Chapter Text
When he came to, the first thing he knew was that he was suffocating. He gasped for air, but for naught; there was none to enter his mouth.
His arms flailed, hit walls right next to him, and while he choked on what felt like nothing, one of them broke through the surface into cool air. He managed to grab hold of the top of one of the walls and pulled on it with such force that his body folded over it.
The moment his upper body was free, his lungs expelled whatever thick liquid he’d been laying in, he’d been breathing in. Even once they were empty, coughs continued to shake him.
Then he just hung there, breaths laboured, but at least he was breathing. It felt like a luxury, after waking without any air in his lungs. It felt a luxury, period. He hung there until he noticed how much the low wall he hung over dug into his side, and then he hung for a little longer until the position finally grew too uncomfortable to endure.
So he moved to push himself up, and then clung to the edge for dear life when a wave of vertigo washed over him and threatened to throw him right back into the viscous liquid. But he managed to hold on until the weakness had passed, somehow, and cast a look around.
There was a dim haze around him, one lit by tiny blue particles. It obscured the details of the room he found himself in, but not so much that he couldn’t make out the walls. They were dark, with lighter swirling patterns that accentuated the walls, columns that lined them and, at the far end of the room, barely visible from where he was, surrounded something that might have been a door.
His eyes focussed on it, and he carefully lifted himself up by his hands that were still propped up on the edge. His legs shook uncontrollably from the effort, so he lowered himself to sit on the edge and pulled them over to the other side, one after the other.
He sat like this for a moment and took another look around while he caught his breath. Only now did he notice the orange constellations on the walls and on the ceiling, the stars of them glowing a soft orange and connected by thin lines of the lighter material on the walls. There were more of them than he could count, and they felt unfamiliar. Not that that was anything strange, even if they were modelled after the night sky—he had never been one for stargazing.
When he finally managed to pull himself away from the wondrous sight, his legs hadn’t quite stopped shaking, but it had noticeably lessened. So he moved to stand up. When he swayed, he threw out his arms to his sides, and after a little more swaying, he regained his balance, though his legs were shaking more again.
Carefully, he lifted a foot of the ground to take a step forward. Nearly immediately, his ankle snapped to the side, and before he knew it, pain shot through his side as he collided with the ground.
He groaned and rolled onto his back to take pressure from his hurting side, where he just laid for a moment and stared at the stars above him while he waited for the pain to subside.
It didn’t fade completely, but at some point, he determined that it was good enough and sat up, which somehow took a lot more effort than it had any right to. He looked up at where he suspected the door again, measured the distance with his eyes and decided that his shaking legs were still too weak to make the whole treck there. Since he wasn’t very interesting in falling again and there was nobody around to watch him, he could just crawl to the door, and no-one would ever know.
So that’s what he did, even if the ground leading up to the door was hard and made of the same protruding light brown swirls that were on the walls and he had to be careful where to put his hands and knees so that those swirls wouldn’t press too painfully into his skin.
He was so focussed on putting one hand and knee in front of the other that he didn’t notice he had reached his goal until his head knocked into the wall. He flinched back and looked up to found that he actually hadn’t found the wall but what looked like thick vertical bars that stood close enough that not even a finger would fit in between, made of the same light colour as the swirls on the floor and walls. Lines stuck out from them and formed an image across all of the bars; a single stylized eye with a swirling pattern surrounding it, and what looked like they might be letters on top and below them, though he had never seen anything like it before.
He sat back on his feet and took a closer look at the door—or what he thought might be a door. There was no handle though, no key hole, nothing that looked like it could be used to open it. Not from down here at least. So he put his hands against the door and carefully got back to his feet, making sure that he shifted his weight forwards so that he wouldn’t fall again. But even when he examined it from up close, the results didn’t change; there was nothing that looked even remotely like it could be used to open the door on there.
“Was zur Hölle,<What the hell>” he muttered. He couldn’t just be trapped in here, could he? He really hoped it wasn’t one of those doors that could only be opened remotely.
He turned his back to what he assumed was the door, careful not to shift his weight away from it, and took another look around. His eyes fell on what looked like some sort of pedestal that he had to have overlooked on first glance. It was just a few steps away, and it was dark with the light swirls and had a border of light swirls on the top too.
He sighed and steadied himself before he pushed off from the door, opened his arms wide and stumbled over to it. Somehow he made it, and even if he stumbled at the end, he managed to catch himself on the pedestal and tightly wrapped his arms around it so that even if his shivering legs would give way under him, he wouldn’t fall like he did before.
For a moment, he stood like this to catch his breath and make sure he wouldn’t fall again. Then, he pushed himself up and slowly walked around the pedestal to where it was lowest, which seemed to be the front.
The surface of the pedestal glowed in a glue, ringed pattern, and there was something in the middle of it, some sort of stone slab. When he raised a hand to touch it, the blue rings lit up and a middle part that had been hidden before suddenly raised up from the surface, and he yelped and stumbled back, then slipped on the smooth ground and fell on his behind. He watched with wide eyes as the middle part rotated ninety degrees, then the stone slab within it before it stood up in the pedestal. The same eye symbol as on the door was drawn onto it, light on dark, just that the iris of it glowed bright blue and the three eyelashes and some other patterns glowed orange.
“Was—<What>” he breathed, then coughed when the word caught in his throat wrong. He looked up again at the thing with a frown, then used the pedestal to get back on his feet when he realised that the stone thing seemed to just stand there, waiting for him to pick it up. He turned to the right and to the left to examine it, see if it would do anything strange when he did, but since it stayed non-reactive aside from the blinking orange lights, he finally grabbed it by the handle and pulled it out of the pedestal.
This time, when the middle part of the pedestal twisted and sank back into it, he was ready. Then, the ground rumbled, and he quickly wrapped his arms around the pedestal again so he wouldn’t fall. He watched as the bars of the door slowly lifted; first the middle one, then the ones next to it, and then the ones next to that, until the doorway was completely free.
So that thing really was a door.
When the low rumbling stopped, he stumbled towards it, his right hand still wrapped tightly around the handle of whatever it was that he’d just picked up. This time, his walk was steadier, though he did turn a bit too late and drove his shoulder into the far side of the doorway.
With a hiss, he moved the stone slab into his other hand so he could use his right to push against the wall for balance. Like this, he walked down the hallway to another door, one that looked a little different than the first one but also had the strange letter-looking symbols and the crying eye symbol. There was another pedestal next to it, one that looked a little different, with a completely smooth surface, a wide ring that glowed blue in the middle, surrounded by a thinner orange one, and around it the same pattern that had been on the other pedestal, just in orange instead of blue this time.
He frowned and took another look at the stone slab he picked up. There was the same blue ring in the eye, and now that he took a closer look at it, there was another, thinner ring in orange as well. That had to mean something, right? Did that mean this thing was the key to this door as well?
He picked it up and held it against the pedestal, making sure that the rings overlapped. Nothing happened.
He frowned and took a closer look at the thing. Why didn’t it work? He couldn’t really be trapped in here, could he?
Panic was already rising in him when he flipped the slab over and finally took a look at the side that didn’t have an eye emblem on it. It was still dark in here, only barely lit up by the mist of blue glowing wisps, but he paused when he found what looked to be a black smooth rectangle on the other side. He frowned and put a finger to it. It was smooth, like it was made of glass.
Like a screen.
Was this not just any slab? Was this like a phone? The size of the screen seemed to confirm that, even if he’d never seen a phone with a thick handle like this before. Or maybe it was more like a tablet, with its general size and clunkiness.
Either way, why didn’t it work? Or maybe he’d have to put the tablet’s screen on the pedestal for it to activate, since the back of it was bumpy and at least a centimeter thick at the widest part.
When he tried that, there was finally a reaction. A blue wave washed out from the middle of the pedestal, colouring all the orange lines blue as well.
He startled when a monotone voice rang out, but not nearly as much as he had when the other pedestal suddenly started moving. Talking devices weren’t new to him, though he hadn’t expected the pedestal to be one of them.
The pedestal said a few more words before the ground rumbled again, and he grasped for it for balance, though he didn’t need to hold on as tightly now. When he looked over to the door, he found that the eye emblem on it glowed blue now. Some horizontal bars slid aside, and then the vertical ones moved up, revealing bright light shining into the hallway, like sunlight that cleared away the strange glowing mist.
He squinted against the sunlight and stumbled forward and up the stairs. At times, he had to climb where some had broken away or debris had fallen from the ceiling of the rough tunnel, but soon enough, he made it up and through an archway that was lined by those strange brown swirly things.
With wide eyes, he stepped out into the sun. The earth was soft between his toes, and the grass tickled against his legs all the way up to the upper half of his thighs. He barely even noticed the breeze brushing over his bare skin, so captivated was he by the view that presented itself to him. It was nature, untamed and so beautiful that it nearly took his breath away. In the distance, there were mountains, even a volcano, and there was not a single building in sight.
Then, he looked down to the woods down beneath his feet, and suddenly, he realised that the ground fell away right in front of his feet and stumbled back. How did he not realise how close he stood to the edge of a cliff?
Shaking his head about himself, he turned around and startled when he found a wolf just a few meters away from him. It laid on the ground, its tail lazily swishing from side to side, and looked straight at him. It stared at him from wide, blue eyes, gaze intense enough to make his skin crawl. There was a peculiar white marking on its forehead.
He froze where he stood and desperately tried to recall anything he had been told about what to do when you encountered a wolf. What was it—wolves were usually more afraid of humans than humans were of wolves? There was also something about never turning them your back and running away but instead to always look at them while you slowly backed up. Or was that just about dogs? He couldn’t remember.
While he stood and thought, the wolf got to its paws—slowly, like it didn’t want to scare him. It still looked at him with an expression that didn’t seem quite fitting for an animal, head tilted as it examined him.
Maybe it considered whether or not to make him its next meal.
He stumbled back at the thought. The wolf’s head jerked up, but just when he thought it would pounce at him, it backed up a couple steps, clumsily, like it wasn’t used to walk backwards on all fours.
Just as he wondered just what he was watching right now, the wolf somehow stumbled over its legs and sat down so suddenly that it looked completely baffled.
The sight of an apex predator falling on its own behind like a clumsy fool was enough to make the tension fall off of him, and he snorted. When the wolf looked positively offended at that, like it understood it was being laughed at, he cracked up even more, even bending over at the waist. The thought of an animal understanding human emotions was just too absurd.
When shadows began to twist underneath the wolf, he paused. Was he seeing that right? Then, the shadows flowed up the sitting and somehow affronted-looking wolf like water flowed down a slope until it completely wrapped around it. That’s when the wolf’s form itself began to twist, to pull and stretch until it resembled a human more than an animal. And indeed—when the darkness flowed off of it, it revealed a person with light skin, dark blonde hair, the same piercing eyes as the wolf and the same pattern on their forehead, just that the tattoo was black instead of white.
He blinked. “Was—<What>”
The person sighed and muttered something that he couldn’t understand, not because their voice was so quiet, but rather because the sounds they made in the order they made them made absolutely no sense to him. It was a language he had never heard before, one he couldn’t even place where it might come from. At least it didn’t sound European to him. So when the person got to their feet and spoke up again, louder this time, it didn’t really help things.
He needed a moment to find his words, because what even was this situation? “Tut mir leid, ich versteh dich nicht.<I'm sorry, I don't understand you.>” His throat felt itchy, so he coughed lowly to clear it and surreptitiously lifted a hand to rub it.
The person tilted their head and said something, and when he remained silent, they moved their hands in what might supposed to be sign language, just that the movements, too, were completely unfamiliar to him. Not that sign language in general was familiar to him. So he shook his head. “Versteh ich nicht, tut mir leid,<I don't understand, I'm sorry.>” he repeated.
The person looked at him for another moment before they repeated, “Versteh nicht.<Don't understand.>” Then, they pointed to themself and said something he didn’t understand before repeating the last word with emphasis, “Link.”
He pointed at the person. “Du bist Link?<You are Link?>”
The person nodded excitedly. Then, they pointed at him and tilted their head in question.
He pointed at himself. “Ich bin Sascha,<I'm Sascha.>” he introduced himself. And then, because Link had done it that way, Sascha repeated his name.
Link pointed at him and asked, “Du bist Sascha?<You're Sascha?>”
Sascha nodded, just as excited as Link was. “Ja!<Yes!>” he agreed and coughed.
Link frowned, then said something and pointed at Sascha and mimed drinking something. Sascha, who was rubbing his still itching throat, nodded, so Link gestured him to follow and turned to walk down a slope that Sascha hadn’t noticed before.
Sascha made just a few steps before he stumbled over his own two feet and went to the ground with a yelp. When he heard Link speak, he looked up to find them crouch down in front of him, a concerned expression on their face. He sat up with some effort and lifted his leg to show how much it was shaking from effort. He must have stood for too long.
Understanding bloomed on Link’s face, and they said something and lifted a finger to show him to wait, then they rushed down the slope and to a small overhang further down, where they bent over and seemed to gather some things.
They came back then, now with a satchel slung over their shoulder through which they searched as they walked. They pulled out a canteen and held it to Sascha with some words.
“Danke,<Thanks>” Sascha said and put down the tablet thing that he was still holding in his lap before he took the canteen and fiddled with the cap. It took a moment before he got it open, and then, he gulped down the water that was in the canteen before he handed it back. Link asked something and showed a thumbs-up while he tilted their head in question. Sascha nodded and held a thumb up too. “Besser,<Better>” he agreed.
Link smiled, then said something and made a string of gestures or signs that confused Sascha at first. It took him a moment to understand that Link meant to support him while they walked over to the outcropping where Link’s things seemed to be. Once he understood it, Sascha nodded, picked the tablet back up and held out his free hand to let Link help him up. Then, Link pulled the hand they took over their shoulders and wrapped their arm around his waist to pull him close before they slowly walked him towards the overhang.
Whenever Sascha’s knee gave way, Link stopped walking and held him tighter, then waited until Sascha showed him with a curt nod that he was ready to continue walking. It took them quite a while until they reached the overhang, but if Link was impatient with how long it took them, they didn’t show it; whenever Sascha looked at them, they only showed a patient smile.
Once they reached the outcropping, Link helped Sascha sit down next to the remains of a campfire before they sat down opposite of them. They spoke and gestured again then, and again, it took Sascha a while until he understood that they asked if he was hungry, if he wanted them to reignite the fire and roast some meat for him.
Only once Sascha realised what Link wanted of him did he realise how hungry he was. It almost felt like there was a hole where his stomach was supposed to be. So he nodded.
Link immediately went to work on the campfire, and Sascha watched with fascination. He had never seen somebody start a fire like this, just with the use of tinder and small sticks and fire and steel, all without the help of matches or a lighter or any kind of fire starter that he knew, really. It went surprisingly quick, too, and when Link looked up with a triumphant smile after carefully placing some bigger wood on it, Sascha shot him a thumbs-up. If starting a fire like this was as easy as it looked, maybe he should learn it too.
Then, Link tilted their head at him, and Sascha frowned. “Was?<What?>” But instead of answering, Link opened their satchel again and searched in it before they pulled out some fabric and threw it at him. It nearly smacked Sascha in the face. Then, they mimed pulling clothes on.
When Sascha looked down at himself, confused, he realised why Link wanted him to put some of their clothes on—he wore nothing but a pair of underpants, and he hadn’t even realised it. In his defense, it was pretty warm out. Still, he quickly pulled the shirt and the loose pair of pants on and slung the belt Link handed him then around his waist. The clothes were a bit big, clearly made for someone taller and bulkier than him, but they did the job while being light enough that he didn’t feel stifled by the heat.
When he looked back up, Link nodded with a satisfied smile and held a thumb up. Sascha grinned and held a thumb up as well.
They might not know each other’s languages, but for that, they understood each other pretty well.
Link wasn’t sure what he had expected when Hylia had appeared before him not quite a week ago.
It had been the middle of the night, and he had found himself unable to go back to sleep, which wasn’t exactly new ever since Midna had shattered the Mirror of Twilight and seperated their realms for good. Either way, he’d just given up on sleep and was just about to leave for a walk to clear his thoughts, his hand already on the doorhandle, when She had appeared right behind him.
She had been silent, didn’t make a single sound, but She didn’t need to for him to notice Her. The air had been full with Her presence, with the smell of ozone and flowers and a warmth that was much softer than the stifling heat of summer even this late at night.
He had looked up, then, hand still on the handle, and he hadn’t quite understood what—or rather who—he had looked at at first. She was a woman, with long, pointed ears and pale skin and golden hair spilling over Her shoulders and soft blue eyes and a pair of white-feathered wings that were folded at Her back. But even as his eyes had registered that, there had been something otherworldly about Her, something ethereal, that made the notion that She might be nothing more than a mere hylian absolutely ridiculous.
Link had never been in the presence of the hylian’s matron goddess before, but he didn’t have to in order to recognise that it was Her who stood before him in that moment. And even though he’d never worshipped Her that closely, not even after he had picked up the Master Sword, he dropped down to his knees without a second thought; not doing so in front of the goddess who had protected the people he descended from and who had chosen him as Her hero felt like sacrilege.
Then, fingers touched underneath his chin and tilted it up, the touch light as a feather. A kind expression was on Hylia’s face as She told him, “Rise, Hero of Twilight.” Her voice was like chiming bells, and it sounded like it came from all around him and in his mind all at the same time.
Once he got to his feet, too stunned to speak, She tilted her head at him and told him about a mission She had for him, of a hero, far in the future, who could not succeed his task, who nearly lost his life in the endeavour to protect his Hyrule and needed to be put into a long slumber in order to recover from his injuries. She had told him that She wanted Link to stand at his side, to train him and guide him like the Hero’s Shade had trained and guided him, just much more present than the ancient hero ever was. She wanted him to go through every step of the way with this future hero, until he was sure that the hero could stand and fight on his own two feet. She told him that if he agreed, he could ask for anything he wanted when it was all over, and She would grant him that wish to the best of Her abilities.
Once he got to his feet, too stunned to speak, She tilted her head at him and told him about a mission She had for him, of a hero, far in the future, who could not succeed his task, who nearly lost his life in the endeavour to protect his Hyrule and needed to be put into a long slumber in order to recover from his injuries. She had told him that She wanted Link to stand at his side, to train him and guide him like the Hero’s Shade had trained and guided him, just much more present than the ancient hero ever was. She wanted him to go through every step of the way with this future hero, until he was sure that the hero could stand and fight on his own. She told Link that if he agreed, he could ask for anything he wanted when it was all over, and She would grant him that wish to the best of Her abilities.
It hadn’t taken much to convince Link after that, and so, after packing his things and leaving a note for Rusl in which he explained the reason for his sudden departure, She had opened a portal for him. Once he’d been through, She’d shown him the cave in which some sort of shrine resided and explained that the hero currently slept within it but would wake soon and come out on his own, that Link would know him when he saw him because he was the only person in that shrine, that he’d know him by the extensive burn scars that led down the left side of his body. And then, She left, just poofed out of existence like she’d never been there and left him without a way back, to wait for this mystery hero to wake from his slumber.
Now, he watched said hero tear into the meat Link had roasted with abandon, like he’d been starving in that cave—Which was likely the truth, seeing how long Sascha must have been in there if he could barely manage to walk even a distance as short as from the cave to Link’s overhang on his own. Unless there had been some sort of food in there for him, but Link hadn’t gotten a look of what it looked like inside that shrine, so he had no idea about that.
What Link hadn’t expected at all was to have absolutely no way to communicate with this new hero, other than charades. Whatever language the kid was speaking, he had never heard it before. It wasn’t of Ordon, but neither was it of his Hyrule or the Zora or Gorons or of any other parts of the lands he had travelled on his journey. Maybe he was just far enough in the future that the hylian language just sounded that much different, but then again, it sounded more like a completely foreign language than a variant of Hylian, based on what he’d heard. Or maybe he really was just that far into the future.
Sascha didn’t seem to know any sign language either, or at least he’d never attempted to try and use signs to make himself known, as far as Link could tell. He also never tried to communicate unless Link initiated it, but that could also be because he’d only just awakened from a slumber that lasted Hylia knew how long. He did still seem very confused at times, had looked at the view from up on the cliff like he’d seen it for the very first time and stumbled along like a kid that hadn’t learned to walk quite yet.
Link hoped that it was only a symptom of his long sleep and nothing that would delay his return too much. He’d thought long and hard about what to wish for once Hylia came to bring him back to his home era, and he came to the decision that he’d really like to have a way to meet Midna again. If possible, a way to reliably meet her without her having to worry that what happened with Ganondorf would happen again, but if he could only meet her one more time, then he’d ask for just a few days so he could properly say his goodbyes, so he could tell her all the things that remained unsaid, and so she could do the same.
For now, Link just watched Sascha as he roasted more meat over the fire, watched the boy eat, and dreamt of when he would finally meet his old companion again.