not quite an adult, was certainly no boy. His muscular thighs strained against the shorts, and not much was left to the imagination between waist and quadriceps. Yikes.
The collective effect of this young man's garments was a jarring one, and indeed led the few locals who did not recognize him came to believe that he was quite possibly unhinged. His additional accoutrements only served to further exacerbate their confusion and worry, they were: one lynel bow, of the most savage variety; one blue shield, the glow and design of which a few of the more grizzled travelers in the small crowd associated with the weapons of the guardians; one strange sheathed sword, the inch or so of blade exposed near the hilt emitting a powerful blue radiance; and one gorgeous lute, the entirety of which was intricately carved, displaying scenes from Hyrule's recent history.
The lute was truly a wonder: here was Calamity Ganon winding its beastly coils around the once-proud keep, there were the profiles of the four doomed champions, and at the center of it all was the sacrificial lamb herself, Princess Zelda, heir to a throne of nothing and saviour of all that surrounded that throne. Running his fingers over the lacquered cuts in the wood, the man in blonde lost a bit of his smile. However, his feathered compatriot quickly got his attention.
"Ready?" The Rito asked gently.
"Always." The blonde man answered, a certain unidentifiable lightness in his eyes.
"Ladies and gentleman!" The madly clad minstrel began, with a toothy smile. "I am happy to present to you the Hylian Cassocks, of which I am one half!" The audience gave a few small cheers and whistles, to which the lutist continued: "He's Kass and I suck!" The crowd immediately fell silent, and the lutist himself sniggered loudly at his own terrible joke. The Rito rolled his eyes and began to play, and the swordsman began to sing and strum:
"Flow, my tears, fall from your springs!
Exiled for ever, let me mourn;
Where night's black bird her sad infamy sings,
There let me live forlorn."
They started low in tone and quickly ascended. The mix of classical strings and the folk-inflected aerophone was strange and wonderful. The song was slow and grave. Link's mellifluous baritone and the hymn-like nature of the song were a clear shock to many in the crowd. After a short time, the people surrounding them began to dance in pairs. A host of fireflies floated over the shallow pool around the nearby shrine in languid chaos. The lutist strummed dreamily, the accordionist let his bellows breathe deep, and the people wound a slow progression around the bonfire next to the stable.
Back during the height of the Hyrulean Monarchy, a performance like this was a courtly affair, sans accordion. The nobles, in grand gowns and elegant suits, had danced a pavan at the start of many a royal function to music such as this. In fact, they had danced to this is exact song, and more than once. Link knew, because he had stood guard in the ballroom dozens of times, as barely more than a child. There he had watched the young princess squirm uncomfortably as she was forced to dance with many of the most powerful men in the kingdom. As a boy born into the royal guard, Link's training had been constant and without mercy, but he did not envy the princess during moments such as those. Even in those days, she was much more comfortable among the musty stacks of the Great Library, or in the Royal Courtyard catching crickets. And even then, she sacrificed her own comfort and happiness for the sake of her duty.
Link's voice shook as he began the final stanzas of the old song:
"From the highest spire of contentment
My fortune is thrown;
And fear and grief and pain for my deserts, for my deserts
Are my hopes, since hope is gone.
Hark! you shadows that in darkness dwell,
Learn to contemn light
Happy, happy they that in hell
Feel not the world's despite."
As the old song came to its close, and the sways and spins of the audience wound down, Kass thought he saw a single, glistening, tear trail down the hero's face. He extended a feathered hand to the shoulder of his friend. By the time he had made contact, Link had turned towards him with a roguish smile and a raised eyebrow. All traces of the despair Kass suspected were gone.
The old bard put it simply: "Twas excellent."
The young champion's close-lipped smile broke into a proud, open one. Kass laughed. The boy didn't talk unless he had to, but he was truly a pleasure to listen to, as the evening's performance had certified.
As they made their way back to the stable's grand tent, Link felt something very wrong. The world began to twist and tilt, all colors and shapes blurring together. Over his shoulder, Link thought he heard the sound of Zelda's voice, and he turned to see her phantasm fading away, sobbing a thanks. Suddenly, a cerulean brilliance suffused the wide world, and Link began to wretch uncontrollably.
The hero sunk down through the stygian waters, eyes wide shut; open, yet seeing nothing. His respiratory muscles spasmed involuntarily as his body struggled to live, irrespective of his vacillating will. The princess went down with him, unaffected by gravity yet determined to be with him until the end. She had swept through a torrent of emotions over the last sixty seconds. Language had gradually failed her as she progressed from vocal worry to pseudo-linguistic rage and finally to wordless, weeping despair.
The sky far above them boomed, and a crack of lightning briefly lit even the depths that they had sunk to. It struck the water directly above them. Then the sword on his back began to glow, and a voice emerged from it: "Hojotoho! Hojotoho! Heiaha! Heiaha!" it sounded out inexplicably, like some warcry from a forgotten age.
The voice was aged, and somehow artificial. Zelda recognized it from her flight to the Korok Forest after Link's last stand in front of Fort Hateno.
"Fi?! Is that you?" She shouted, voice hoarse.
"Voice modulation test complete. Speaker is utilizing a known Hylian dialect. Natural language processing engaged. Translating thought-speech from binary now." The sword had a tinny voice, artificial, yet distinctly feminine, and it glowed rhythmically, mimicking the cadence of it's speech.
"Hey Zelda." The artificial spirit in the legendary sword said casually.
"Fi! We need to help Link, now!" The princess urged.
"Yeah no kidding. Hypoxic convulsions aren't a joke. He's roughly one hundred and seventeen seconds from clinical death." Fi's voice had a cheeriness to it that hinted at sociopathy.
"Do something! I'm immaterial, this is just a projection of my consciousness, I can't help him!" Zelda
"Trust me, milady, as an inanimate object, no one understands your pain better than I do." Fi let out a jingling sound. "Goddess, I'm honestly impressed." Fi continued after another of the strange tintinnabulations that Zelda had long ago deduced were giggles. "I've seen a loooooooot of things. But I've never seen a Link slam directly into the Bound. The boat boy got close a few times, but this is a first." Fi whistled. "Such an edgelord."
"What the hell is wrong with you?!" Zelda was shouting now, her voice, high-pitched by default, now verging on a shriek.
"Well, since you're asking, let me run some tests…" Fi trailed off.
"To start with the basics: I note 78 syntax errors, 17 name errors, 18th pending the results of the current incident, a whole host of bad arguments, and a single infinite loop we've been iterating for several thousand years, of which your part is only a small subroutine."
"What the fuck." Zelda deadpanned.
"Don't get your garters in a twist, milady. They're chiffon, aren't they?"
Zelda was at a loss. Fi was even worse than a hundred years ago. When Zelda had brought the sword to the Lost Woods for safekeeping, Fi had been rambling non-stop. It was as if someone had unstuffed a spigot and several millenia of highly pressurized thoughts had come pouring out. In fact, that's probably exactly what had happened. By the time they had reached the Great Deku Tree, a century of silence hadn't sounded like such a bad thing.
"Forty four seconds until brain death, by my calculations. Princess, grab my hilt." Fi was suddenly serious. The darkness around them was oppressive.
"I can't-" Zelda started, and then stopped, because she could. "How?"
"I'm a magic sword, you're a magical girl, or at least magical girl-adjacent. Don't worry about it too much" Fi explained, or rather didn't even attempt to.
Fi continued: "Okay, now for the sheikah slate. I think this weirdo keeps it strapped to his fanny pack -ahem- utility belt, yep there it is. Okay, use me to start the warp sequence, I think you know where we're going."
Zelda did. She banged on the sheikah slate with the hilt of the sword, scrolling over to the map and selecting a destination as she had seen Link do a hundred times before. For some strange reason, the slate responded to her, though it had only ever listened to Link before. Perhaps it was the sword.
A blue glare enveloped them, and Link disintegrated into little bits of light and magic. As she watched him rise up, through the ocean, to the surface, and up into the roiling skies, she opened her mouth and took a deep breath, and disappeared.
There at the world's edge, a lambent blade floated deeper into the void, singing:
"triumph or death to share with Siegmund:
that seemed only the lot I could choose!
He who this love into my heart had breathed,
whose will had placed the Wӓlsung at my side,
true only to him, thy word did I defy."
She would enjoy her memories of this Link: his gleefully mad antics performed in the face of cruel fate, and the poesy they composed together, writ in the blood of Ganon's minions. She wished him happiness.
Hundreds of miles to the southwest, Zelda reappeared at Link's side. He lay unconscious in the miraculous artificial womb of the ancient civilization, the centerpiece of the Shrine of Resurrection. The fluid that nearly filled the vat suffused his half-submerged features with a cerulean phosphorescence. She couldn't help but appreciate his chiseled jawline, the finely defined muscles of his abdomen, his fashionably lengthy golden locks.
"Will he live?" Zelda asked Fi.
There was no answer.
"Fi?" She tried again. Typical.
But no, she realized. There was no answer, because there was no sword. Zelda thought back. At the moment Link had teleported away, Zelda had still held the sword. She hadn't had time to resheathe the ancient blade.
Fi had to have known this was going to happen. Somewhere in her vast intelligence, she had calculated the optimal route towards Link's survival, and if that included her floating down into the abyss, so be it. She had waited epochs between rediscoveries before, and she could wait again.
Zelda felt her own consciousness fading, exhausted from the effort of projecting for such a duration, and actually interacting with the physical medium. She sobbed a thanks to Fi's sacrifice as her phantasm vanished into the quiet air of the resurrection chamber.
Link dreamt of a lute, of a song, of a fire, and a friend, and a hideous outfit.