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He floated in nothing, and nothing was peace.
In his half–sleep, he felt in flashes: glimpses of a bearded man or a young woman, sparks of remembrance that sputtered out instantly. He wanted for nothing, felt for nothing, thought for nothing, because there was nothing to want or feel or think. He just…drifted, all alone.
Something shifted near him. He wasn't quite sure what, or how, or where. But it was near. He let it move around unbothered, let it make waves in the utter dark.
He just floated.
But the Something bumped into him, grabbed him with a bruising grip, and in one fierce heave, pulled him bodily through the nothing.
There was a sudden jerk, a blinding pain, and then, all at once, existence.
Simply put: it was dark, and then it wasn’t.
Shadow took an aching gasp of air that scalded the back of his throat and sent him coughing. He wheezed out breaths in between his sputtering, trying desperately to get enough air into his lungs until he wasn't choking on his own vocal cords.
Inhale by shaking inhale, he began to breathe easier, his body re–learning the new process and adjusting accordingly.
As his breath slowly leveled out, his throat drying out with each inhale, more information came to his brain. He was lying face–down on something hard and absolutely frigid that sent his teeth chattering. That didn't make sense. Everything had been hot, right? Hot and bright and clear. There had been clouds and shining glass and white marble on everything. In fact, the last thing he remembered was —
“Link!” he gasped, shooting straight up. His arms trembled, and he collapsed back to the freezing stones.
“Whoa there,” someone said. “Careful! I’ve got you, hold on.”
Shadow blinked, his vision blurry, and stared up at the dark hand that reached into his line of sight. Light glinted off its metallic sheen in winks, and he briefly tried to wink back. Then it computed. He reached up and grabbed the hand, letting it pull him to his aching feet.
“There we are!” the owner of the hand said. Another one rested on his arm, steadying him. “How are you feeling?”
Shadow looked up, dizzy, into red eyes and a shadowy face. Something heavy was beginning to settle on him, a choking, foggy presence that muddled his senses. “What?” he croaked.
The strange person smiled, all teeth. “Welcome back! I'm Dark Link — just call me Dark. How do you feel?”
Dark shifted closer, and his presence fell further onto Shadow like a shroud. “Uhhhh,” he hummed. “Bad.”
“Fair enough,” Dark agreed. “Can I let go?” Shadow shook his head and immediately regretted it. Nausea slammed into him like a brick to the brain, and Dark held him a little tighter. “Take it slow. You're alright.”
Shadow blinked rapidly. His vision began to clear, and he looked beyond Dark. They stood in a darkened circular chamber solely lit by braziers on the outskirts of the room. Elaborately carved pillars stood sentry around the chamber, depicting faces frozen in agony and silver–engraved scenes of joy and anger and misery. They reached up into the dark, holding up a ceiling that Shadow couldn't even see.
Then his ears began working better, and he processed the yelling.
Kneeling at regular intervals around them, each chained to the floor in front of a brazier, were several young, heavily armored men. They shouted and spat and threatened, their faces contorted in fear and rage. Their voices rang in the space, echoing off the walls and compounding their anger. Shadow spotted the remnants of a spell circle on the stone floor, with him at the center.
He looked back at Dark, who still grinned brightly. Firelight flickered on his teeth. “What…what’s going on?”
“I need your help, Shadow,” he admitted. “I’ve heard about you, you know. What you’ve done. I could use your expertise.” Shadow’s blood ran cold, but he wasn't done. “However! Before we get into the nitty–gritty, I have a gift for you. It's right behind you.”
Shadow turned slowly, trying to keep half an eye on Dark. He didn't like the guy one bit. There was just something…off about him.
But when he turned around, all other thoughts left his mind. Because lit by a flickering brazier behind him, just like the others in the circle, was Link.
He was chained to the ground, ankles cuffed and wrists bound, his sweat–soaked hair sticking to his forehead as tears from his prismatic eyes dampened the gag around his mouth. His entire frame shook. He looked different — older, sadder, together — but as he strained against his bindings, his screaming and sobs muffled by the gag, there could be no mistaking him.
The sight made Shadow sick.
He surged towards him, accompanied by the shouts of the other people in the circle, desperate to free his hero, but before he could get close, Dark grabbed his forearm with one hand and his waist with the other. Shadow struggled against him, snarling and clawing in his attempt to get to his hero, but Dark held him with a strength that didn’t match the perception of his thin arms.
“Shadow, calm down!” he yelled. “You’ll have your chance, trust me! I get it! You deserve to be avenged, but we accomplish nothing if you murder him immediately!”
His body still weak and exhausted, Shadow’s movements slowed, and he huffed with exertion as Dark cradled him from behind. Link’s tearful eyes went wide, and Shadow fought a shudder, panting. You deserve to be avenged, he had said.
What the fuck?
“You can have him in a minute. I promise,” Dark said over his shoulder. “I know it’s hell, staring down your murderer. I’m sorry. Just trust me for a little longer.”
Your murderer. Shadow didn't dare look away from Link, he just widened his eyes. Link sniffed, still sobbing, but blinked recognition. Dark doesn't know how I died. He really thinks I'm on his side.
I'm going to have to pull a Vio. Shit.
He bared his teeth, hoping he looked desperate and deranged, and gave a token jerk to his arm. Dark didn't let go.
“Shadow, trust me,” he stressed, and slowly, slowly, Shadow slumped in his arms, exhausted. His skin crawled. “Just give me a second.”
“Okay,” Shadow mumbled, finally relenting, and Dark stepped away. He maintained the grip on Shadow’s arm, as if afraid he would run as soon as he let go. Shadow allowed it. “Just tell me why he’s here.”
“For you, of course. I needed him here to resurrect you — you're his shadow, after all.” Dark gave him a reassuring smile that Shadow couldn't find reassurance in at all. “It’s just in service to you. That’s all. You can get rid of him as soon as you like. Just listen to me for a few moments, and then you’ll have your shot at him.”
“But why is he gagged?” Shadow couldn’t help but ask, widening his eyes and pulling his mouth into a vicious snarl. “No one else is.”
“Oh. That.” Dark chuckled. “Nothing important. He just wasn't too happy with your resurrection, I suppose. I doubt the process was painless, of course — I was pulling an entire body out of his shadow, after all — but I expected such a hero to be able to weather it! I had to gag him because I needed to focus, and unfortunately, he just wouldn't shut up. You understand.”
Shadow swallowed bile. All of a sudden, Link’s tearstained face and trembling frame made more sense, and it made him burn.
How dare he hurt him, his mind whispered. How dare he torture him to tears.
The only thing that held him back from leaping towards Dark and clawing his eyes out was the ever–present weight of Dark’s magic, pressing him down and reminding him of the shaking in his bones. He wasn't nearly strong enough. Not if he wanted to get Link out alive.
Instead, he started towards Link again, almost hoping he’d make it to him, but Dark pulled him back again.
“Wait, just hold on a second!” he chuckled awkwardly. “I told you you’d have your chance, and you will. But I also told you to let me explain, just for a second. Yeah?”
Shadow turned towards him just enough to indicate listening, but he kept his eyes on Link’s hiccupping figure. “Go ahead.”
“Okay, so this is really cool, check it out.” From the shadows, Dark drew a long, elegant rapier — similar to a fencing foil, more needle than blade. He swung it with a flourish, letting the green handle catch the light. Gold embellishments winked at him. Shadow couldn't tear his eyes away. Something about the sword was…heavenly.
“It's a beauty, huh?” Dark grinned at him. “Knew you’d appreciate it. Forged at the same time as the Master Sword and the Demon Blade by the gods themselves. An empty vessel for a heroic spirit.” He hefted it in front of his face, letting the tip of the blade point to the sky. “Or, that was the intent. The spirit of the Master Sword may have wisdom to spare, and the Demon Blade may have power aplenty, but the spirit of the Servants’ Sword was always meant to goad, to protect, to push the wielder to more courageous endeavours. With the help of humanity, of course.
“It’s meant for capturing souls, you see,” he explained, holding it reverently. “But it was discarded — scrapped, I suppose. Thrown in the garbage dump of the gods: the Dark World. Our home. That's how I found it, in fact.” His gaze flicked from the blade to Shadow and back. “But doesn't that just sting? That our home — so full of its own beauty, so unique in its own right — is treated as the resting place of scum? I know you get it, Shadow. This is our first step to fix that. You take this — you capture his soul — and we can make the world in our image, however we want! We can do whatever we want, we can be whoever we want to be!”
Shadow remembered a time he once offered a similar proposition. The idea didn't tickle him nearly as much anymore.
“Just…here.” Dark pressed the sword into his hands. Shadow stared at it, then at the Dark before him. It would be so easy, to just ram the sword in his stomach now, before he had a chance to do anything else. He was right there.
Dark let go of the sword, and Shadow nearly dropped it from the unexpected weight. His arms trembled for a moment, trying to get used to it.
He was in no condition to attempt an impromptu murder.
“You’ve got it?” Dark asked. His presence fell over Shadow like a fog, thick and cloying and nigh opaque. He shivered.
“Yeah. Got it.”
“Great!” Dark clapped his hands and offered a soft, almost sympathetic smile. “Have fun, Shadow. I know how much this must mean to you.”
“Yeah,” Shadow murmured, watching Dark walk out of the room. His magic, cloying and mysterious, receded with him. “Bet you do.”
The door slammed shut, and Shadow turned to Link, brandishing the sword with what he hoped was a manic grin. He stepped forward, every ounce of self control holding him back as he clocked Dark’s presence drifting down the hall. Still too close. If he noticed Shadow not committing a murder, things would go very poorly very quickly. The other people shouted, swore, screamed at him not to touch him, but Link just held his gaze.
Still crying.
The moment Dark’s presence was gone fully, Shadow bolted towards Link. He heard a cacophony of shrieks, but Link leaned towards him, and that was all he needed. He dropped to his knees and skidded to a stop in front of his hero, the sword clattering on the stones as he pulled him into a fierce hug. Link buried his face in Shadow’s shoulder with a muffled wail, tears soaking into his tunic, and Shadow held him as tight as he could, running his fingers through blonde hair.
They were alive.
They were both alive.
“Holy shit,” he breathed. “Holy shit oh my gods oh my gods I can’t — I got you, Rainbow, holy shit, I’ve got you.” Link bawled into his shoulder, still muffled by the gag. Shadow pulled back, blinking back his own tears. Someone was cutting onions nearby, was all. “Oh, fuck. Okay. We gotta get out of here. Right. Um. Lemme see.”
Every nerve in his body screamed at the thought of letting go, but he pried himself away and started inspecting the bindings. There were definitely runes on the manacles, which wasn't…great, exactly, but they seemed like simple binding runes, so it wasn't like he couldn't undo it. But they weren't the most important.
Shadow reached up, ignoring the panicked shouts from the others, and yanked the gag out of Link’s mouth. The smith started hacking instantly, smacking his lips together and working his jaw.
“Yikes,” Shadow observed, his hands shaking. “Bet that didn't feel too good.”
Link stared at him like he was crazy. “Get this shit off me,” he croaked.
“YOU DON'T TOUCH HIM!” someone yelled, louder than all the rest. Shadow looked over at him — a tall blonde guy with a blue scarf.
“Get fucked,” he snarked right back, sticking out his tongue before turning back to the bindings. “You know these guys, Rainbow? Friends of yours?”
Link nodded, blinking back more tears. “Good people,” he creaked. “Heroes. From other times.”
“Yikes.” Shadow hissed at the stubborn fucking manacles. “You pick up the weirdest people.”
“Like you?”
“Obviously. Goddessdammit!” he yelped, leaping back. The runes glowed with angry red light, and he growled. “We don't have time for this, I don't know when he’s coming back. I'll never get through them in time. Look away for a sec?”
Link obeyed, and Shadow grabbed the sword lying on the ground, ignoring the sudden shouts that he prompted. With one, two, three precise strikes that echoed through the chamber, the chains on the manacles shattered.
He barely had time to banish the sword before he was tackled to the floor, Link’s arms around his neck. Broken “I’m sorry”s and “I love you”s brushed past his ears. Shadow hugged him with the desperation of a dying man, pressing quiet reassurances into his neck. He still smelled the same: sword polish, old books, fresh wood chips, and rose water.
I think I'm in love with you, he thought hysterically.
“Really?” Link whispered back, half–laughing. “Wow, that's definitely news.”
“Did I say that out loud?” he asked. “It's true, anyway.”
“Yeah, I think we’re both aware,” Link told him with a teary giggle, finally pulling back. Shadow instinctively held him tighter for a split second, but let him go. He watched Link’s face soften impossibly. “Golden Three, I missed you.”
“Me t–” Shadow cut himself off, adrenaline racing through his body. A mere breath of fog prodded at the corner of his mind. A status check, maybe? Was Dark alerted when the runes on Link’s cuffs were broken? He shoved as much manic, hysterical glee as possible at it, hoping that Dark assumed it was due to Link’s death. “We have to go. Now. What is the probability that we can leave your friends behind?”
“Absolutely zip.”
Shadow nearly threw Link off.“Get them free, then! Now!” He scrambled to his feet and darted towards the nearest freak, a big burly tattooed guy with a wolf pelt. Luckily, he didn't seem too hostile, even giving Shadow a little knowing smile.
“Y’alright there?” he asked, entirely too calm for the situation.
“Yeah, great,” Shadow spat, half of his mind trying to pick out Dark’s presence. Was he coming back? How long did they have? He fumbled with the cuffs, half expecting more runes, but they seemed to be regular old cuffs. Maybe Link’s were only different to keep him from escaping while Dark did his little resurrection.
He shuddered at the thought, but the cuffs came apart easily enough, and Wolf Pelt guy was free.
He stuck out a hand, all polite–like. “Twilight.”
Shadow slapped it away. “No time. Go help.” He left Twilight sitting there and sped off towards a nondescript brunette that leaned away from him as he got close. “Fine, dude, your choice,” he muttered. “Stay here, I don't care.”
By the time the last person was free, all was chaos, and Shadow was almost certain they were making enough noise for Dark to check on them. A few heroes were distinctly more wary of him than others, but Shadow couldn't find it in himself to care.
“I can't shadowtravel all of you out at once,” he told Link. “I can barely hold a sword, I’d be able to make maybe one jump with just you.”
“Wild!” Link snapped. One of the heroes, a lanky, scarred one with long hair, loped over. “Do you still have a magic elixir?”
“Uhhhh, can't say I do,” Wild said, tapping at the glowing rectangular rock in his hands. “Stamina, sure, endura as well. Never learned how to make magic ones, actually, but…oh!” He triumphantly held it aloft, the radiant green liquid inside sloshing gently. “Hyrule gave this to me to hold onto, and knowing him, it’s probably a straight shot of pure magic. Doubt it's been purified or brewed or anything.”
“Great.” Link snatched it and stuffed it into Shadow’s hands. “Drink.”
Any other day. Shadow would wheedle and whine and act all cautious. At that moment, he uncorked the bottle and upended it like a shot.
He’d been expecting a taste like actual magic, sweet and spicy at the same time and complete with a slight tingle at the end. In reality, the potion tasted a bit like radioactive urine blended with pure copper and day–old strawberries. He nearly emptied his stomach right then and there, but one look at Link’s face and he choked it down.
“That was shit,” he gasped, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“But did it work?” Link asked, corking the bottle and handing it back to Wild.
“Worked fine,” he breathed, feeling his own magic surge through his fingertips. “I can try to get you all out. Won't promise anyone’s safety. This could go really really poorly.”
“Why are we leaving?” someone demanded. “Let’s just go and fight our way out!”
“Hahahahahaha, funny.” Shadow pointed in the direction of the noise. “I’m not doing that shit. I want to get the fuck out of here.”
“So you’d rather run away than face our actual enemy?” Scarf Guy pressed.
Shadow nodded. “Glad you understand.”
“Oh, you little—”
“Uh, wait, who just came back from the dead? Oh, right, not you. Leave me the fuck alone, man. I will leave you behind, holy shit.”
“Alright, break it up,” the one–eyed guy in heavy armour said, stepping between Scarfy and Shadow. “That's enough, Captain.” He turned. “Shadow, I don't trust you. But we will go along with what you say. For now.”
“Great.” Shadow cracked his knuckles and reached out his senses to check for Dark. He was definitely on his way. “Get in a circle, hold onto each other.”
He ended up between Four and Wild, the latter giving his hand a comforting squeeze for whatever reason. Shadow shot him a look that went pointedly ignored. Whatever.
“If I pull this off, I'm a fucking legend,” he muttered.
“That's Legend,” Wind, the little pirate boy, corrected, pointing to the frazzled one in the red dress. “I’m pretty sure you're fucking Four.”
Link turned an impressive shade of red and smacked the kid hard, sputtering. “We’re not—”
“SHUT UP,” Shadow interrupted. “I HATE ALL OF YOU, I WILL LEAVE YOU BEHIND.”
In the sudden silence, Shadow tried his absolute best to focus. In the back of his mind, he tracked the approach of Dark’s presence, the ever–growing cloud that permeated the building. He was just outside.
The best way to make the jump was to slip between a crack in Dark’s magic that kept them there. Shadow’s magic was similar enough that he could probably shove everyone through a wide enough one. If he could just…
There. His magic felt at the edges of a blind spot of sorts, somewhere too skinny to notice normally but large enough to shimmy through. Shadow gathered his magic and enveloped the heroes, cataloguing their every fidget and shiver. Alright, here we go.
The door slammed open, and Shadow opened his eyes to see Dark, his face twisted in fury and confusion at the sight of nine free heroes and Shadow himself.
“Shadow?” he yelled, his red eyes bright and threatening. “What is this?”
“BYE!” Shadow yelled back. Before Dark could do anything else, Wind blew out the torches in their braziers, and, clinging tight to his Link, Shadow pulled all nine heroes into the utter dark.