Zelda of the Silent Sky - Chapter 1 - Unnecessary_Fish (2024)

Chapter Text

It was one hundred and four years after the end of the world.

It hadn’t been as bad as one might think. The fish still swam, the deer still ran from the hunters, gossipers ran their tongues in villages, and spring still came after the snow like it always had, letting silent princesses bloom like flies in the grass. Swords still slayed monsters—thank Hylia—and oils still ruined cave walls, aggravating those who cared. If you asked some Hyrulean residents—say, like the people slowly dying from an unknown sickness from an unknown substance, maybe— one could be asking if Hyrule was at the end of the Era of Prosperity. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t, and maybe it had already ended one hundred and four years ago. The Royal Princess Zelda Bosphoramus Hyrule—the resurrected ruler, the girl with the blood of the goddess— was still without an answer. Maybe she was distracting herself by ranting about caves, maybe she was busy while she focused on studies and research, and maybe she had dismissed the question years ago. There were many ways to look at situations; she of all people knew that.

“All of this natural rock is ruined forever! I can’t stand Keese. I would’ve exterminated them long ago if it weren’t for the food web. And look!” Zelda swatted her hand around angrily, shooing the bats away. “The Calamity ought to have destroyed them. I’m surprised that there’s any sign of life down here, especially with the bad stuff.”

Her knight rolled his eyes as he let his sword fly through several Keese at once, letting them fall to the pile of corpses he had amassed.

She felt her face heat up. “What? It’s not like there’s a name for it yet.”

“I thought there was, though.”

Zelda frowned as she struggled to see what Link had signed. In this darkness, with only a smaller-than-average torch to light the way, it was very difficult to see and decipher detailed movement.

“No, there isn’t,” she huffed, rather annoyed by the fact.

His face turned to a quizzical countenance. That one puzzled her— no, it made her nervous.

“Don’t tell me there is one and I’ve been ignorant all along. Is there?”

“I thought—” Link’s hands wavered as he slashed through another Keese— “I thought it did have a name. Paya called it something different when I visited Kakariko.”

“In Sheikah?” Zelda strode away from the blackened cave wall, searching the rock for another path that would lead them further. “What was it?”

“Miasma.”

She jumped at the word, partly because she hadn’t heard Link speak in months, and also because it had sent shivers down her spine. “Miasma…”

“It means—”Link started to sign before being cut off.

“I know what it means! That’s a Hylian word. But… given the circ*mstances…” Zelda stared up at the cave ceiling gloomily as she recalled its meaning. “That doesn’t mean well for any of us, does it?”

“Link! Look! It’s the pathway, we just have to…” She noticed that her knight was rolling out bedrolls. “What are you doing?”

He stared at her, and she realized that the dark circles under her eyes must have been very noticeable despite her attempts to conceal it before leaving.

“Fine. I am tired, but—””

“But you haven’t slept in at least a day.” He hmmphed as he brought out his cooking pot, giving her a look that meant: the pathway is still waiting for you when you wake up, you know!

Though glaring as she made way to the makeshift camp Link had set up, she made no effort to keep going. They must’ve left Lookout Landing at least a day ago, if not more, and their journey had not yielded fruit as of yet. Purah had predicted two days’ worth of walking before the path hit a dead end, and none of them had known if anything worthwhile would even be underneath the castle. But now— after seeing the gloomy mist that pervaded the air, full of black sparks and pink particles, and ominous feelings ubiquitous in the air— Zelda was sure the answer to everything that had happened in the past two weeks was down here. Somewhere.

She just wished that she knew how it had started.

The caves that opened after the defeat of Ganon hadn’t even shown much activity until now, and suddenly strange goop is spilling out of them? There was no buildup whatsoever, thought Zelda. There’s no clue like a century ago, no fortune teller.

“This had never happened before,” she said out loud.

Link lit the fire of the cooking pot he had just stood up in between the two, looking at it confusedly as if to say: you mean dinner?

She sighed and cupped her hands around her face. “There’s no record of anything like this illness occurring before, not in any history book; not from the Zora, not from the Gorons, not from any race across Hyrule! Through everything I’ve looked at— every book in the Castle Library, damaged as it is— nothing has mentioned this… miasma before.”

“Except…?”

“There is no ‘except’, as much as I’d like there to be one.”

She watched as Link shuffled his knees on the muddy gray folds of his bedroll, slowly sprinkling seasoning onto his soup-to-be. Both of them were not dressed for spelunking (he in his hood and tunic, with its black sweater underneath, her in her old blouse and custom-made cloak), but neither of them hadn’t thought that they would need to be. The cave, while mostly natural, had obviously been made by Hylians, most likely ancient. There was stonework in every corner (by now the ground was fully paved), and the huge bridge in the midst of the crystal cave was definitely not naturally formed. In fact, the stonework around the entrance to the cave (clearly covered up by Hylian architecture before the Calamity destroyed the second layer over time), which she had observed a week prior to making the trip, had qualities of ancient architecture only seen in one region: Faron.

The Zonai Ruins.

So, after rummaging through the old library at the Castle—killing many monsters on the way— Zelda had read up on everything she knew about a culture that no one knew anything about. All she had found was the long-ago Imprisoning War, and a vague summary of the events that had led up to it.

A godlike race and a Zonai king— a priestess who belonged to the remnants of the Hyrule kingdom, wed to the new ruler. Hyrule reborn, and the disappearance of the so-called gods; the war against evil that wiped out the last of the mysterious race, and the thieves who made off with most of the remnants. How most of the architecture leftover was eaten up by time, or most likely built over by a warlike Hylian civilization who sought to make everything their own.

That was all she had. Her only lead.

Her thoughts were cut off when Link tapped her shoulder and pointed to her meal.

“Ah! Dinner?” Zelda blinked and saw a creamy vegetable soup in her previously empty bowl. “It looks delicious. Thank you.”

He gave her a thumbs-up and gestured at it, clearly wanting her to try it.

“Alright then.” Taking her spoon, she tested the meal. “The vegetables clash…but at the same time, they work together and… I don’t know, it’s good! Please put the fire out now before we’re smothered to death.”

He did so quickly, giving her time to savor the flavor. (That… rhymed. Maybe one day she would rival the late court poet’s skills!)

“There’s a professional chef running around Hyrule, calling himself ‘Goro Gourmet’ and making recipes for money,” Zelda recalled. “A Goron, obviously. He’s gained quite the cult-like following.”

Her knight grinned cheekily. “You know, I’m somewhat of a professional chef myself.”

“No you aren’t!”

“Of course I am!”

And then they ate.

“I need to make that nightberry pie for you sometime,” Link signed after he finished. “It’s one of Josha’s favorites, you know.”

Little researcher— that was what he signed for the Sheikah girl’s name. Her own name was the sign that meant ‘silent princess’, which hadn’t actually been an official sign word. Researching florists a century ago had made up one for it, as it was their focus most of the time. Link had caught on and, after the famous run-in with the Yiga, used it for her in private. Normally it was just princess. Neither versions were used that much anyhow— Link got his point across most of the time without signing.

“I didn’t.” She frowned. “Isn’t Josha Impa’s attendant?”

“Yes, I’ve been with her quite a lot while I’ve been in Kakariko. Impa’s good most of the time… except when she’s not.”

The ex-Shiekah Chief had been struck with a bad bout of fever for the past few months. Though now she was better, Zelda still avoided her hall; every cough and sniffle made the Princess jump, and every heaving breath felt like Impa’s last. The Chief’s personal attendant (it felt to Zelda as though she shouldn’t have one at all), Josha, had not met with the Princess many times; she practically lived next to Impa’s side, with a towel in her hand and an ever-so-present determined countenance. Link had been the one hovering over Kakariko, dealing with monsters. She had spent the past few months at Lookout Landing finishing the clearing of rubble from Castle Town (not that building would begin soon; everyone else thought it a hopeless affair). Any spare time was spent in Hateno, hopelessly trying to catch a break while juggling with teaching the school.

“It seems that any time we try to relax, something bad always happens,” sighed Zelda. “I always knew something else would arise as soon as we began to relax—I’m starting to believe that Hylia has a problem with me.”

“Don’t you think she would’ve told you by now?”

“The goddess doesn’t just speak to me, Link.”

“Maybe she should be more confrontational about her feelings.”

Zelda laughed for the first time since entering the Castle’s Cave, but it soon stopped once she saw her knight’s face, deeply troubled.

“What is it?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“I know you’re lying,” she pressed, staring at him head on.

“If you really want to know,” he frowned as he attempted to pack up their dishes, “I was just thinking that… this clearly has to do with Ganon.”

Zelda dropped her eyes to the floor very quickly. So did Link.

“Of course it looks and acts a bit like malice, but that doesn’t mean anything necessarily!”

Yes, it’s just another red-black substance that harms what it touches, her knight seemed to say as he gave her a skeptical look.

The truth was that Zelda knew very well that it most likely had everything to do with the Calamity. But there thing to worry about:

Could she handle it if it was?

The thought of another fiery genocide brought shivers to her neck, and from her neck the cold spread to the rest of her body. Because she had no more power to spare as of late. No more holy sacredness that had shown itself in the past years. It had just… disappeared. Dwindled. Went to sleep. It was gone; and it could not save her kingdom.

If it could not save her kingdom from the almost ancient evil, what could?

Almost instinctively she turned her eyes to the Master Sword, Blade of Evil’s Bane, Sword that Seals the Darkness.

“Changing the subject, I was wondering if anyone at Lookout Landing had spotted that dragon again. You know, the golden one.”

Zelda propped her legs up and drew her gaze away from the sword. “I wouldn’t think anyone would have. It shows itself rarely, and its actual presence can be fairly easy to miss. It hasn’t shown up in over a century, actually, not until now.”

Link sighed. “Shame. I thought it was pretty.”

“You just don’t understand,” Zelda said helplessly. “It’s not some guardian dragon like the three spirits of the springs. It’s an outright bad omen! The fact that everyone saw it clear as day a few weeks ago means nothing good. It’s even more reason to be searching down here.”

“You said it was like the guardian dragons, though. Anyway, I don’t think the dragon itself is bad.” Link shrugged as he sealed his traveling bag up. “Maybe it’s just a coincidence.”

Of course it could be. It always could be, if you thought that way. But Link just didn’t understand— he couldn't, at least, not after losing his memory.

Because, of course, that dragon had last been spotted one hundred and six years ago, weeks before the Calamity.

————

“These are the most beautiful carvings I’ve ever seen,” gaped Zelda, waving around at the wall that looked down on the two. “The sides of the pictures! It’s so old, yet so well preserved. Clearly it’s from an older era, before the Era of Prosperity, because we currently have the art from around the beginning of it, and it looks absolutely nothing like this.”

Link looked at her questionably, as if to say, so when is it from?

Zelda gave a triumphant smile and jabbed her thumb at the first depiction. “To know, we only have to look at what the carvings entail. Just look at the first one— clouds, mysterious beings, what looks to be ancient Hyruleand looking up in wonder. Strange stones floating above the Zonai. Hmm…”

She looked closer at the godlike creatures. Large, majestic ears, akin to rabbits, strange clothing and builds, and, of course, identical to the statues from the room Link and Zelda had just been in minutes ago, after they had packed up their bedrolls and went through the entrance. Zelda hadn’t expressed her thoughts then, needing more evidence than just the Faron-like stonework, but now the carvings gave the final clue.

“They’re like gods, these creatures, blessing the Hylians,” pointed out Zelda. “Clearly they can be no other race than the Zonai.”

The name reverberated throughout the room, sending a large echo that magnified both of their silence.

“I was thinking you’d say that.” Link held his torch up to the largest Zonai figure. “The stonework, the statues, and now this…”

“They clearly have something to do with this miasma! They were involved with it, I just know it, Link! If only the race outlasted this kingdom to pass down its stories…” she pressed her index finger onto the spot above her ear. “It never made sense to me. Why would such a fantastic race disappear? Maybe the rest of these murals will tell the story that time forgot.”

Link faced his torch in the direction of the next carving.

“A Zonai and a woman, holding hands, with two stones above them. This means… it means… Link, those stones… maybe they were collateral… it must’ve been the blessing they gave Hyrule! The woman and the Zonai have to be the first King and Queen of Hyrule, who married, as I remember from my studies. Which means the stone was a gift to her. Could this be what brought upon the Era of Prosperity?”

Link looked at the murals nervously, and lowered his torch.

“Don’t drop it down!” Zelda squinted at the figures. “Then, I believe, this must be seven hundred years before the Era of Prosperity. History books say new and powerful blessings helped rebuild the lost kingdom, giving birth to Hyrule. It supposedly happened seven hundred years before the Era began. This stone must’ve brought some sort of power, and with the support of the Zonai, the kingdom surely began to grow. But why haven’t I seen these stones appear in history since?”

“Maybe the Zonai took them away!” Link signed excitedly. “When they disappeared, obviously.”

“That may very well be the case,” said Zelda. “But the next carving shows the true story. If you could bring your torch up…?”

It was clearly a powerful man who had just triumphed in battle, judging from the knife he held. The man’s grin seemed too large for the carving, his hand greedily reaching for the stone that floated above it.

“He has a stone, which must’ve been gifted or stolen,” said Zelda, breathing heavily as she saw the event unfold in her mind using her imagination. “I’m believing the second idea, seeing that grin. The next one… yes, raise it higher… a battle of monsters and Hylians. A great, demonic face rising above it.”

“What can you gather, then?” Link looked at her hopefully.

“Well, the rest are covered by rocks, and we didn’t bring any explosives, so…” Zelda bit her lip. “I think that the stones could be a seal of evil, because…well… the army of monsters could have been brought upon by the man with the stone. Maybe the stone contains ancient magic— maybe ancient evil!—that the Zonai sealed away into the stones. Then the man could’ve unsealed some or all of them, somehow, possibly by accident, but… well, there’s no way to tell. And I haven’t a clue where the rest of the stones went, or why no one knows about them now.”

Link sunk down with disappointment. “So… we have no way to know?”

“I wish it weren’t so, but yes.”

She pulled out her Purah Pad and aimed it at the carvings excitedly. “But this is a huge discovery!”

After the Sheikah Slate had broken—just after they’d downloaded the Divine Beasts and most of the guardians into its inventory—Purah had scraped together what was left of her peoples technology into towers. All of the shrines had sunk beneath the earth, and most of the guardians were defunct, but there was still enough data to collect from the both, however, and the Purah Pad had been proudly produced two and a half years later.

Zelda was glad for this project, as the Purah Pad could take pictures (an ability she abused). The quality wasn’t as good as the Sheikah Slate, but she couldn’t leave the possibility of these carvings being lost to time if the cave collapsed after they left. She clicked and snapped multiple times before Link told her she had taken too many and made her delete almost all of them.

“There, those should be enough!” Zelda stopped suddenly in the middle of the pathway they were currently traversing. Link gave her a look.

“You told me too!” she pointed out as she shoved the Purah Pad away.

“Don’t put it there, it’s going to break,” signed Link as he took it from her. “I’ll put it in this bag until you need it again. It’s much safer.”

“If anything happens to it…” Zelda huffed and started to threaten her knight on behalf of the Pad, but the words never left her mouth. Instead, she pointed soundlessly at his back.

“What?” asked Link, reaching around his bag, but then he saw.

The Master Sword was glowing.

“That can’t be good,” said Zelda.

“I thought it only responded to Ganon!” Link signed much too quickly for her to decipher.

“What?”

“It doesn’t matter. I think we should turn back,” signed Link. “Whatever’s further down here is too much for us to handle.”

“No! We don’t know that yet!” Zelda spread her arms out, and her hand touched the walls. The cavern was much smaller now. “We can’t just head back. What if…what if there’s more murals there? What if there’s an answer? Someone could be dying of miasma sickness right now, and we could be finding the cure! To give up and turn around is… it’s unthinkable!”

“We might be prepared for a lynel fight at most, but we couldn’t handle anything more. We should get more people to join us.”

“I’m not taking that chance— the cavern could collapse in that time! We’d need provisions for at least ten people, and we’d have to get weapons, which, as you know well, have started to show signs of decay… but the Master Sword is built for this kind of stuff. You and the blade can take care of anything!”

“We couldn’t a century ago,” argued Link. “If it really matters so much…”

“It does.”

“We can go further, but if anything bad happens…” Link drew his sword and pointed in the direction they came from.

“I’m not running away if we can take it!” Zelda brought out her broadsword that she had been avoiding and swung it sloppily. “You’re the best swordsman in Hyrule. I’m sure we could take anything, even if the resurrected Calamity Ganon showed up out of the blue.”

He squinted at the last part.

She huffed. “Your sword has lit up because of large amounts of malice before. I’m sure there’s just some strong miasma down there.”

Link pressed the tip of his sword onto the ground. “It’s different this time. I can feel it.”

“Feelings aren’t always true…” Zelda gave up. “Fine, I promise, okay? Does that make you feel better?”

“Not really.”

“You promise too. If something happens to me, you’ll act in my stead, okay? And take care of my horse, right?” She crossed her arms. “Not that anything down there could make that happen, of course.”

“No, I won’t,” signed Link determinedly. “Because I won’t let that happen.”

“If you want something bad to happen to Hyrule…”

But they headed downwards anyway, the fact that the cave was much more cramped and sloping not escaping their minds.

“An opening is clearly down there…” Zelda squinted. “I can feel that it’s the last one. We’re at the end.”

“I thought that feelings aren’t always true.”

“Key words: aren’t always. Come on, it’s not much further.”

They stepped past the entrance and into the large, murky black room that awaited them. Large spikes came out from all sides, barely visible, pointing at the silhouette of something on a pedestal, with a magnificent half-pillar jutting from the ceiling above it. Green swirls enveloped the half-pillar, giving some light to the silhouette, which was practically indiscernible.

“It’s some sort of corpse,” said Zelda. “The green swirls…”

Clutching onto the corpse was a bright, glowing hand that faded into the swirls, and as soon as Zelda spotted it, shivers ran down her spine.

“Let’s see it closer,” she directed, and Link did not argue, though it looked like he wanted to. They headed down the steps.

“Don’t be scared—it’s dead, Link,” she said, seeing his hesitation. “Like those mummies Riju found underneath the Arbiter’s ground. Harmless.”

The hand immediately fell onto the floor as soon as the pair approached it, and an echoing clink filled the cave. Link followed the sound to what looked to be a small glowing pebble.

“Don’t just pick it u—what is it?” Zelda rushed to his side.

“Just some jewelry,” said Link, showing it to her. His hand was lit up by the stone, which had an odd teardrop shape. It looked like… like…

Her knight shoved it into his pocket.

“Link! That…that stone… I think it may be…”

“What?” pressed Link.

“That stone! It has to be the kind we saw on the murals!”

He dug it out immediately, bringing it up to his face. The light emanating from it seemed golden now, and—

Their inspection was interrupted by a loud rumble from in front of them. Zelda’s eyes turned to the pedestal.

They both stood stone-like as the mummy began to shake, twitching like a dead butterfly, slowly rising from its near-the-floor position. It raised its head towards them…

And then it blinked.

————

Zelda watched in horror as the corpse’s sunken eyes lit up with a fiery gaze and stared at them, now fully standing, with the gruesome features now visible—long red hair, golden jewelry, brown, and wrinkled skin. On its forehead was a large black stone, identical to the one in Link’s hand.

A thought ran through her brain suddenly, but before she could process it, the corpse began to laugh. Why couldn’t she run? Her legs were glued to the floor, and Link’s torch had fallen to the ground with a clang.

“So this is the grand army whom Rauru has sent! How humble. My eyes do not fail in detecting his failure. His sacrifice was wasted.” The voice was horribly hoarse. “How pitiful that his last resort should be two powerless worms.”

Link drew his sword and, jumping in front of Zelda, raised it, though his arm was shaking. The mummy was not intimidated.

“Your weak Master Sword fails you, boy! You must know that the outcome of a battle with me would not fare well for you, the swordsman Link, alive or half-dead. But the fate of your Zelda is undecided. I think,” the corpse rasped, raising its horrible, wrinkled arms, “that I will decide her fate now.”

“How do you know our names!?” Zelda pulled herself out of paralysis and drew her broadsword, summoning some fraction of hopeless diplomacy. “We…have no intentions to start a battle, if this could be—”

She was cut off as the room shook and quaked, floor falling from floor and ceiling from ceiling. Miasma, more solid than a hunk of stone, rose out from where the mummy stood and flew into the air, and large burning tendrils headed straight for her, reaching to kill—

But it never did reach her. She stood, mouth agape, paralyzed yet again, as her knight stood before her, his arm seemingly ablaze. The Master Sword was demolished, its light fading, the blade covered in burning miasma. Link’s arm was burned. He’d shielded her.

Horror built up as her heart pounded against her chest, almost as if it were trying to escape the room. Link— she couldn’t bear to look at him.

A second wave headed for them, and she still stood fearfully still, but this time her knight batted it off with his sword, which shattered and fell from his hand. The shards; one hit the mummy’s forehead, blood trickling from the shriveled skin.

It had shattered.

“It can’t…” Zelda tried to regain herself. How could it just shatter? How!?

She picked up Link’s fallen torch and threw it at the corpse, but it wasn’t even set ablaze. Then fell the Master Sword, her knight’s arm too weak to hold it; it hit the ground, clanging. She launched her arm forward, struggling to find its safely untouched hilt, and shoved it where her broadsword’s space lay empty. The earthquake grew more powerful, knocking her off balance and sending her to the floor, as well as flying a few feet away— and then, as Zelda shakily regained her footing and began to head to Link, a final wave of miasma shot in her direction, the coiling substance seeming to grab for her. She jumped from the crumbling stone beneath her and tried to make out where her knight had fallen in the darkness.

“Link!” she yelled out into the din of the earthquake. The Master Sword gave out a sound from her back, as if it were trying to respond.

She saw his head turn towards her voice, but as he stood up, the foundation beneath him gave out. He plummeted.

Zelda reached out, jumping after him; she extended her arm, stretching to meet his. Just a bit more, just a bit further, if she could only reach—! Their fingers brushed, fiery fingers against cool skin. She thought, just for a moment, that she could hold on.

And then her hand met the air.

“Wait!” she shouted, helpless, and watched as Link fell far from her grasp, disappearing before her eyes, leaving nothing but golden sparks.

Zelda fell to the depths of the abyss, feeling momentum stop, and the Master sword cried out as something gripped her arm and yanked her away.

————

Above the room where the mummy stood, falling into the abyss alone, the Castle groaned as it unwillingly rose into the sky. Rock rained down upon Hyrule.

The Upheaval had begun.