#(and link)

(Like where there isn’t over a hundred years between the start of the calamity and rauru’s seal running out of magic. Just a few years maximum in between instead)

For example: Like does link just show up in Zora domain after being missing, with a ghost’s arm and a majority of his life force (or whatever heart containers are) drained? or what if a Zora patrol finds unconscious (again with a weird arm) along a river bank, presumably having fallen into it during the chaos of the upheaval? Or maybe Zelda and link trade places?

There are so many directions you can take it!

I’d love to hear your thoughts!

This is such an interesting idea!

I think in this AU I wouldn't send Zelda back to the past, but maybe the champions.

Maybe Link and Mipha have gotten properly engaged and courting is nearly finished (or they're married?) and so when the champions fall down that hole he is DEVESTATED. As much (and probably more) than he was with Zelda.

Now, why doesn't revali fly them out? Maybe he got bonked by a rock or something

Link's arm gets messed up, and Zelda is fully submerged in malice. The goddess in her blood stops her from being harmed, but it has steeped deep into her soul. They both wake up on the sky island, link with his raurru arm and zelda with some strange new abilities...

After searching for the champions, they come across some memories (which you play through as the champions) and realise they're in the past! So they do the plot stuff and go to the temples, where they find them in their respective temples, locked in time.

Rauru tells them they are sealed there as a sacrifice to keep ganon imprisoned, in temples raised high above the sky so none of his monsters can find them. When they go to Mipha's temple, Link snaps, and accidentally breaks the seal.

Mipha falls out of stasis, aging 10,000 years in less than a minute, and the sky turns blood red as the seal weakens. Rauru temporarily takes control of Link's arm and restores the seal. Mipha goes back to how she was before, the sky turns blue again and zelda is really pissed off with him. He knew he wasn't supposed to open the seal because rauru had told him with the other champions. The angrier zelda gets throughout the game the more the malice in her affects her personality, and she starts to look a little.....monstery

They fight Ganon, and instead of eating a secret stone he enlists the now completely malice possessed zelda to use her powers against Link, meaning he has to fight ganon and zelda at the same time, with Yunobo, Riju, Sidon and Teba (I'm sorry tulin is TOO YOUNG AND I LIKE TEBA) at his back. From far above Hyrule the champions do some magic sagey stuff, weakening ganon, and zelda breaks out of his curse, turning the malice powers against it and draining the malice from ganondorf's body and using it as a weapon for her and link. Ganon, in an attempt to survive swallows his secret stone and link and zeoda are flung into the air, the light dragon (which is revealed to be Sonia in a memory) helps them finish him off and the temples holding the champions fall, crashing into hyrule (and probably killing a lot of peoplehshdhletsignorethat) and so do zelda and link, holding each other as they crash into the water and miraculously not being vaporised :)