AKA SkipBreaker

Between Sun and Aurora, Athena and Dawn fired light arrows while the smallest princess ran for her own bow, stumbling.

The beast gaped and out sprang a spear fire. Though too far to reach them yet, the fire would incinerate them all if it came much closer.

Sun slammed her fists into the water. She had no plan, only a need. 

Three spikes as tall as loftwings thrust up from the water directly in the beast’s path. 

The monstrosity lurched aside at the last moment and the arrows struck tattered wings instead. Sun scrambled to her feet. 

It turned again to attack. 

Faster than Sun could follow, Athena drew out a bomb and hurled it, fuse already lit, straight at the eye. Dusk chased it with a new round of arrows, three at once on her bow. 

The monster closed its last eye against the bomb’s blast, and opened again in time to take three piercing arrows. It screamed, a cacophony rage, knocking the two queens off their feet with the gale of sound. The ground shuddered through Sun’s being, like a giant hand grabbing and shaking her. Under Sun’s feet, the foundation of the realm bucked. Waves from the noise pulled at her. She braced herself desperately against it as best she could while plugging her ears.  

The dragon thrashed its head, desperate. Furious in defeat, it charged again. Though holy light surged through the beast’s veins, consuming the shadows that had borne it, still it charged in blind revenge. Gold light consumed its head, but still the body lumbered forward, clumsy but determined to take them all out. 

It opened it’s maw, the flames within glowing bright.

It knew where to run, where to aim, and the light worked slowly. Its size granted it time enough for one last victory before fading. 

Sun cried out as she tried to call on her power. Her limbs refused to move. 

Too slow to save them. 

They had won, but so would the beast. It would trample them before the light could destroy it. 

She stared at the looming doom, exhausted, and wished she could at least save some of the girls, and at least say goodbye to Link. He’d wait at that statue until he died, wouldn’t he? 

A flash and a bang cracked beside Sun. 

She looked and saw only Echo beside her. With her wand raised high, boxes rose under Tetra’s feet as she ran. The sea captain ran on them, faster than she could on the water. Again came the ear-splitting boom. Tetra aimed and fired, not stopping. Again and again, the sound cracked inside Sun’s skull. 

The beast swung at her with its last functioning appendage–its neck. Rather than run or duck, Tetra leapt up off the last box—no, a rising platform—to grab the burning scales, latching on like a parasite. 

Echo collapsed beside Sun. She shielded the girl as best she could from the beast’s relentless charge. It would mean nothing in the end. 

A different splash at Sun’s feet startled her. One of Tetra's pistols lay there, leaned on her boot. Echo must have been about to use it, but dropped it.

Sun held up the silver device, uncertain how to use the little mechanism. 

“Shoot it!” the Captain screamed from the dragon’s neck to Echo, but she could not hear. She must have handed it to her, then taken on the beast as a distraction. This girl was as reckless as Link! 

But Echo had pushed too far. 

Sun fumbled to understand the device until Hylia’s spirit covered her hands. Hylia guided them, taking in the weapon and its many years of existence, its passage through many hands. It was strange, she thought, to feel love filling her from a weapon, of all things, and yet gold light surrounded them: Hylia’s hands, her own, Tetra’s mother, and grandmother, and great grandmother and…It was love. The need to protect. To aim carefully. To guide the killing blow precisely where it needed to go and nowhere else. Cogs and screws and oil and spirit, it came in a flash of memory. The constructs she had made, the life she had given them. 

The silver pistol turned gold in her hands.

“She gave it… where…” Echo groaned, stirring, and she reached out for the gun.

But Sun stood tall. She leveled the barrel at the thrashing beast, hand strong and steady, and aimed at the monstrous eye as it paused to glare down at her.

She pulled the metal latch back, and with a squeeze on thin metal, she sent the gold bullet soaring. 

The gun leapt, knocking her arm back into her face, and she hurried to correct herself, to see that Tetra was safe. 

The eye burst like ripe fruit striking ground. 

The great body thrashed. Smoke and shadow spewed outward, then contracted inward as it died. Tetra dropped through suddenly empty air. Echo’s light shone, and another of her circles appeared below the pirate captain. Tetra bounced, soared, and landed on her feet with a cackling laugh. She landed on the ground and rolled for a moment, then stood with her fist raised, triumphant. As the storm cleared, Tetra raced over to join their straggling band.

“Got the bastard!” she whooped, and she reached out to Sun for her pistol. 

Sun gingerly handed it back, arm still stinging from the kick. “A powerful weapon,” Sun admitted with a wince.

“She sure is—wait, Sunny, what the hell did you do to it?” Tetra demanded, and examined it with a squint. Tetra pulled out the other and compared them, one dull silver and the other pristine gold.

“Hylia,” Sun shrugged. She wasn’t sure how else to explain the goddesses choice. It was just right that way.

“Huh,” She hummed to herself. “Guess that’s alright by me, so long as it still works. But how did you fix the dents in it, and the sight’s all …” She stopped talking when Sun caught the pleased smile playing on the captain’s face. “Thanks, Sunbeam.”

“His slimy ass is in a jar small enough to make a fairy weep,” Tetra told the others as they gathered. She patted her pocket with a cocky grin. 

“What’s our status?” Athena asked, looking around at the battered group, all mussed hair and sopping clothes. She turned to Sun and scowled. “Is that doing you any good?”

Sun had no idea what she meant until she followed the queen’s gaze to her own arms. The bandages there were unraveling, but her injuries had faded. In fact, she realized with a small startle, all of her injuries faded. 

The others noticed too, and checked themselves. Every wound had been healed.

She unwrapped her arm, and retied the stained sailcloth to her hip. 

“Thank Hylia,” Dusk muttered a tired but sincere prayer to the goddess. 

Sun paused. Was it truly Hylia, she wondered? They carried no potions, and she’d felt no healer’s touch. And for the millionth time she marveled at the fact that within her was… no, best not get lost once again on the strangeness of it—of being a mortal goddess and yet her own self, uncomfortably merging into one soul. Overpowered, erased, yet healed… 

Stop! She commanded her fears. 

So she accepted the boon, and decided not to question it just yet.  

“Alright, Sunshine, where to next?” Tetra stepped aside from Sun with a playful bow. 

She closed her eyes and felt for the darkness. “I… I can’t sense anything.”

“I doubt this is all we came for. There must be more out there,” Athena quipped.

Sun tried again, but the malice that had overwhelmed her now sat trapped in Tetra’s pocket, and nothing else alerted her. 

Athena’s irritated sigh stung.

“I don't sense anything out there.”

“Is it possible?” Aurora gasped. “Could we really cure the realm?” She seemed, for the first time, convinced it might be possible.

“There’s no way we tackled all of it here.”

“Well, then perhaps you can inform us where to go,” Sun snapped back. 

Athena turned away, annoyed but with the dignity to try and hide it.

 Dusk sheathed her blade and stood before Sun, and closed her eyes, and held out her hands, expectant. Sun steadied, and obliged. The reassurance of another woman like her, a servant of Hylia wielding light magic like her, brought a comfort she could never have expected. This woman was a stranger, though kind and obviously a blessing to her people. A true leader. Yet she was also a puzzle piece. Sun never knew was missing, suddenly sliding into place. The woman’s assurance bolstered her. She was something more than another servant of Hylia. She was Her. Another ray from the same light, refracted, reflected. Shining back home. 

She searched again, this time her senses stronger, magic pouring from her companion. A different sort of atmosphere surrounded her. Calm, dark, steady. A hope shining in the dark. A bonfire in the night. It was power laced with empathy. It was loss, and growth.

Dusk’s magic intertwined with hers, and she drew from it. Hylia’s gold light flared within, grasping the magic of Dusk like a dear friend. Loss was not an end, the song of Dusk’s soul whispered. Something sharp in Hylia cracked, shattered, smoothed. Hylia unfurled ever so slightly, her power reaching Sun. 

Sun found the shadow trail. 

It was harder to sense now, much further than before, and moving steadily toward the very direction they’d come from. 

“It’s making a run for the others.” Sun pointed the way back.