Volink Week 2018

Disclaimer: I don't own Hyrule Warriors.

Author's Notes: I honestly think that this is the saddest piece I've ever written. I was listening to LotR music to set the scene and I just completely lost it when "Into the West" came on. I don't know if listening to it would enhance the reading experience or not but, to me, it was all too fitting. I don't usually write HW Link talking, but for this fic, it felt more appropriate rather than having him sign and gesture.

Rating: T

Warnings: Major Character Death, Dark/Depressing Subject Matter

-o-

Day Two: Reincarnation

-o-

Volga knew that Link was going to grow old long before the dragon knight entered the prime of his life, and yet he had chosen Link as his mate anyway. That wasn't to say that it had been easy to watch the young man he loved, the Hero he respected, and his partner on the battlefield and in marriage reach his peak and then face together Link's inevitable physical decline in what seemed like a blink of an eye.

Sixty-six years had passed, and Volga looked mostly the same as he did the day he and Link had met. Oh, there were a few new wrinkles by his eyes and a lengthy scar that started in the right-hand corner of his forehead and ran diagonally across to his nose where it intersected into a second, thicker scar across the bridge of his nose, but Volga still possessed the vigor and physicality to wage war and conquer, though he had no inclination to do so. Link's fighting days were long behind him, however.

Link had not been able to properly hold a sword in more than a decade, and he and Volga had stopped training with each other ten years before that. They had both known that old age had been creeping and settling into the Hero's heart and bones when Volga had began to dominate Link in victories, and when Link had started to tire before Volga broke a sweat. The discussion they had had been one of the hardest conversations Volga ever had to have with Link, but as frightening and upsetting as the idea of Link growing old was to Volga, they both knew that their agreed decision to stop training with each other had been both necessary and inevitable. Link simply could not fight with the same speed and ferocity he had displayed in his twenties and thirties.

Now in his eighties, Link bore little resemblance to the Hero depicted in portraits, statues, and celebrations. Age had sapped most of his muscle strength and function, and arthritis had bowed his shoulders and closed his ring and pinky fingers on his left hand. Only his eyes and the spirit contained within each of them remained unchanged. Travelers and passersby to Link's village were always shocked to learn that Link and Volga were husbands rather than just nursemaid and ward (or the occasional aged father and son). Finding out that Volga was a dragon always seemed to be less shocking to them than learning the exact nature of their bond.

Volga noticed Link gazing at one of his old magical swords as he cleared the table and dropped their dinner plates into the wash water. The magical sword happened to be one of Link's favorites, and its strength and skills rivaled the Master Sword in many ways—in Volga's opinion, it surpassed the legendary blade. When they had settled down in Link's village after the Hero's fighting and traveling days were done, one of the first things they did was place the sword on a mantle display and draped Link's scarf marking him the commander of Hyrule's army over it. It was both a source of pride and sadness for the both of them.

The dragon knight noticed there was an extra shine in Link's eyes. He let the bowl in his hand sink back under the hot water and dried his hands. "Link, something wrong?"

Link shook his head no. "Just thinking back. Nothing in particular. Y'know, how long it's been and everything that happened. Where and what everyone is doing."

"You have a lot on your mind then," Volga said, dragging a table chair over by Link's comfy chair and taking a seat beside him. "Tell me. Please."

Link smiled as he breathed a puff of air in disbelief as the dragon knight took hold of his hands. Volga didn't care if Link thought he was being a dramatic goof. "It's not a big deal. It was just a couple passing thoughts, a bit of wonder," he said. "You know, we humans do tend to look back a lot in our old age."

"I know," Volga said, massaging the loose skin around Link's knuckles. "I just don't want you to look back and—"

"Feel bad that my glory and youth is far behind me and that my remaining time in this world is a fading candle?" Link softly chuckled at Volga's widened eyes at his correct assumption.

"I-I did not mean," Volga said, opening and closing his mouth before settling on, "I'm sorry."

Link patted the dragon knight's hands with his partially-closed left hand. "Getting old is not so bad. I get to spend my days and nights doing whatever the hell I want when I want, knowing that all is right in the world, and all with the dragon I love," he said. "Sounds like I'm livin' in the lap of luxury. Could've made it solid gold too." Link's more energetic laughter soon turned into a small coughing fit.

Volga helped him sit up and stabilized him and then got him a glass of water when the spasms would not cease. The dragon knight's beating heart lodged itself near the top of his throat, and if it weren't for that blocking the way, he probably would have been sick to his stomach as he watched Link struggle to fill his lungs with new air.

"Thank you," Link said, finally catching his breath, as a cautious-eyed Volga rubbed wide circles around his back. "I'm all right. Really. Don't give me that look."

"You had me worried there," Volga said.

"Softie," Link said, grinning, as he leaned forward, hooked an arm behind Volga's neck, and kissed his cheek.

Partially to ease any strain on the Hero's back, Volga rose up slightly and then returned Link's kiss, gently pushing Link to lay back in his chair as he did so. Link breathed soft hums as the dragon knight swept his hand up and across Link's jawline. What had drawn Volga to Link in the first place was the Hero's strength and battle prowess, but when Link was no longer fit to be a warrior, never once did it cross Volga's mind to leave him. Age had taken away his friendly rivalry with Link, but it was never able to seize his love from him. As Link rested his head in Volga's cupped hand, the dragon knight nuzzled and kissed his neck, eliciting joyous shouts from an all-too-ticklish Link.

"Hey, it's a nice night. Let's go enjoy it," Link suggested, whispering it in Volga's ear.

-o-

Volga carried Link in his arms out to the hills and meadows surrounding Link's village. Along the way, Link admired and remarked how unchanged his little farming village remained after all these years. Sure, there were more people and thus more houses and little shops, but they all were designed and built the same as they had been when he was a young buck. Link supposed that his townsfolk never saw the need to fix what wasn't broken...or that they all too stubborn to accept change.

Volga listened to Link's fascinated chatter and recounted stories about their surroundings without commenting. He had never understood the village's appeal to Link. It had been where Link had wanted to settle down—it was 'the place his heart longed for', as he had put it—and Volga was not so cruel to deny his husband's request. He had to admit, however, as he listened to Link, he began to feel a kind of fondness for Link's love for the land he grew up on.

Reaching a nice spot, Volga knelt down, still with Link in his arms, and sat down with Link on the grassy hill in glorious, full view of the setting sun. Link rested his head on the bend of Volga's collarbone and gazed up at the sky colored bright gold, pink, and orange.

"Fall's coming," Link said, as a light breeze blew cooler air over them on this end-of-summer evening. "I hope the color of the leaves turn out better this year. I miss seeing all the gold, orange, and red."

Link had spoken much about places and things he recalled that he had such fond memories for in the past tonight but nothing had sounded so pensive than his hope for and longing to see the leaves.

Perhaps sensing the tension, Link gazed up at Volga and flashed him a big, goofy grin, adding, "Red is my favorite color, y'know."

"Liar," Volga said, faintly smiling. "It's green."

Link chuckled softly as he wiggled around a bit, making himself comfortable against the dragon knight's broad chest. "Just checking if you remembered."

Volga had never forgotten.

They sat in silence, with Link gazing out at the fading sun, the darkening shadows of the trees in a nearby forest, and the first stars of the approaching night, while Volga almost exclusively watched Link. The dragon knight had always been the taller and larger of the two but never more than now had he realized how small Link was. His arms seemed no thicker than Volga's spear pole.

They had chopped Link's gray hair short a while ago. Sweeping his fingers through it, it felt wiry but soft to the touch. Volga rested a hand on Link's stomach and felt it rise and fall with each of his short gasps of breath. The little wheeze catching his breath at the very end never failed to alarm the dragon knight.

"How long do dragons live for?" Link asked.

"Hundreds of years," Volga replied. The question took him back a little. "Why do you ask?"

"It just occurred to me that I've never seen a really old dragon," Link said. "I've met aged dragons but never one so old and gray that they blend right into the mountain they dwell in."

"It's no wonder. By that age, it's better for the dragon to remain hidden," Volga said.

Link opened his mouth as if he meant to say something else but he decided not to at the last. Averting his eyes away from sky, Link tilted his head up and gazed at Volga. He took his time admiring the dragon's eyes, taking in their color and shape (and even his number of eyelashes) before he let his eyes move on to memorize Volga's chin, his lips, the shape of his ears and face, and then his eyes once more. Link laid his hand over the dragon knight's and idly rubbed his fingers back and forth—Volga was not sure if the light touch was meant to comfort him or Link himself.

"I'm looking forward to seeing you," Link said.

It took a second before something clicked in Volga's mind that there was something odd about what Link had said and that he wanted to hear him explain what he had meant. As he asked him and Link did not answer, he realized that he would never receive an answer. The spark of spirit in Link's blue eyes was gone.

No.

Disbelief froze the dragon knight. He and Link had talked about this happening before and Volga had thought about it himself plenty of times as the years stacked on, but for some reason, Volga didn't think… He never thought that Link would actually die.

Violently trembling, Volga gently picked up Link's warm body and tightly clutched him against his chest, cradling his head. You knew one day this day would come, Volga accused himself, blinding tears streaking down his hot face, and yet you chose him anyway.

Unable to squelch his outpouring of emotion a second longer, an anguished roar tore from his chest and, in its place, it left nothing.

In the dark of night, Volga looked up and his eyes momentarily dried up. In their brief clarity, he saw a falling star streak down and shoot past the horizon beyond Volga's view in pursuit of the departed sun. Volga envied its ability to chase after the sun.

-o-

Volga insisted that Link be buried with the magical sword in hand and his blue scarf draped around his neck, though no one challenged his request. Never one to bother himself in human affairs, Volga left Link's village after the funeral service. He abandoned their home, leaving their matters to be sorted out by Her Majesty and their allies.

In the five, ten, twenty-five years following his passing, great bouquets of fresh flowers never failed to decorate Link's tombstone, but when fifty and eighty years came and went, fewer and fewer flowers marked his resting place. On the one-hundredth anniversary, there was only one flower. It was the same flower that continued to honor his memorial five hundred years later.

Where the strange flowers kept coming from and who was bringing them became a bit of a local folk legend. More questions soon abound when researchers passing by determined that the fresh-cut flower originated in the Eldin Mountains and that, in fact, the questioned blossom was only able to survive in the region's uninhabitable volcanic cliffs. The mystery of the volcano flower was a bizarre tale that soon sprouted its own crop of tales providing strange answers to the mystery. Most of the stories told were pretty preposterous, however. They were almost as unbelievable as the accounts that a dragon once lived in the village.

-o-

Holed up in a mountain on the last chunk of land the humans had not yet stolen from him, Volga lay in darkness, comforted by the scent of ignited saffina surrounding him. He regretted that he could not fly out and replace the flower on Link's grave today, for his right wing had been badly damaged in a firefight against the Hyrulean forces.

It mattered not to the reigning princess that he had once allied with her ancestor and fought alongside the Hyrulean forces to repel Cia and Ganondorf's campaigns against Hyrule. She did not believe his claims that he and the Hero of that age were married, as no legal records remained—and in fact, from the look on her face, the thought of a Hero laying with a dragon clearly disgusted her. There were, however, somehow still records of Volga serving as Cia's commander, and as an enemy to the crown, he had no right to either his 'territory' or his life. Were Volga in his prime, he would have incinerated the entire royal court, her guards, and the castle and then scorched the surrounding land on his flight home. But, alas, age too had caught up with Volga, and he did not have Link beside him to soften and sweeten his bitter fate.

Too old to fight, a wanted war criminal, a dragon lord possessing neither his land nor his forces, Volga had no place in this new age of humans. His days were now spent underground or in caves, cowering like a well wyrm. He only sneaked out on the darkest of nights to hunt but that had been before his wing had been injured. He was still able to shift into his human form, but Volga just could not sacrifice his birthright to hide and live among the humans. He simply would not, even if it meant slowly starving himself to death.

The harsh truth was that Volga felt no desire to rage against his fate, if anything he felt resigned toward it. Soon he could follow Link and be reunited with him forever more. Death on his terms was an end he would gladly choose over the royal whelp's execution.

His head resting on the ground and his eyes closed, Volga heard small rocks tumbling and footsteps sliding down the steep tunnel leading to his cavern. Volga growled low in warning but the sound did not deter his trespasser one bit. The intruder stumbled into his cavern and just barely managed to break his momentum coming off from the decline in time to keep from face-planting into the rocks. Volga knew that stench. The intruder was a human and a Hyrulean soldier at that.

Do you wish to prove yourself a Hero by slaying the great and terrible dragon all alone, eh, boy? Volga thought to himself, as he growled and moved to better position himself to either strike or incinerate the fool.

Drawing the staff on his back, the soldier command the orb on the magic rod to light. The rod's flames illuminated the entire cavern and temporarily blinded both the soldier and Volga. As his eyes readjusted, he realized that the soldier bore an uncanny resemblance to Link. Sure, he was a little taller, though not by much, and his eyes were black and his hair was platinum blond, but there was Link standing in a slate gray private uniform with a blue cuff on his right arm denoting him as as spellcaster. Admittedly, his eyes were not as keen as they once were, but Volga was sure it was him.

"When Hyrule is in danger, the Hero shall be reborn once more—his spirit is eternally bound to the cycle of reincarnation. This is only a temporary goodbye," Volga recalled Lana saying something very much like that at the end of her eulogy. At the time, the dragon knight had never thought that the witch's words were true.

"I knew you once," Volga said and slowly approached the young man to get a clearer view to confirm. Luckily, the soldier was hesitant to strike and perhaps he was curious to know what Volga had meant.

"Link," Volga said, and the young soldier's eyes widened in shock at hearing his name spoken by a dragon. Up close, he saw that he was not quite his Link but the boy held his spirit. "Here you are, young again, and I have grown old. Forgive me, little dragon, I cannot fight alongside you again, but I am grateful to see you once more."

Volga stretched his neck forward and nudged Link in the belly, encouraging him to touch him, but the confused soldier stumbled backwards.

"I will not hurt you, Link." Volga hoped that the young man would trust him.

Surprised beyond belief and not understanding anything that was going on, Link nonetheless held his arm straight out and cautiously walked toward Volga. Eventually, his hand rested on Volga's beak. When he realized that the dragon was being truthful and was not about to chomp his right hand off, Link's face lit up with awe and tremendous joy at the sight that the dragon was not so terrible at all but quite nice. To him, at least.

And only him, Volga thought, as he nuzzled Link's neck and flicked his tongue out to lick his cheek, and Link's sweet, buoyant laughter filled and echoed throughout the cavern.