Fierce Deity? More Like Fierce Daddy

Fierce Deity? More like Fierce Daddy

...

The bottom right is Full Colorization of what Deity did when Hylia let Wild die

Linktober (Shadow) 2023

Spirit

Welp turns out my exam season throughly steam rolled through my general Linktober plans, so you get this VERY late thing for now folks who find this, at least until I decide whether to continue this until I finish it even though it's no longer Linktober or if I'll make whatever other stories come later their own thing after exam season is over (mostly because the original for this one is my preferred draft, and that I feel the one for the Link/Dark Link prompt would be kind of wasted if it just sat there collecting dust cause I worked hard on the tension and horror there lord darn it, along with a few others mainly involving Fae Hyrule, Twilight, Time, First, among other Links like Legend, Sky, Warriors, just all of the boys, I wanted to give them all proper spotlight and still want to do that in any way I can). Welp. *Downs coffee like a shot* Also really need to find out how to make a Masterlist on mobile, figure out how AO3 works and answer asks.

Anyway, not really any warnings this time besides Reader Not Being Okay (par the course really) and angst.

As always can be read as either romantic or platonic, Reader is gender neutral on purpose, technically is meant to be read as either Hero's Shade Time x Reader or First x Reader mainly, but you can interpret it as any Link really lol

Good reading!

This corner of Faron Woods was quiet this time of year.

The woods were solemn in this Hyrule, the sliver of moonlight barely enough of a guide through the mist, it was silent but for the soft padding of animals through the underbrush and the howl of a wolf in the distance (not Wolfie's, not musical enough). The stars were your only company as you were separated from the group, the air was cold agaisnt your skin as you attempted to find your way.

Being alone in the forests of Hyrule never spelled anything good for anyone, but as you felt the brush of a hand tenderly twined in yours, the ghost of leather and the faint clinking of steel, and a faint glow of pale gold and ivory cutting through the veil of the night, mindful of roots you may trip onto and never flickering too far out of sight you couldn't feel safer, even  if instead something like melancholy threatened to lock your throat with the chains of silence, you felt as warm as the soft twilight glow and as frigid as ice, frostburned with the bitter cold of your own warring emotions.

You can't help but chuckle a bit whille holding a old scabbard close to your heart, it's a wry sound, "It's been a while, hasn't it?"

There is no answer, of course there isn't, but you don't mind, you know he'll listen, thorns wrap around your heart and crawl up your throat, the smell of lilies and steel coats and sticks in your throat like honey, or maybe blood, "... I didn't think you'd show up, you know? I always considered the possibility but..." You trail off, you feel something brush your side, you can only see him in the corner of your eyes or with a passing glance, there but not, existing but gone, so you keep your eyes on the road and in the flicker of light, so you carefully don't look to your side, you don't think you could contain the shaking in your heart otherwise, to stare at inevitability and prophecy, "... I know, I know you're fine. At least for now, I apologize for all the trouble I gave you."

'It's alright. It could never be a hardship aiding you.', the voice echoes in your ears, and you swallow thickly, breath hitching, the warmth of the sun in the fields of Hyrule, the wind caressing your hair, the song of the animals in Faron Woods, someone holding you carefully, fondly. The warmth of your hand in his. Not really here, but not gone either, more feeling than true echo.

You chuckle, and try to pretend it's not a bit breathless, something like a wounded keen, "... You're too kind. Too, too kind, thank you."

Spirits in Hyrule never spell anything good, in this wild land of light and shadow in a gestalt of divinity. There are some exceptions though, even if it hurts to witness then. So you follow him through the dark, certain that as you've guided his way once, he'll lead you now to where you need to go.

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... The clearing he leads you to is open, but by no means truly quiet among the trees, there is no peace to be found for the armored skeleton here. You choke on sorrow, on unfinished business, on the cruelty of being brought to ruin and being denied peace, and you stumble towards the familiar figure, almost in a trance as your vision blurs, roots and thorny vines wrap over rusted armor and a thorn cape, the skeleton's void sockets piercing through your soul, illuminated by the solemn gaze of the wretched moon and it's uncaring maids of honor in the stars.

You fall to your knees near the decaying skeleton, biting back against the wounded sound that attempts to leave your throat with enough strenght to bleed, you lay the scabbard by his side with a bouquet of lilies and shiver at the gentle, phantom touch, so soft, so loving it almost leads you to ruin all over again.

'... It's foolish to grieve for someone who isn't gone yet.' the thought comes to you, yet you can't help it. You still hurt for him, you still hold onto the fury at the heavens themselves for denying them quietus. For denying them rest over and over and over again. To watch this cycle and be helpless to stop it all due to the will of uncaring gods.

Alive. Dead. Alive. Dead. Denied full rest over and over again, to watch the chance at rest to the kindest of souls found in this world you found yourself in.

You barely register the touch to your cheek, ephemeral as it is, as you can't help but shed tears, can't help but grieve. Because if you don't, who will?

You know by now that some wounds can never heal, some rifts can never be mended. Even with the guarantee of cyclic, eternal rebirth, some things never return to how they were. And reminding yourself of this inevitability to them will never not hurt, even if you know it's futile to blame anyone but the one god who started this, and maybe the goddess who stood complacent to it. It leaves a bitter taste in your mouth that it'll one day come to this, that the frost of death and the sharpness of pain will leave a mark the sands of time can't scar over.

You reach a trembling hand towards the one in your cheek, try to find catharsis in the remains of decayed, dead yet ever eternal, ever growing love. And you breathe.

'We'll meet again. So do not mourn for me, please.'

You don't think you could deny him if you tried. Not when you know he's trying to soothe you, to thaw your sorrow. To allow your heart's healing to fallow.

"We will, I know. I'm sorry for making you worry." You chuckle, leaning into the cold, trying to brand the memory of the shadowed, but not gone love given to you so you can return it in kind. Just until you meet again, just until you can give all you can to his not yet decomposing self, grasping onto what remains of him, "I love you."

'I love you too. Until we meet again.'

The cold is gone, the echo of love leaves. And you breathe, and pretend you don't feel empty.

(When you see Link again, reuniting with the Chain on the next day's twilight. You hug him as tight as you can, and hope you he doesn't notice the tears in your eyes. And that you don't feel the lingering traces of a frigid embrace.

When no one is looking, you wave goodbye to the shade. And pray he dreams of warmer days until he finds quietus.)

The god of war and his silly bunny owls

Linktober Shadow, Day 4

Lost

I feel like we really need to talk more about how the Lost Woods are a concept as beautiful as it is terrifying actually.

Wild/BOTW/TOTK Link fans, this one's for you and brought by my severe sleep deprivation, enough caffeine to kill a grown woman with less spite and my medieval literature/narrative/poetry teacher who motivated me through the entire creative process via helping me throw ideas at the wall even as all of the essays I gotta turn in are going to make me late in posting Sage. *laughs hysterically, immediately collapses*

As always can be read as romantic or platonic, and it's up to interpretation what's going down on this one. And can also be read in or outside of an LU context, I'm leaving it vague both on purpose and because of sleep deprivation lol.

Of all places you could say you most intimately did not wish to be alone after being separated from the Chain, the Lost Woods of literally any era but specially Wild’s would definitely be on your top three at a pristine number one.

Really, if you weren’t currently being stalked through the darkened, shadowed weald of the once welcoming evergreen home of both the Minish and Kokiri, whom you knew could be much, much more beautiful lovely (it did aid in raising a good chunk of your beloved heroes, after all) and with your heart working with all the urgency of a wounded deer being chased by a wolf. You’d almost commend it for it’s choice in setting this time.

Keyword being almost, for it compared naught to the sheer and utter terror that burned through your every sinew, marrow and veins at the accuracy of that statement, and the implication that your nebulous and hauntingly familiar current hunter grew ever more clever each passing second of your adventure.

You ran, ran and ran through the living woods, trying desperately to find any possible landmark, an oddly shaped tree, one of the torches or the remain of the skeletons from the old, ruined iterations of the Temple of Time from long bygone eras that the forest had reclaimed, or the hint of the breeze soft whispers from the echoes of the Kokiri or the elated branch rattle giggling laughter of the Skull Children. At this point you’d take even the the mad, beast like howling of the Stalfos or the tortured wailing of Poes, somewhere between vesania tainted laughter and the primal, feral pleading for one’s survival that shook you to the marrow.

There was no such symphony now, the woods as silent as a grave.

(The hauting ground of so, so many that it did not love or could not hold onto anymore, whispered a corner of your mind, and it sounded like the Shadow, with it’s ominous phlegmatic hissing, twisted amusement and sadistic brutality all in one.)

Your arm had long gone numb, broken under the impossible force held by the beast of sulfur and obsidian that the world itself rebelled against warring at it’s very existence as it roared it’s wrath back at it, the Goddesses, Hylia and Demise and your heroes and princesses caught in the middle of divine design, your legs giving out under the weight of your exhaustion, you tasted copper from the wound on your head dripping down your lips but that did not stop you. Would not stop you, couldn’t stop you.

You grit your teeth so hard against the shout that wanted to tear it’s way out of your throat as you barely kept yourself from hitting your head, diverting your momentum against an old, lonely tree. Your blood sinking into the wood, good, better it than Dark Link.

You were tired, you were exhausted, you swore you could hear a growl among the melancholy of the mist. You hoped the shade did not manage to track you down as you made sure not to leave a trail of blood, but something tells you that it wouldn’t need it to track you even with the faint moonlight barely giving enough aid in your own quest to find it before it found you with your only, laughable weapon being an old arrow you’ve pilfered from a long decomposed corpse almost falling from your white knuckled grip.

You didn’t want to die, you needed to survive.

You though of the Chain, your lovely, chaotic, kind boys, of Sky’s ever ecompassing kindness and Four’s brilliant cleverness, Time’s quiet comfort and Legend’s fierce hidden gentleness and Wind’s trailblazing joy, Hyrule’s tender sweetness and Warrior’s warm protectiveness and Wild’s beautiful adoration for life.

You missed them, and it was likely you wouldn’t see them again, that more than anything hurt more than all of your wounds combined.

You try to push yourself up, to move, to live, to keep moving forward, caring not for the stillness of the glade. Barely noticing the sudden silence as you almost pitched forward once again, stumbling onto the earth as your grip onto your makeshift weapon finally gave out-

Only for a pair of arms to catch you, steady, magnolias and rosemary, petrichor from untamed, ancient Hyrule. A bright Sheikah cerulean tunic and a navy cloak falling over darkned boots.

You freeze, hands twitching, it couldn’t be an illusion. You’ve seen plenty in the corner of your eye as you traversed through the woods, attempting to lead you astray. None of them were solid, many of them weren’t quite as cold as this, whoever was holding you.

But it couldn't be real either, it shouldn't.

“Link...?”, came your tired rasp, you felt as if you’ve swallowed sand (briefly, you wondered if the taste of flowers on the back of your tongue mixing with the copper of the liquid of life in your veins was the reason. Then resolved yourself not to think about it), your traitorous body succumbing to exhaustion as the stranger gently held you up (friend, friend, but it couldn’t be, Wild tried to hold onto you, the memory of his desperation scorching under your eyelids like a brand and his howl of denial mixed with self loathing would haunt your for days to come, maybe months, he was far away and hopefully safe, it couldn’t be him).

The figure merely steadied you against themselves, silent as they swung you into their arms, you briefly struggled. It was instinct to put up a fight, to push against the liminal illusion cruelly meant to haunt your possible last moments as another soon to be lost souls chest, or heck for all you knew it could be the Shadow, dragging it out, playing with your torment as it gave you scraps of hope before taking it away. The figure paused, only to gently readjust you -painfully careful as the memory of the gentleness belonging to your Champion but oh so wrong made your heart ache-, the figure lowly speaking, their tone the emerald eternity of the kingdom’s fields and like setting stitches against your wounded self, like the soothing nature of early autumn rain. Almost a whisper, cracked like the wind through the leaves.

“... Rest. You’ll be alright.”

You wanted to protest, wanted to claw and fight and bite his throat off just in case even if you weren’t sure it would take, as with your head in the crook of his hood you couldn’t hear a heartbeat, but your exhaustion won out in the end. Held in the warmth of the sun over Faron Woods with the glimpse of fierce cerulean blue, the gaze of a reynard whom a part of you knew wouldn’t give you up without a fight and safer than you felt since getting pounced through that cursed portal.

When you next came to, it was to Wild’s frantic worry at the edges of camp, his hair like a frazzled shroud as he dropped everything in hand of his watch to check on your now wrapped wounds. Hugging you tight as you held him just as close back.

This time, you found a heartbeat, and you could almost weep with relief, and in the darkness of the woods a shrouded shade smiled.

Returning to the mist unseen and unheard. But content you were home.

Linktober 2023

Sage

Disclaimer from the get go: All platonic this time! I don't like writing Wind or Wind Waker Link or many people from his games in a romantic context so don't be weird about it guys, Reader is also the same age (unless stated as older) and if anything is implied, it's only on the stage of boyish crushes and otherwise either strictly friends or sibling-like relationships for obvious reasons, if it's not stated on that context of crushes then please take it as platonic. Seriously, don't make it weird. I mean it.

On a lighter note, the Wind Waker Sages are really underrated and I would die for Medli. Makes the older sibling in me want to give her headpats.

There were some constants to Hyrule that you’ve learned over a period of time, experience and outside observation.

A Sorcerer King will inevitably rise (some times just a sorcerer, some times just a king albeit a powerful one), traveling to other worlds and times can basically be another Tuesday when that inevitably happens. Links will always be kind and at their very best when protecting others (which was equal parts heartwarming as it was exasperating, because you knew the Chain would run themselves to the ground if you didn’t keep make sure to keep an eye on them as they did one another, always giving so much of themselves away to a point you always worried there would be nothing left), and that Zelda’s were forces of nature with divinity trapped beneath their skin that should not be underestimated, for they were willing to go through any length of sacrifice for their people and kingdom even if it includes themselves.

Sages, whoever, were another matter entirely that no one can really prepare for, from Nabooru to Gulley and even the Zelda’s themselves. Wise beyond their age and always willing to lend a helping hand to the kingdom should it be needed, always one step behind the Princess in support and only closely followed by the Hero and the Sheikah, chosen seemingly at random but still more, in a way, as magic brushed against their skin with the affectionate touch of an old friend. It was honestly a little intimidating.

Which was why meeting Medli was so refreshing.

“I’m happy to meet you, I hope you’ll feel welcome here in Dragon Roost Island.” Came the sweet thrill of greeting from the young, chestnut haired Rito as she took your hand in wing, smiling gently, “My name is Medli, Link talks quite a lot about you.”

You blink, tilting your head, “Does he now? Hopefully only the good things.” You laugh, a bit awkwardly, you’d be the first to admit you’re way out of your depth ever since you were dropped into Hyrule, but you were trying your best.

She nodded enthusiastically, you think you can see her feathers ruffling from excitement, cute, “Mhm! He talks about you quite highly, in fact-“, she gets a glint in her eye.

You hop back as Wind comes in like a tempest at sea, cutting her off in offense,“Hey! You promised you wouldn’t tell!”

“Well it’s true, I’ve only ever seen you that excited about Tetra and Mask, they deserve to know.” Countered Medli, Wind crossed his arms with a small ‘hmph!’.

“Would you like it if I did the same about Komali?”

Medli gasped, feathers puffing up in surprise and almost dropping her harp with a stern squawk which you quickly dove to catch, exhaling with relief, it looked important to her, “You wouldn’t!”

“I would!”

“But it would just distract him!”

“Don’t care, you spill my secrets I spill yours!”

You couldn’t help it, you laughed, patting their heads on instinct. Can anyone blame you? They’re precious. “Alright, alright, settle down. Why don’t you guys show me around? You did mention a nice dragon lived here, Link.”

Medli immediately brightened up, excitedly diving into all the information she could about Lord Valoo, as he was called, while Wind took your hand and dragged you along.

Mhm, you quite like Medli.