#talking link

Dragon Talk It was the first time he was up here since he had retrieved the sword.  It had not been very long since he’d been to the Sky, but it had been a long time since he had been to this specific place… well, it wouldn’t be fair to call it a “place,” would it? Her body was certainly large enough to be a locale and Link wondered idly if one could make a home somewhere on a dragon, like one might consider a sailing-ship one’s home on a long voyage.  He concluded that any shelter would be unstable, given the undulations as the great body worked with and against the wind like a snake in the sand.   The young knight wondered if using her as a mode of transportation was disrespectful.  He had known all this time that dragons were thought of by believers as holy creatures and perhaps as one of the rare people who could actually see them, he ought to be more reverent.  How many loose scales and bits of horn had he plinked off of the creatures with well-shot arrows by now? Dinraal, Naydra and Farosh were a bit more dangerous, given their respective elements.  Link required no special armors to ride the Light Dragon, a beast who, up until very recently, had kept out of sight in the upper atmosphere, beyond a cloud-barrier that no longer existed.   A dragon’s sacred nature was the least of his worries now.  He had learned her secret and felt like he owed her something.  He certainly couldn’t give her anything he truly owed her anymore.  To receive any of it required being a person.   Link climbed the dragon’s mane and sat down gently on the patch of shimmering white fur on her head.  He rubbed gently the place where the Master Sword had once been stuck.  Given what it had taken to retrieve it, he worried that he had hurt her.  With anything immortal it was difficult to tell whether they reacted with pain and the usual instincts or if they felt nothing and were merely giving him a test of worth.  (Link remembered bitterly how the Master Sword, itself, had nearly killed him the first time he’d encountered it.  He was supposedly bound to it by destiny, yet it still didn’t fool around regarding an assessment of strength).   He sighed heavily, settling himself as he watched the sun hover on the horizon over the Gerudo Desert.  The little hovercraft he’d built to get up here was long gone.  He hadn’t been looking simply to get from Point A to Point B, anyway.   “Some way to get back to the future,” he said, stretching out and giving the fur beside him another gentle rub.  “I don’t know if some part of you is still there – I hope so.  I have no idea if you can understand me.  Anyway, Zelda, the sword reached me.  You did it and now it’s all up to me.”   The young man took a deep breath.  It hitched.  “What did you do to yourself?” He clenched his fist – no, the fist of a long dead king – and grit his teeth.  The world beneath them was waiting on him.  Every one of the people who knew even an inkling of his story – the Sages, the Sheikah researchers, even the Monster Control Crews who only knew him vaguely as the princess’ knight and accepted him as a decent fighter depended on him to be strong, to bear any burden without complaint.  He limited his facial expressions around almost everyone.  He threw back his shoulders and stood tall (at least as tall as he could given his short stature – he was rather small even for a Hylian) and presented himself as stoic.  He could not let people worry – or panic.  He was smart enough to know that he couldn’t bear it all alone, that he had friends, but he had to remain calm, for everyone’s sake.   High above the world, however, where no one could see and where no one could hear him but his charge’s bestial remains – he let tears be lost in the wind, leaving their frigid traces on the sides of his face.  Here and only here, could he allow himself to cry.   ______________________________________________ “So, you know, Sidon’s hitched now.  It’s been a while, but I guess I just left that out of our last little talk…”   It had been roughly a week, a little more, since Link’s last dropping onto the Light Dragon.   “I really ought to update you on everything, right?  So much has been happening.  A part of me thinks that you see it all, what with being a dragon flying around with nothing to do but look down and around… and you’ve certainly had enough time to know everything that goes on in Hyrule.  You would know if the other legends were true or not – you know, the other heroes, princesses, incarnations of demons, that kind of thing…maybe? Maybe you wouldn’t because of the thickness of the clouds?  Or because everything looks like ants from up here?”   Link chuckled half-heartedly.   “What Purah and Robbie would give for the data you’ve been collecting!  Well, if you can remember it, or even think about it.  Dear Goddess, Zelda, do you look derpy!  I came in for a landing right here and… your eyes – it’s probably an illusion from the perspective of someone as small as I am in comparison, but you look like… you aren’t there.  I wonder what it is like to be a dragon.  Do you have stories that you just cannot tell, your language and very thoughts incredibly complex and inaccessible to mortals or are you as dumb as a sheep?”   Link closed his eyes slowly and just as slowly opened them again, mimicking the slow-blink of the dragon.  He tried not to think about Zelda’s mind being absent. He hoped with everything in him that she was still there, inside, that at least some essence remained and this is why he could still talk to her, and did.   “Oh, where was I?  Ah, yes… Sidon… I didn’t peg him as the marrying kind, I guess. I kind of thought that maybe…he was… the way he’d look at me sometimes, but I guess that’s just Zora-manners.” Link sighed again, “Or maybe a simple desperation for a connection to his sister.  Anyway, it turns out that the last time we visited the Domain and he was off at another Domain on official business, he was courting the girlfriend.  Her name is Kona.  She’s very kind.  I think you’d like her.” Link stretched out, letting himself lay down with his hands behind his head.  Dawn was amazing when viewed from this height and angle.   “She’s a healer, like Mipha.  I… I miss Mipha.  My memories of one hundred years ago are still full of gaps, but I remember more about our friends every day.  And, of course, her spirit aided me for a long time… Ever since the Champions’ spirits departed, I’ve felt a lot of loneliness for them – and Mipha especially. I don’t know if you’d want to hear this, but…here goes… you’re…you’re a dragon now, so I doubt you care anymore – you’re beyond such mortal trivialities:  With the memories that have been coming to me, I know that I would have accepted the Zora’s Amor.  I was going to marry her, Zelda.”   He thought he felt the dragon lurch beneath him.  He kept steady.   “Hey! Hey, easy there!” he said, sitting up and gently scratching the fur where her skin joined with one of her glowing, branching horns.  “I’m not an idiot.  Well, I’m not as dumb as I look, anyway.  We… we had something, too, you and I – especially…recently.  I spoke not a word of it… it was improper with my position, wasn’t it? I was your knight – in your employ. I understood the way you looked at me. I felt it in the air between us, and of course… the little gifts you’d make for me.”  He patted the chest of his new tunic. “It’s good armor.  The lacquered leather works well – has saved my shield-arm more than once already. I kind of think of it as your answer to the Zora Armor, just a little.  Something made to protect a reckless man you care about – it’s the same sentiment.” He sighed, thinking about what could have been.     “It wasn’t even a royalty and commoner thing… there were not such rules for the Zora, just some concern about the interspecies stuff and lack of heirs, but, with us… it was different, it would have been different.  Conflict of interest – not a good look in politics for the people.  I mean, after the Calamity, it didn’t matter, did it? After I gave you my place in Hateno and we were just traveling on the rebuild-projects, it seemed like the whole ‘princess’ thing was merely a holdover from the past – not something that was the same as it once was… “Did you know that I decided the outcome of an election?  Yeah – in Hateno.  The challenger backed down – that was Cece, you know her, that odd fashion-designer that moved in right before our… trip back to the castle.  Rede remained in power after they made up.  The whole thing was very silly, but the election idea? That’s how the towns have been staying alive.  I’ve given thought to how it might apply to the rebuilt kingdom as a whole, in time. It’s not to say that you wouldn’t stay in power, I think you’d be elected in a landslide, it’s just… isn’t it an interesting idea for going forward?  Maybe the time for monarchy has passed?  My travels have given me a lot to think about.  I never shared any of this stuff before because I didn’t think it was proper.  In fact, I don’t breathe a word of this to anyone… a dragon makes for an easy conversation partner, I guess.”   ____________________________________________________ Link visited the Light Dragon again and again. Her forehead was the best place for watching the sunrise.  Every time he talked, it was a different subject.  Silent and stoic on the surface-world, he was rediscovering the “chatterbox” days that he’d had when he’d been a child in the gentle, silent presence of this holy creature.  He felt strangely at ease between her glowing horns despite who she’d once been, or perhaps because of it.   He was finally able to tell Zelda everything he’d wanted to tell her, it seemed.  Sometimes, it was something important, his strange theories about the future politics of the kingdom of Hyrule – or at least he thought they were strange – ideas regarding scaling up what had been working for the small settlements into larger plans.  He did not know if the princess would have listened to him as a princess, but he had an audience in a dragon.  One afternoon, he spent hours rattling on regarding his observations on monsters and some studies he’d taken part in with the help of Kilton: “Their power will diminish once I defeat the Demon King, just as with the Calamity, but they’re never absent from the land, are they?  Ever since the days of myths, at least a few of them have been around.  Kilton thinks that a few of them might be classed as animals – they bear a distinction from the class, but it’s… a borderline form of life. I know most people think they are born from evil thoughts and intentions, something that exists in nature, but becomes separate.  Josha, that young Sheikah researcher that Robbie and Purah have been working with I told you about? The one who studies the Depths? She came across some old writing that classed Lynels as mountain deities.  What I’ve witnessed spying on Bokoblin-camps has me thinking that, once freed from influences such as Ganondorf and that Ganon-projection of his, perhaps they could become reasonably peaceful if left alone. They’ll always be dangerous, but some aspects of them strike me as almost… a kind of people.  A lot of monsters are smarter than people think – the Bokos can tame horses and hunt in strategy.  The Lizalfos…” he winced, accidentally moving a fresh wound, “They’re… too good at ambushes.  “I’m…actually afraid that they’re becoming smarter, Zelda, and stronger, and that we will not be able to keep up…” “I’ve got a lot of blood on my hands if they can ever become anything more than servants of evil.  I try not to think about it.  I come down on thinking that there’s really no chance for them to be anything but a plague.  Gotta save innocent folk from being eaten alive.  It’s not a fate that I want, although I can’t say I don’t expect it.” He laughed bitterly.  “One day, the lost princess’ chosen knight screwed up and ended up in the belly of a Hinox. What a headline for the Lucky Clover Gazzette! ‘The Sacred Sword’s Chosen Hero Becomes a Burp!’ I wonder if I could still fight from within.  Sidon has that giant Octorok story of his.  Still… it’s so strange hiding in the bushes, planning a raid or looking for a way to sneak past… just watching a campsite with Moblins and Bokoblins eating around it – just like any Hylian and Gerudo travelers one might see out in the woods.  It’s only when I snap a twig or they get a whiff of me that chaos breaks loose. “I think someday, it might be nice to see peace come even to them.”   ________________________________________ “You don’t eat anymore, do you?”  Link asked, casually taking a small, wrapped warm package out of the data-storage on his Purah Pad.  “I suppose if you did, it would be something like clouds and sunlight. I’ve never seen any of the other dragons go after anything on the surface.”   He sat down cross-legged and pulled apart something stringy and gooey.  He savored small bites and licked sauce off his lip.  “This is something new,” he said after swallowing.  “The people in Hateno invented it.  It’s called pizza.  It’s a little hard to get the hang of making it at first, but once you do, it’s very simple.  It’s basically bread with a stewed tomato sauce covering it and…cheese.  It’s… solid fermented milk.  I know that it doesn’t sound too appetizing, but it’s amazing. I wish… I wish I could share it with you…”   To make good on this, he clambered over to the side of the Light Dragon’s face and leaned over, proffering a slice, dripping with cheese in the wind.  The dragon gave no response and simply did a slow blink.  Link took his slice of pizza back and solemnly ate it.  “I… I suppose you would have to be a person to appreciate it,” he concluded.   “I miss those nights in Hateno, sitting by the cookpot outside the house.  “You had some of those royal recipes that you’d show me how to cook and you were impressed when I took up dinner with my…inventiveness, yeah…that’s what you called it.  I had to survive out in the ruins and the wastes for a full year when I was building up strength to take on the Calamity.  I couldn’t be picky and had to come up with some interesting dishes.  You loved that venison and rice bowl I used to make.  It wasn’t as dainty as a fruit cake, but it was what you frequently requested.  Do you remember that, in this form?  It must be ages past to you, so long ago to you that you would forget… nights on the road, stopped at the stables, cooking and eating under the stars. I remember how your eyes looked in the firelight when the fireflies would come out in Faron.   “Is there a way to bring you back?  Is there a way to have that with you again?... “You’d love pizza, I know you’d love pizza…” ____________________________________________ He landed with a stagger and almost fell over as he alighted on the dragon’s nose.  Clutching his side and watching his latest hovercraft peel off to dematerialize in the distance, Link landed heavily atop his “therapist.”  The Light Dragon, for her part, issued a low groan. It was impossible to tell if she was responding to him, or if it was a random roar.  The clouds carried rain today – an easy disturbance to her scales. “Purah said I shouldn’t be out of bed yet… but I had to see you.”   The dragon was silent once again, slowly blinking and riding upon her never ending path.   Link sat upright and wrapped his hooded cloak around himself.  “Gloom swords…cut me up pretty bad.  Followed that unconvincing puppet of you into the castle.  I was overconfident, I guess, thought I was going to face the bastard down then and there.  The Sages saved my butt.  We won, but… ugh… “I’m supposed to be recovering, but I don’t think we have any time… I’ll apologize to Yunobo when I get back to Lookout Landing. He was on watch over me when he fell asleep and I managed to sneak out.  We… need to find a fifth Sage to add to our power… and… ugh… it’s the only way… I wish I could do this on my own, just finish it…” Link breathed deep, then let out a sharp cry as his movements pulled against some stitches under his clothing.  He winced back tears.   “I… I don’t know if I can do it, Zelda. The sword reached me…through time, but… it might not be enough… I might not be enough.  All of us… we may not win this time.  What if… what if all our friends die again?  What if the Sages fall like the Champions did?  I failed once.  And… and… the Calamity was merely a projection of…whatever that was we awakened beneath the castle.  He might win this time; despite everything we’ve been through.”   Link took a long look at the sky before him, on this dragon-path, it was sunset.   “A hero chosen by the Goddess and by the Master Sword isn’t supposed to doubt himself, right?  I am full of doubt. I cannot tell anyone how scared I am.  If I cannot best him, there isn’t another who can take up this sword.”   Link looked at his right hand, trembling.  “It will be all for naught.  If I am killed, the world dies with me, screaming.  I was just cut to ribbons and nearly killed by a mere shadow of that man! I just… I suppose I came up here to tell you that I’m sorry.  If it doesn’t work out and you are left watching up here as the world becomes bathed in blood and shadow, I want you to know that I will have done everything to spite it – that I fought to my last breath and that… I am sorry that it wasn’t enough and that I wasn’t enough.”   Link looked toward the east.  The moon was rising and it was wreathed in red.  He breathed deeply.  “We have to be enough.”   He shivered in the cooling night. Movement hurt.  Fatigue made his bones heavy.  Purah was right, he really shouldn’t have been out of bed yet.  As the Blood Moon reached its apex, his eyelids fluttered.  Link felt darkness clawing for him and tried to resist it.  He fell in a heap, resting atop the dragon. She adjusted her movements to keep him from rolling off.   Bright light greeted him as he awakened the next morning.  It was well past sunrise. He felt…alive.  Dragon hair and dragon scales shimmered beneath him in the mid-morning glare, but a certain light danced off of them of their own accord.  A glow pulsed along the brilliant horns.  Link stood to his feet.  No stiches pulled and nothing raw aggravated his skin.  He breathed deep and carefully walked to stand on the tip of the Light Dragon’s nose so he could at least try to look her in the eyes.   “Thank you,” he said simply.   _________________________________________ “I don’t really remember,” she’d said.   Everyone who knew what had happened agreed that it was a good thing.  Mineru, before she’d departed, confessed that her spirit had only kept its sanity while it was stored as data through centuries by going into a type of deep sleep. It wasn’t as though Zelda had much to remember of her years holding back the Calamity, either.  She remembered some of it, her power concentrated to hold Ganon back and a bond to Link that had awakened with him in the shrine.  She told him that she politely looked way during certain moments that he’d want to keep private, but he had no way of being sure about that. She was, however, in a type of sleep most of the time.   Centuries trapped in a bestial form went beyond this, however.  It was the kind of thing that could break the strongest mind if one remembered everything. And so, after the whole mess, life tried to resume for everyone who’d survived.     After their return to the surface and parting ways with the Sages, each returning to their lands, Link and Zelda wondered what was next.  Rest, of course, at the Landing.  Hyrule Castle was still in ruins.  Zelda, in the end, had simply wanted to go home - and, so it was, she and Link prepared to set out for Hateno Villiage.   “So, what’s the first thing you want to do when you get back?” Purah asked her.  Link was silent and making the last preparations for their travel by her side, getting bags ready to load onto their horses at the Landing’s small stable. “Oh,” Zelda said, answering quite casually, “I think I should like to try pizza.”   Link’s eyes went wide.  He stared.   She stared back at him.   “Pizza? What is that?  I don’t think I’ve ever heard of it,” Purah said.   Link and Zelda stood shocked and still, unable to take their gaze off each other.   “Is something wrong? Hey, you two, answer me!” “I…can make you some,” Link said softly. “Hey, Linky?  You just SPOKE!  And you look like you’ve seen a ghost!”   “You wouldn’t believe the story if I told you,” he whispered to Purah as he took Zelda by the hand.