Chapter Text
"A deity?" Sidon asked, tilting his head as if to say 'are you kidding me right now?' as he stares dumbfounded at his father, the king.
"Yes," King Dorephan replied, voice thundering through the halls of the underground Zora castle, or, well, underwater.
"And how exactly, if you don't mind me asking, is a deity supposed to help us?"
King Dorephan coughed where he lay, a heartfelt cough from deep within. Sidon grew scared, his father didn't have much time left... He should try to be more kind.
His father smiled softly. "My Sidon, I am afraid I do not have enough time to explain myself to you, however much I wish I could... But I pray that you will believe me when I say that our last hope lies in the forgotten temple, wherein you will find the deity. Muzu can give you further information, should you so wish..."
"The forgotten temple?" Sidon inquired, not being all that familiar with the name.
"It's at the very bottom of the Tanagar Canyon, in Tabantha to the northwest... You must go, my son... The time is running out."
Sidon could almost feel his father's life slipping away from him. "How much time do I have?"
"Until the Blood Moon has risen for exactly one hundred days straight. After that... The beast." King Dorephan's eyes started to glaze over, his breaths quickening.
"Beast? What beast? Father, please--"
Then the king started reciting the old prophecy, and Sidon could do nothing but to listen as his father passed, the ancient words rolling off his tongue as he did.
"When the Red Moon rises each night...
for a hundred days, prepare for the fight...
The ancient monster deep within...
Shall rise to bite through flesh and skin...
But one way to stop the beast---"
The king stopped breathing. His heart stopped beating.
Sidon... started crying.
;
A thousand years was a long time to be alone. It was long enough for anybody to become a bit peculiar, to forget...
But it wasn't long enough for Link to forget the things he wanted to forget. They were still stuck in his mind, and however hard he tried he couldn't get them away.
I guess some things are meant to be remembered.
After a thousand years you would think that Link had lost count of the days, weeks, months and years by now. Maybe you would even think that he would've lost count pretty quickly, a few weeks in perhaps? But no. Link still knew what day it was, what year, how many years...
A thousand.
Quite exactly a thousand years, actually. Give or take a week or so.
Which is why he wasn't that surprised when he suddenly heard a pair of footsteps approach the temple where he lay to rest. After all that time alone, Link had gotten pretty used to silence, so whenever he heard anything out of the ordinary his whole system started to shut down. He just had to figure out what -- or who -- it was that was making such a ruckus.
His hearing had really improved these past 1000 years, to say the least.
Sometimes the sounds would be animals, mostly animals actually. And when it wasn't animals it was just the wind, or maybe a monster even? Usually, though, it was just his imagination.
But this time, he thought, maybe it was something else?
It really did sound like footsteps. Slow, uncertain footsteps with what sounded like a limp.
So probably a Moblin, actually.
Link sighed, if a Moblin coming to see his temple was the highlight of this century (which it, so far, was) then this existence of his truly was pathetic. A thousand years all alone in an empty, ruined temple could really do a toll on you.
As Link readied himself to take a look at the first actual living creature (except bugs) that he'd seen for the past, well, two hundred years or so, whatever it was that was slowly stepping towards the gate stopped for a second before it turned around and started walking away again.
What an anti-climax. The Moblin wouldn't even enter the temple.
Guess he just had to wait another two hundred years, huh?
But that's when he heard it. A voice. The first voice he'd heard for hundreds of years.
And boy did he recognize that voice.
"Ah, but I was sure that the shrine would be here..." the voice mumbled, and Link stopped breathing completely. Could it really be him?
"Maybe Muzu just lied to me... Or maybe he was wrong," the voice continued, sighing deeply.
Link's mind went into panic mode. Shrine. Oh, sweet Goddess above he was coming in here. He was looking for the shrine! Link's Shrine. But how the hell was he supposed to make the man find it? It was concealed with a spell of invisibility -- only the truly powerful magicians could see right through it and mere mortals always needed a lot of help to find it...
Link waved a hand behind him, launching a treasure chest at the wall, making a few rocks start flying, creating a noise that the mysterious man was sure to hear.
"Huh?" the voice spoke. "What in the name of the Goddess was that...?"
The footsteps came closer, and closer, and closer and--
And then they walked right past the shrine. Goddess above. Link was so frustrated he might just scream and-- oh wait. Scream.
Link took a deep breath, so deep that he started to feel light-headed and his ears started ringing.
And then he screamed.
It was a high-pitched noise, and if it wasn't for the fact that he screamed so loudly and so high-pitched the man would probably not have heard it. Link screamed until he was all blue in the face and he started to fear he might pass out. And then he waited.
The man swore. Link grinned as the footsteps started walking in his direction, determined and quick. Link could hear the man's heavy breaths from the outside of the shrine, and he was suddenly all too aware of the fact that this man would soon be inside his shrine.
This man, that Link didn't even know who he was. This man who just happened to sound like him. This man who could be after to scavenge the treasure in Link's shrine, in his home and even try to hurt Link whilst doing so.
The footsteps stopped just outside the gate to the shrine, the man let out a few huffs and puffs as he contemplated how to get the shrine to let him in... And then--
And then the shrine let out a melodious humm as it opened up its doors for the man. Link could hear the man's happy self-pep talk as he rode down the elevator to where Link was.
Suddenly Link was afraid.
Link hadn't met anybody in nearly a thousand years. Who's to say Moblins haven't started talking and this was just a very intelligent Moblin ready to kill him as it saw that somebody was in here? Who's to say that whoever it was wouldn't kill him anyways, Moblin or not?
Link ran.
He didn't have a lot of places to hide, seeing as the shrine was quite small, but he managed to find a crevice behind the altar of the shrine to hide behind. Maybe the man would just take the treasure and leave? Maybe he wouldn't go look behind the altar and find Link?
Maybe...
The elevator arrived, and the man stepped out. Link held his breath.
"Hello?" The man asked aloud, Link flinched. Too loud.
"Please Deity... I need your help..." the man continued and Link started to become a bit confused. Deity? What deity?
"I have come a long way, from Zora's Domain, to ask with help about the Blood Moon."
'The Blood Moon? Zora's Domain?'
The cogwheels turned in Link's head, piecing together the puzzle as he tried to get a grasp of the situation at hand.
"I realize that it is quite bold of me, to go here and ask for your help considering what we did the last time this happened, but... But hear me out," the man -- the Zora -- continued, voice shaking slightly in desperation.
"We need your help... I need your help. I, Prince Sidon of the Zora, need you to--" he abruptly stopped when Link jumped out of his hiding spot as if he'd been launched from a canon.
"I, ehh..." The man, or Prince Sidon said, confused and slightly shocked.
Link just looked at him. Eyes wide, jaw hitting the floor, tears welling up in his eyes.
It was him.