I do not own The Legend of Zelda or any of the games in the franchise. Those rights belong solely to Nintendo.
—-
The sound of booted footfalls on stony steps echoed throughout a dark stairwell. The darkness only repelled by a lone torch that had been lit just over an hour ago. Its orange glow provided the first light that had touched these walls in thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of years.
"This strange gloom keeps getting thicker…"
Princess Zelda, heiress to the throne of Hyrule, leading researcher on all things ancient history, and carrier of the blood of the Goddess Hylia, turned to her companion. Her vibrant green eyes meeting her companion's bright blue. Her golden locks cut short just above the base of her neck with a braid crossing the top of her head from behind each of her two pointed ears. She wore her royal blue traveling tunic, leather wrap around her waist, black traveling pants, and brown leather boots. Her attire had been fitted with a black Hylian hood, the cape of the hood extending down past her waist and ended around her mid thigh behind her legs. The princess had dressed herself in a manner that would suggest that she and her companion would spend the day traversing the terrain of Hyrule, not descending flight after flight of stairs in search of the source of the mysterious gloom.
The princess' companion was someone that was more equipped for any challenge in perhaps the history of all of Hyrule for this excursion beneath Hyrule Castle. Link, Zelda's chosen protector and appointed knight. Link, the Hylian Champion of the Calamity. Link, the wielder of the legendary Master Sword. Link, the Hero of Hyrule.
Link's long, sandy blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail with two thick pieces of hair falling from the side of his head and down past his cheeks. He wore a sky blue tunic, enhanced with various pieces of leather armor, bracers, and a dark chainmail underneath the tunic itself. The ensemble was recently gifted to him by Princess Zelda after his old Champion's Tunic had begun to wear down after the past six years. He completed his outfit with a pair of tan trousers, brown leather boots, and his own black Hylian Hood.
Though Link and Zelda held many titles and were both very well respected around Hyrule for their various deeds in saving the peoples of the land, they each held a title that was infinitely more important to each other: lover. For the past six years, since the defeat and sealing of Calamity Ganon, the pair engaged in a relationship that frankly they both deserved. Since before the Calamity over 100 years prior, the Princess began to develop romantic feelings for her appointed knight. It was her love for her protector that awoke her sealing powers that would eventually defeat Calamity Ganon. Though she realized her powers, it was too nearly late.
In a battle after the Calamity's rise, Link was gravely wounded while defending the princess. He was placed in an ancient relic of the Sheikah tribe known as the Shrine of Resurrection, lest he be lost forever. The process of healing Link not only took 100 years, but deprived him of his memories. The mystical properties of the Shrine kept Link at his current physical age despite the extensive amount of time he spent healing. In the months after he woke, Link regained his former strength, freed gargantuan machines, known as Divine Beasts, that were instrumental in defeating the Calamity, regained his memories, and ultimately defeated the Calamity, helping Zelda seal it in the process.
Shortly after the final battle, Zelda, who had temporarily transcended physical being to imprison the Calamity for 100 years, revealed her feelings to her appointed knight. At the time, Zelda feared that her love was unrequited, but was quickly disproven when Link confessed his own feelings for the princess. They spent the next 6 years living in relative domestic bliss, sharing a home in Hateno Village, and assisting the beginning of a kingdom-wide effort to rebuild what was lost in the destruction of Calamity Ganon's rise. That was until they received an urgent summons from their friend, and ancient Sheikah researcher, Purah. Purah informed them of a mysterious red substance that had been seeping out from underneath the ruins of Hyrule Castle and causing people to fall ill.
Link and Zelda descended further down the stairs, following a smoky, red haze of the substance that was dubbed "gloom". TThey hoped to find the source of the gloom and put a stop to it before any more of Hyrule's citizens fell ill. So it was here that the two found themselves, stopped on a landing between sets of stairs deep beneath Hyrule Castle. Before they were set to descend yet another flight of stairs, Zelda turned to Link again.
"We've been descending for quite a while now…" she began in her refined accent. "These tunnels are deeper than I thought. What could be down here?"
"I'm not sure, Zelda." Link spoke. "Honestly, I'm a bit surprised that you don't know what could be down here, given, you know, your 'secret special royal knowledge.'"
"Yes, my 'secret royal knowledge' that allows me to know all things." Zelda giggled, happy for the break in tension that had descended once they started traversing down into these depths. "You know I tell you everything. If I knew anything about these passages, you'd be the first person I told."
"I know, Zel." Link smiled. "I just didn't know if it came up in a book or something somewhere."
"I am more than just books and royal knowledge you know." Zelda said with mock indignance.
"Yeah ok. Sure thing miss 'secret library well'" Link teased, referencing a makeshift library and study Zelda had constructed down the well at the back of their house in Hateno to keep any unwanted guests (or nosy cleaning ladies) from disturbing her studies.
Zelda grinned and started descending this next flight of stairs, relishing in the newfound levity their banter had brought. Zelda began to take in the scenery of the cave a bit more now as they reached a landing at the bottom of the set of stairs. She noticed ancient stone work carved into the walls, and that some of the cavern walls seemed to have deposits of Luminous Stones embedded in them, making for a rather pretty sight. Despite the eye-catching glow of the stones in the walls, Zelda spotted a doorway at the other end of the landing. It was shrouded in darkness, but the faint glow of the Luminous Stones gave her enough visibility to see that they would again be descending further. She paused and took a verbal note of their situation.
"People have been falling ill after coming into contact with the gloom drifting through these caverns." she began reciting the information that had been relayed to them by Purah. "Though here it seems misty and not concentrated enough to harm us…"
Zelda lowered her torch to better illuminate the gloom that drifted by their feet.
"We'll keep going. With it coming up from beneath Hyrule Castle…" she stopped and turned to Link, a tender smile and a determined look on her face. "We do not know what awaits below, so we need to be ready for anything. But I know I'll be okay with you, Link."
Link smiled gently at her vote of confidence and nodded. They had the utmost faith in each other, knowing that no matter what, the other would do everything in their power to protect them. Zelda leaned in and the two shared a brief, but tender, kiss. They pulled apart with sparkling eyes before regaining their determined edge they had not just a moment ago.
"Let's go solve this mystery." Zelda said.
"Lead the way, Princess." Link smirked at his use of her royal title. While others used it as a show of respect for her status in the kingdom, Link almost exclusively used it for one of two reasons: to tease her, or to express his fondness and love for his princess.
Zelda smiled, sighed, shook her head, and turned to descend even further into the depths below Hyrule Castle.
—-
"I never imagined this was all deep beneath the castle…" Zelda said, coming to a stop just before yet another darkened doorway. Link came to a stop next to her and looked over. Zelda was holding her left hand up just below her chin, pondering the potential implications of what the existence of these caverns and the structures within them may mean for greater Hyrulean history. Link took a few steps forward coming just up to the threshold of the next part of the caverns when a loud noise emanated from just above his shoulder.
"Link! The Master Sword!" Zelda exclaimed and came up right behind Link.
The sword, still in its ornate purple and gold scabbard had burst to life! A white light emanating from within the sword's housing, indicating that there must be an evil presence nearby.
"It must be sensing something!" Zelda said with yet another pondering look in her eye. "I knew we had reason for concern. We must be very careful as we move deeper."
"Way ahead of you, Zel." Link agreed. "Let me go first now. Who knows what's lurking down here."
Zelda nodded and the pair fell into a familiar procedure that they followed every time they were entering into a dangerous situation: Link, the tried and true warrior, led the way making sure everything was safe as they continued forward with Zelda following close behind him. Over the years, this routine rarely found a situation where it was not the ideal formation for them to follow. Whatever foe they encountered stood no chance against Link and the Master Sword.
As they progressed deeper into the caverns, they began to stumble upon some unfamiliar architecture. Even to Link's untrained historical eye, there was a noticeable difference between the ancient Hylian stonework in the previous sections of the caves and the new ruins they were walking into. The stone along the walls and floor was much smoother and less decrepit than the stonework they had just seen. It seemed much more smooth and solid, more uniform overall. Ornately carved decorations, that Link thought looked vaguely like pine cones, adorned the walls. Just ahead of them, some sort of pillar had seemingly fallen ages ago. Link could make out some text on one of its faces. He knew Zelda had seen the text too when he heard a sharp intake of breath and a quick rustling of clothes as she rushed forward from behind him to kneel in front of the fallen stone. Despite the return of the tense silence that had come with the anticipation of the unknown, Link smiled at his girlfriend's interest in all things history and how it superseded the seriousness of the situation. He knelt down beside her to observe the structure.
"These ruins are from an ancient civilization." She began speaking quickly and ran her fingers along some carvings in the stone. "Wait…something is written here. Might these ruins be…from the Zonai?"
Zelda's eyes widened at the possibility that they could be encountering some of the lost ruins of the Zonai. She shot up from her kneeling position, walked quickly around Link and the stone, and headed further into the tunnel. Her eyes darted from wall to wall before stopping in front of a carving that looked vaguely like a dragon. She reached down to her belt and unclipped the Purah Pad, a new iteration of the Sheikah Slate that had assisted Link in the fight against Ganon after he woke in the Shrine of Resurrection. Zelda held it up to the ruins and started using the camera function of the Pad to take some pictures of the carvings.
"These carvings…" Zelda said. "I'm sure they're Zonai in origin. I've seen designs like this in my studies!"
She turns her head slightly towards Link, who had a faint smile on his lips.
"The Zonai are said to have lived long ago, in the time of the earliest legend." She explained. "They possessed godlike powers and had a prosperous civilization in the sky. Many history books tell us about the Zonai, but none give the full picture. Much is still unknown about them."
The scholarly princess quickly clipped the Purah Pad back to her belt and rushed forward through the chamber again. She came to a stop in front of one of two statues that stood guard around an archway. She once again unclipped the Purah Pad and started taking pictures of the statues.
"Is this what the Zonai looked like? They seem so different than us…" she observed. "And such large ears…"
The figure depicted in the statue did in fact have large ears, extending far beyond its broad shoulders. The figure was quite tall, standing easily double the height of either Link or Zelda. The statue also depicted some sort of robe-like garb that rested on the Zonai's shoulders and flowed down beyond its midsection. The top of the Zonai's head was also depicted to have long, flowing hair that descended so low that it rested behind the Zonai's rather large feet. The further Zelda studied it, the more she determined that the Zonai's face was remarkably goat-like. She turned to Link once more.
"How did the ruins from a civilization in the sky end up here beneath the castle?" she asked, though she knew neither of them could think of an answer. What she was met with was another soft smile from Link."What is it? Do I have something on my face?"
"No. I just love it when you get all scholarly." Link said, a slight blush now creeping on both his and Zelda's face.
"Oh hush, you." Zelda said, but still gave her boyfriend a quick peck. "I know just how much you love it when I get 'all scholarly.'"
Link smirked at the slightly suggestive comment and followed Zelda as she continued further into the dark cavern and down yet another set of stairs. The following room was once again lined with the towering statues of the Zonai, three on each side. They moved past these statues and towards an archway that appeared to open into a large, open room.
Suddenly, a group of small, one-eyed, bat-like creatures flew through the opening. Link instinctually and swiftly stepped in front of Zelda, shielding her from the offending creatures. They zipped around him for only a second before taking off in the direction that the duo had come from. Zelda rushed forward to Link.
"You're not hurt are you, Link?" Zelda asked, her voice dripping with concern. She began looking over him from head to toe to see if she could spot any potential injury.
"No…" Link tried to catch her eye. "Honestly, Zel! I'm fine."
Zelda continued sweeping her eyes across him anyway, but locked eyes with him and smiled when she deemed he had not been hurt.
"I just have to be sure." she started. "You have a tendency to downplay injur–"
Zelda cut herself off as she looked towards the wall that was opposite them. She held out her torch in front of her and slowly walked towards the wall.
"Look at these murals…" She said softly.
The walls were indeed lined with several large murals that had been carved into the stone. There were four murals that were clearly visible and unobstructed, but Zelda could make out three murals behind some rocks that had fallen in front of what the murals would depict. She moved forward so she was just in front of one of the murals.
"The written histories of the royal family include stories of a great war fought long ago. It was a conflict between allied tribes and someone only ever referred to as the Demon King." Zelda paused. "Is it possible? Do these murals depict the same legend?"
The princess rushed down to the mural furthest on the left, presumably depicting the first event chronologically. The image of the mural depicted a figure descending from the skies with seven, tear shaped objects and sitting high above what appeared to be the Hylian people.
"This is similar to the statues we saw earlier…" she said in reference to the figure descending from the clouds. "A Zonai! And these figures down here…look like Hylians! This depiction certainly suggests that the Zonai descended from the heavens."
Zelda turned to the next mural in line and moved to stand in front of it, her torch illuminating its depiction of a Zonai seemingly linking arms with a long-haired, Hylian woman.
"It is said that my ancestors–the first of Hyrule's royal family…were born from a union with gods who had descended from the heavens…" Zelda says as she takes in this mural. "These murals tell a similar story, and if they are accurate, then the gods mentioned were the Zonai…They must have forged a relationship with the Hylians of that time, working together to establish…"
Zelda gasped in realization.
"The Kingdom of Hyrule!"
She rushes to the next mural, depicting a large, muscular figure with long flowing hair and a small bun, holding one of the seven objects from the first mural while the woman from the second mural is seemingly overtaken by a wave of some kind of red substance.
"This figure…He seems to be stealing something of incredible power from the young kingdom." Zelda speaks with more awe with each mural. "This all aligns with what I've read during my studies."
She runs over to the final mural that is visible which depicts an even larger, horned figure, unleashing a massive amount of the red substance and a horde of monsters onto an army of Hylian warriors.
"And then this…It shows the Demon King!" Zelda takes a breath. "And a fierce battle against him. If the creature depicted here really does represent the Demon King, then…"
Zelda takes a few steps backwards in front of Link and takes in the full contents of the murals.
"Incredible!" Zelda, alight with the thrill of the discovery, starts drawing her conclusions. "This mural must be the great war recorded in the royal histories! This is the Imprisoning War and the events that led up to it!"
"Link!" She turns towards her knight, very clearly excited beyond belief. "This is a huge discovery!"
She attempts to unclip the Purah Pad from her belt, but in her excitement is having trouble doing so with a torch in her hand. Link steps forward and gently takes the torch from his ecstatic girlfriend so she can free the Pad and begin documenting the murals. Zelda quietly sighs in relief about not leaving the Purah Pad behind as she takes the pictures. Link sweeps his eyes across the rest of the room, looking for any murals Zelda may have missed, but only sees the ones covered by rubble. His eyes are then drawn to a doorway in the corner of the room.
"Oh…it looks like the rest of the murals are obscured." Zelda says disappointedly as she moves the camera towards the remaining images. "Just what is this place? Maybe we'll find more answers farther ahead. Link, let's keep moving deeper!"
"Zelda…We can keep going but we have to be extra careful moving forward." the knight says, growing a bit wary of the direction they're heading. "There's a lot of gloom coming from that direction and we still don't know what might be down here…we still haven't found the reason why the Master Sword started glowing."
"Yes…you're right, Link. We must stay vigilant." Zelda nods, briefly coming down from the high of the discovery they had just made. "Now come on, I bet it's not much further!"
Link purses his lips, and gently nods as Zelda starts walking. He quickly catches up and walks by her side through the archway. They stay side by side, taking each other's hand as they move deeper and gloom starts appearing with more regularity. They descend further and further down on a long and narrow staircase. They take several turns and descend more stairs that have been worn away over time, perhaps tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of years. They only stop when they come across another chamber, this one much larger and more circular than the one with the murals.
The gloom in this chamber drifts around in much greater volume. Wave after wave of the smoky red substance drifts towards the duo, pouring out of a dark figure that they can't quite make out. The sheer volume of the gloom coming from the figure has obscured it from their vision. What they could see was a large, spiraling form of what could only be described as energy. The top of the spiral started as a wide, circular formation with a green hue, with strange unknown glyphs floating just outside of it. The spiraling energy began to condense and shift colors into a single, bright blue string of the energy that came from the figure in the middle of the room.
"What is this place?" Zelda said with a wary awe. "Let's continue, Link. But we must be extremely careful."
"Ok," Link took a breath, readying himself for any possibility, as they began to descend the stairs that would bring them to the center of the room. Large, sharply pointed boulders hung from the ceiling, all having their tips point directly towards the center of the circle. Zelda, with Link just half a step behind her, held her torch out and pushed forward towards the mysterious figure.
"What is that?" Zelda paused for only a split second before still pushing towards the figure. Now that they were closer, they could make out just what the figure appeared to be.
A towering figure stood with its back bent, its long arms outstretched beside it as its chest pointed to the ceiling. The figure had long, billowing hair that hung to the floor and had apparently faded to a reddish gray. Where its eyes should have been, were two deep imprints, appearing as holes on its face. The creature's skin was old, shriveled, and gray, apparently having lost all mass in its time in this chamber. It wore golden jewelry on its fingers, ears, even its feet. But what stood out the most was a large golden object in the center of the figure's forehead that had some sort of faintly glowing stone housed inside it.
The next point of interest on the figure was the glowing, green hand that appeared to grasp at the figure's chest. Gloom spewed out of the figure's chest and poured into the room from underneath the clenched hand. The arm itself had a sort of segmented bracer wrapped around its length, it too glowing like the arm itself. The end of the arm, where a shoulder might have been, spewed out a white light that formed the green and blue spiral that elevated towards the ceiling. What was most noticeable about this arm was that it too had a faintly glowing stone, though on the center of the top of the hand. It was seemingly held in place by a sort of beaded bracelet, wrapped around the arm's wrist.
As Zelda and Link approached the statuesque display, the arm began to lose its glow. The green light that emanated from it grew dull. The spiraling energy vanished and the hand loosened its grip on the figure's chest. It toppled over, falling by the feet of the still bent figure. The stone that had been housed on the top of the arm's hand, breaking out of its containment once it hit the floor. The stone, glowing a faint white light, bounced and skidded across the floor and came to rest just at Zelda's feet.
She crouched down, reached her hand out for a moment, but hesitated. She eyed it for half a second longer before she reached out and gently poked it. Nothing appeared to have happened when she made immediate contact with the stone, so she picked it up and rose to her feet once more. Zelda studied it for a moment. She noticed that the curved and rounded shape of the stone held a faint similarity to a teardrop. The rounded end was darkened in comparison to the rest of the stone, which glowed with a faint white light. The inside of the stone almost appeared smoky to Zelda… What surprised her though, was when the stone suddenly began to glow brighter. The previously dull white light shone like the daylight and began to take on a vibrant yellow.
Zelda was prevented from inspecting the stone further when a loud, heartbeat-like sound came from the figure that stood before them. Zelda closed her fist around the stone, covering its glow and took a step backwards. She and Link watched the figure in horror as it began to twitch and convulse. Its joints cracked and popped, moving for the first time in what appeared to be centuries at the minimum. It began straightening its spine, attempting to right itself, but fell back. The figure's head hung low, near its legs. Its arms limp and scraping against the floor. With a sickening crack, the figure whipped its head towards Link and Zelda. Dark eyes burst to life in its previously vacant sockets. Instead of white eyes, the creature's eyes were black, only broken by narrow orange irises that glowed a bright orange.
"What the he–" Link was cut off as the figure's chest burst open. Large, almost tentacle-like streams of gloom shot out, rose towards the ceiling, and dove towards Zelda. The princess's green eyes seemingly couldn't get any wider as she gasped and took a step back, preparing to scream as the gloom made contact with her face. No harm came to her however as Link sprang into action. He hardened his gaze, stepped between Zelda and the gloom, and drew the Master Sword with his right hand. With one quick strike of the legendary blade, the Hero of Hyrule repelled the gloom. But only momentarily.
The gloom split into two different segments which quickly overcame the apparent shock of being struck with the Master Sword. The red substance lurched forward again, but did not aim to strike Zelda. Instead, the gloom latched onto the Master Sword covering both faces of the divine blade. It spread across the blade and traveled towards the sword's purple winged hilt. The assault didn't end there, however. The gloom jumped onto Link's hand and traveled up his arm and up to his shoulder. He could only grit his teeth as the pain he was subjected to was worse than anything he had ever experienced. He felt as the gloom disintegrated his sleeve and the armor he wore, seeping into his arm and seemingly burning it. Link gently laid his hand over his bicep in an instinctively protective manner. He briefly glanced down to assess the state of his injured appendage. Had it not been for the pure adrenaline coursing through his body, Link may have found it impossible to use his arm because of the pain it would have caused him. The skin was charred to an almost unrecognizable degree, the gloom that assaulted him still sticking to his deformed skin.
Link had no time to lick his wounds, however. Another wave of gloom shot out from the figure's chest, launching itself in the direction of both him and Zelda. Despite his injury, Link refused to let any harm come to his princess. He swung the Master Sword down again to repel the attack, but he found a different result than before. When making contact with the gloom, the Master Sword shattered. Fragments of the sword scattered across the room, the blue glow on each shard being muted by the gloom that covered the sword. However, one shard of the sword did not clatter to the floor harmlessly as the rest had. The very tip of the sword flew in the direction of the figure, narrowly missing its neck, but still slicing across its cheek before clattering to the floor behind the figure. Blood rose from the wound on the figure's face and boiled, but the figure barely even flinched. In fact, it just appeared to smirk.
"Link!" Zelda shouted, overcoming her shock and finally registering that he was injured. "Are you—"
Zelda was cut short as the figure began to rise once more and spoke for the first time.
"Was that the Sword that Seals the Darkness? A blade that shatters so easily against my power cannot save you from me." Its deep, but raspy voice rang out in the chamber as it stood tall. "Zelda…You, who carries that fragile sword, are Link."
Both the Princess and the Hero looked up at the figure, eyes widening at being addressed by name by a man they had never encountered before.
"Rauru placed his faith in you…" the figure turned his body towards the pair, the wound on his face no longer bleeding. "And that was all you could do?"
"How do you…know our names?" Zelda asked, taking a frightened step back.
The figure uttered no response, but instead bent forward at the waist and brought his hands in front of his chest. The stone on his forehead began to glow with a dark, reddish hue as he seemingly gathered a large amount of gloom at his chest. He held it there, building its power before leaning back and raising his hands skyward. The gloom erupted towards a very large, pointed stone that hung directly above him. The sheer force of the eruption caused the very chamber to shake around them. Rocks and boulders began falling from the ceiling and the large stone above the figure seemingly began to rise. He held this position for less than a minute, but the necessary damage was done. Link and Zelda could see a large, gaping hole where the stone once hung above them. The sheer force of the action, combined with the falling rubble, caused the very floor beneath their feet to begin to break apart and open a massive chasm. The figure paid them no mind as he simply leaned back further and fell into the darkness below them with his arms outstretched with the floor he had been standing on.
With the attacker out of sight, Link could not bear the pain in his arm any longer. He dropped to one knee and brought his uninjured hand back to his upper arm.
"Link!" Zelda tried to rush to her Hero's aid, but stumbled as the falling rubble caused the already unstable ground to give out from under her feet and Zelda fell backwards towards the darkness below and dropped her torch. The light fell and spiraled into the depths until they could no longer see its orange glow.
"Zelda!" Link called out. He tossed the remnants of the Master Sword down, turned and leapt after Zelda. He stretched his injured right hand out towards Zelda, who had also reached her hand out towards him. Time seemed to slow as the pair hung suspended in the air, nothing but darkness below them as the knight reached out for his princess. They curled their fingers as their hands drew closer, hoping to grab one another as they fell, but they missed. Zelda's fingers slipped through Links as she began to fall faster into the pit. Link strained his fingers and could only watch in horror as Zelda began to fall out of his reach. He was certain that this was it. Zelda would die alone in the dark as she fell into a pit. If the fall didn't kill her, the remaining rubble would instead. He had failed.
Link's fears would seemingly be unfounded, however. A bright, yellow glow began emanating from Zelda's clutched left hand. The glow traveled down her arm, quickly enveloping her whole body and with a bright flash of yellow light, she was gone. Zelda had seemingly disappeared from the pit all together. As confusing as Link found this, he didn't have much time to ponder it.
He felt something grab hold of his left arm and his own descent into the depths was abruptly halted. Link whipped his head up towards his wrist and found something that only confused him more. The ghostly green arm that was seemingly keeping the mysterious figure held in place had a hold of Link, preventing him from falling to his demise at the bottom of the newly opened chasm. It glowed with a bright green energy before it began to pull Link upwards. With a flash of bright light, Link felt himself being pulled up through the earth. He didn't know where the arm was taking him, nor would he be awake to see it as he finally succumbed to the shock that was starting to envelop his senses at the massive extent of the injury to his right arm and lost consciousness.
—-
A/N: Hello! Welcome to my attempt at a novelization of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, inspired by the Zed of Age's novelization of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild! If you haven't read that wonderful fic, I highly recommend it! It is my favorite fic of any fandom I belong to! One note I have here is that this is a Zelink - established relationship fic. I'm assuming that everyone knows about Link and Zelda moving in together in the house in Hateno, and of Zelda's romantic feelings for Link in Breath of the Wild. With about a six year time jump between BOTW and TOTK, I think it's pretty safe to assume that Link and Zelda started a romantic relationship together between the events of the two games. I do plan to explore that a bit in this fic with flashbacks and whatnot, so stay tuned if you're disappointed there won't be any "feelings confession" moment (there will be!:) ) I hope I can retell this adventure with the same quality that Nintendo provided us with for Tears of the Kingdom! Constructive criticism is always welcome and I'll see you in the next chapter!