Chapter Text
Link had never been able to sleep well. He'd always wake up from one nightmare or another, usually leaving him trying (and failing) to scream somebody's name. He didn't know who's name it was, never remembered enough about his dreams to try to guess who. His voice wasn't any help either. He wasn't sure if he'd always been unable to speak, or if this was one of the side-effects of that goddess-forsaken shrine he'd been trapped in for a century. His voice, those times he tried to use it, always came out a jumbled mess, a garble of sounds that 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 be speech, if one tried hard enough to listen, so it was never very helpful in trying to figure out just who he was screaming for.
Link didn't trust his voice. Link didn't trust much about himself, really. He knew that his instincts were correct, knew that he was skilled in wielding weapons, but he didn't know if he should trust what little memories he'd gotten back. Had those been fake? Would he have been able to tell if they were? He knew now that his knowledge of history and social graces was solid, having read the books in the castle before he'd left for his house in Hateno. Zelda had (very formally) dismissed him as her knight, telling him that he needed to live his own life. Link thought it was because she didn't want to see him around. From the memories he'd gathered, she didn't seem to like him very much, and even at the end, it was more a 𝘵𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 of him than a 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱. It didn't help that as soon as she'd sealed Ganon, his whole being screamed at him to get away from her, to run and never return. He didn't follow those instincts until she'd dismissed him.
Link was lucky, in a way, that the stablehands at Dueling Peaks (and people everywhere, really) knew sign language, and had taught him the language when it became clear that he couldn't speak. He'd tried to ask Zelda, once, if she knew why he'd been mute. She didn't know, and Link had dropped the subject.
Link had never wanted to be around Zelda, or Impa, or that scientist, Purah. Purah was...excessive, and Impa just never felt right to speak to. Link did want to be around 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘩𝘢𝘮𝘱𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴, though. He'd expected them to move on, to go...wherever ghosts went. They didn't. They remained trapped within their Divine Beasts, unable to move on. Or maybe unwilling. He'd talked to each of them after defeating the Calamity, and it seemed they were waiting for something to happen. Like they were waiting to be revived.
Link hadn't known, not until too late, that Revali had courted him. He'd freed Vah Ruta first, and had been given what the other Zora called a courting gift. He'd learned through Mipha's little brother, Sidon, that people yelling, even in excitement, triggered a panic attack. Sidon had made a great effort to be quieter in Link's presence after that. Link had the impression that him and Mipha had been friends from childhood, could remember snippets of healing sessions from her, lots of them. He believed that the tunic represented a wedding ring, that it meant they would've gotten married, which if Link was right about them being childhood friends (and he was right, he'd asked Mipha as soon as he'd freed her), it only made sense that those feelings would bloom into more serious things as the two grew older. When he'd boarded Medoh, with only the memory that Revali was an arrogant bastard who seemed to hate him, he was taken aback by what he'd said. "Make me wait 100 years 𝘢𝘯𝘥 not wear my feathers?" Revali had scoffed, much in the same tone as in the memory Link had just gained. "How rude."
Link hadn't understood, then. Why would 𝘙𝘦𝘷𝘢𝘭𝘪, of all people, care if he were wearing some of his feathers? Link had defeated Windblight, received gratitude from the spirit, and Revali's Gale. He'd traveled back to the village, watched the beast land on the perch on top of the village, and only then did he decide to ask.
Link had approached Teba rather shyly. He'd explained the situation with Revali's ghost being trapped on the beast, and what he'd said. If Teba's feathers weren't white already, Link is sure they would've been after he'd repeated the statement Revali gave Link.
"Link, are you sure he said you were supposed to be wearing his feathers??!" Teba all but yelled (Link was glad Teba hadn't yelled). It looked as if the Rito was trying 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘥 not to grab Link by the shoulders and shake him.
"Yes, is that bad..?" Link had asked, hands shaky with nervousness.
Teba sighed, ran his wing down his beak, and fixed Link with a look that scared Link further. "Link...Rito wear each other's feathers when they're courting or mated. You say the only memory you have of him is being an asshole?" at Link's nod, Teba had sighed. "I wonder what made him change his mind so drastically."
The conversation had ended, rather abruptly, because Teba had no information. Link had bought the house in Hateno (rumored to be the house of a soldier, who had to have been his father) a few weeks after that. He'd found a chest, one loosely buried, as if the dirt around it had been eroded by time (a lot of chests were like this now). He'd pulled it up with the magic in the Slate, and inside had been Revali's feathers. That was all that was left. It looked like there might've been more, once, but all Link found were the feathers, undamaged by time (ok, maybe they'd been a little faded, but they were still strong and able to be wound in his hair). Link had immediately gone back to Medoh, to Revali. He'd sat there like a petulant child until Revali had come down from his beast. He'd demanded to know how to put them in his hair. Revali had shown Link how to braid the feathers into his hair, and Link went nowhere without them, scared to lose them a second time, even if he didn't remember losing them the first time.
Really, even now, Link only had little snippets of the last few months of his old life, steeped in strife from the coming Calamity. He wasn't sure if his feelings on who these people were was true (he'd been too cowardly to ask). They could've all been enemies, forced into helping each other with the growing threat of the Calamity. Link couldn't bring himself to believe that, however. He missed them too much, felt their absence too often for them to be just people he'd met.
Link almost felt bad for wanting to have the champion's physical bodies back. He thought that if he let himself think that for too long, let the idea manifest into too much, he would lose what little he 𝘥𝘪𝘥 have of his champions.
A few weeks ago, the gnawing ache of losing his friends had gotten too much, and he'd gone to the Spring of Power to pray to the Goddess, to try to get them back. She'd told him that while she wanted to see them return to life as well, she couldn't do that on her own. She promised him that as much as it didn't look like it, they were really still alive, and Link would need to find out how, would need to save them.
Link still had no idea where to start, and he didn’t want to bring it up to the champions too soon, didn’t want to give them hope only to have to take it away when he couldn’t find anything.
Link realized he was cold. Freezing, even. He’d traveled onto Vah Medoh while lost in thought, and he was freezing. Hebra was in peak snowstorm season, and being so high above Rito Village while flying (a distance that any Rito would be able to cross, and Teba did quite frequently to talk to Revali. Link had told Teba to make sure Revali was never lonely, since Link wouldn’t be able to return often or consistently. Teba had been learning Revali’s Gale recently.), that meant that it was only colder up here. A greenish specter appeared in front of Link, setting his disapproval onto its target.
“What the 𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘬, Link? Are you trying to die?” Revali’s voice was shrill, one step from yelling, two from full blown panic. Link couldn’t look up. When had he gotten here…?
A rustle of fabric, a few beeps. Link looked up, and saw his Snowquill clothes (the pride of Rito craftsmen) in front of him. Revali looked equally angry and stressed, holding the Sheikah Slate in his wings. Link walked into the beast, for privacy, putting on his armor (as if Revali couldn’t see anything and everything that happened on the beast he was tied to. As if Revali hadn’t seen Link naked before. As if Link was embarrassed in the slightest), instantly feeling it’s warming effects.
Calmed due to his boyfriends life being in slightly less danger, Revali looked at the Hylian. Link looked back. “What brings you here, oh hero of the lands?” Revali’s arrogant tone came back, Link had learned long ago that this was just a way for him to pretend he could keep his distance, a way for the Rito to pretend that if Link were to die again, Revali would be fine. Link had learned that Revali was just as scared of losing Link as Link was of losing Revali.
Link’s hands shook, from the cold or his own nervousness, he wasn’t sure. “I- I was thinking…don’t know how I got here.” Revali moved closer slowly, not wanting to startle Link (Revali remembered the day he’d sent the child into a panic attack, remembered the two hours of having to calm him down that followed. Revali thought it a shame that his childhood had followed him across a century, that the effects stayed even if his memories didn’t.). Revali hugged Link, carefully avoiding touching their chests together (Revali would phase through Link, and they both couldn’t stand their chests being touched, not after the scars those beams of death left on them.), and they stayed like that for a while.
Link finally took a breath, his chest moving ever so slightly. He raised his hands to sign, then faltered. Medoh let out a cry, one of mixed pain and comfort. “Hylia said we could bring you guys back…said she didn’t know how but you were still alive…said Zelda’s power would help. I need to bring you back, need to have you guys again.” Link’s faltering explanation left Revali stunned. Revali was still alive? How? Where? Why wasn’t he with his body, if it was still there? Would he look the same?
“Do you know where to start? Medoh is open to you.” Revali offered, once he’d digested the information given. Link just shrugged.
“Main terminal?” Revali shuddered as he remembered those panicked moments in front of the terminal, once he’d realized that the blight was too much for him to handle. He remembered putting out the SOS, only for it to be drowned out by the SAD signal from the blight later. Remembered the pain searing his flesh against the terminal as he listened to the beeps.
Link took the slate, and read the SOS and SAD messages from Medoh. Revali looked over his shoulder, and it wasn’t just Medoh. 𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 beast had sent those two signals within minutes of each other. They’d all been panicked, and had all fallen to their own personal matches. There were messages under that, from an hour later. From each Divine Beast, a single message rang into the void, not to be heard for over 100 years. 𝐏𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐭 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧.
Link met Revali’s eyes. Link didn’t remember there being more than one healing bath in the Shrine. Where would they be? Could they still be saved? At what cost?
Link (and now Revali) desperately needed to find out.