"Link..."
The man twitches in his spot, creating the first ripples on the surface of the mystical liquid in over a century. His face contorts, as his mind works to reawaken his body.
"Link..."The voice stresses, its tone sounding more urgent, tinged with desperation.
The man shifts more, his hands immediately clenching around an object that wasn't there, his muscles filling with energy, waiting to be used.
His eyes finally open, revealing sky blue irises.
"Link." The voice sounds relieved. Subconsciously, he registers that he's in an odd place, surrounded by what looks to be a shrine, but he doesn't exactly know how. The swirling patterns of the floor seem familiar to him, though.
"Link. It has been a century." His head checks around him, trying to locate the source of the voice. There's no apparent source. "You must help me, Link."
Link's brain finally wakes up, providing a name and... a face for this voice. He recognises it.
Princess Zelda. He remembers her, the long blonde hair that shone in the light of the sun, her eyes, which lit up when she would talk about her research. Her mannerisms, and the trials she had to endure to become who she was. Her smile when she saw the Champions.
But they're all foggy, vague ideas that he instinctively knew were correct, but he can't remember them fully. And then all his memory as a whole cuts off after a certain point.
"Link. Hyrule needs a saviour. As of now, you are the only one who can fill that position. I will buy you as much time as I can."
"But I cannot hold on forever. Please, help me."
Zelda's voice fades away from his mind, leaving his head strangely empty. It feels like he should be out there, doing something, anything.
But until he gets his bearings, he's stuck.
Finding his way out of the shrine had been fairly easy. He also got some clothes, which was a definite positive for when he had to chuck a stick at a bokoblin.
He remembers a few things. Things like his first name, his race, where he was, how to fight, who to fight. The list went on. Basic things. But he couldn't remember the important details, such as how he had gotten here, or what he was here for.
And his hands kept reaching for a weapon on his back, the sense of the stick in his hand being wrong somehow. The weight, length, and shape of the grip didn't feel right.
There was something that belonged there, but he didn't know what.
Just another unknown to add to his list.
The other shrines on the plateau had proven fairly easy to do. But the buried, rusted machine-creature that he'd fought near one of them-
They terrified him. And he didn't know why.
It was just, the minute he saw their body moving, his body screamed at him to run, to hide, to get away. It locked up the minute his eyes connected with the deep red of the creature.
He remembered those eyes, how they were countless in number and overrun his home. How they would lock onto a target, and then blast a bright blue beam of death, setting the buildings of the town ablaze, sometimes boring holes straight through people. The screams were the only thing he could hear that day.
He remembered how sometimes they wouldn't even bother aiming, just immediately firing in the direction of him and Zelda.
Him and Zelda, being pursued by those eyes...
His instincts told him that being near those things would almost certainly result in his death or massive injury. In his panic, he'd failed to notice the beam being charged up, and consequently fired.
He barely had a moment to throw himself to the side, still being too late to survive unscathed. The beam grazed his side, leaving his already-in-tatters shirt with another hole. Underneath, his skin had burned slightly.
He'd immediately backed up behind a wall and just used bombs to kill it. Whenever the beam came out again, he ran and hid, his ears straining to pick up the sound of it stopping, his breaths coming in quick, short bursts.
He wouldn't, couldn't face those things.
The old man pissed him off for some reason. On the outside he'd seemed friendly, but given the fact that he was the only other person on the plateau...
And his gut just didn't like him.
When he saw the man again, some part of him just itched to take out his best weapon (currently, a soldier's broadsword that he'd found behind a waterfall) and just wail on the guy.
His mind said it was payback of some kind, though for what he couldn't remember.
But the old man had the paraglider. The paraglider was what he needed to get off this rock.
His urges, no matter how justified, would have to wait.
He had a sneaking suspicion that Zelda was in the castle.
The castle, which was currently overwhelmed by raging corruption, courtesy of Calamity Ganon.
Fear rose within him, a feeling that seemed to choke the air out of his lungs, even if he wasn't moving.
Calamity Ganon.
The words themselves were undoubtedly evil, the cause for so much death and destruction and flames all around them-
His thoughts spiralled, flashes of memory flitting past his eyes, remembering his friends, his family,the cruel ways they died.
They were dead.
He was the only one left, spared from the wrath of a force that decimated the kingdom.
He was the only one left, the only one who might even remember the people from a hundred years ago, the people who his entire life revolved around. He couldn't even do anything about it.
Tears ran down his face, not even registering as he relived the horrors of the past. He should've been there, to help them, to save them, stop their deaths. It was his fault, that they died, that the kingdom burned, that Zelda was trapped in that prison of hatred.
He was so, so tired. He just wanted to sit down, let the time pass until he could join them, if only to see them again.
A flash of gold shone from the castle, breaking through the cover of rampant malice. He felt something on his cheek, like a hand cradling his face.
"Don't blame yourself for what Ganon did, Link." The voice echoed, its tone one of softness and regret. "If anything, we couldn't have prepared, at all, for what he did."
The voice continued. "But you are here now. We have a chance, a spark of hope after a century."
"You are that spark, Link. You are an entire century's worth of hope. You are not alone. Everyone from the past is beside you, you just cannot see it."
"Go, Link. Become strong, free the Divine Beasts. I will wait for you, my knight, as long as you require me to. I will wait for you as you have waited for me." Tears still lined his cheeks, but hope started welling in his chest.
And he felt something else as well. A call, a part of his very soul reaching out to him, asking to reunite with the rest of him. A symbol on his hand glowed, the highest triangle out of three. His eyes locked onto the horizon, a mass of pink in the distance, beyond Hyrule Castle.
A name provided itself. Fi.
Another place he had to go.
He would regain his strength. He would bring down a century's worth of vengeance on Ganon, consequences be damned. That creature would not survive him. He would fight as hard as he possibly could.
For Hyrule.
For Zelda.
I'm back after long last. This site ticks me off sometimes, it's so difficult to write stories on. I've moved to AO3 as my main, go check my stuff out there. Also have a Wattpad account (ugh) that I have some stuff one, needs updating. This is my new main story, so I focus on this.