Work Text:
Obsession. I was Obsessed with the Hero from the moment I first drew breath.
Obsession was too kind a word. When my Master inspired perverse, cruel, dark life into me I knew only his most dire obsessions, his most damning thoughts. His need to know why the Hero he was told would triumph was so weak, so easily defeated. How the sword of evil's bane could be shattered before his power like such brittle glass. And yet, he could still feel its power, its bite as it flew by his cheek. He knew that Rauru's final boast was not meant in jest, he truly believed this swordsman would be the demon king's doom. And despite what he had said, ten thousand years and more did not quite pass in the blink of an eye. He enjoyed a fitful slumber at best as he dreamed of many battles against the armies of light, many victories and conquests. Many times when his glorious reign met its ultimate end at the hand of a mysterious swordsman.
I was to be his eyes and hands, his cat's paw in the world bereft of Princess and Hero both. While he spread his corruption from the depths, I would travel the surface and prepare the world, turn friends and allies inwards and stymie his every attempt to regain his footing until it was too late for anyone to stop the coming end. I was there when the islands rose from the earth, carving chasms in the land and unearthing ruins from below to hang, so mysteriously menacing in the sky. I was there, spreading rumors of falling rubble crushing a young family to death in their homes to spread unrest and worry at the roadside stable the night before a piece of rune-carved granite landed atop the nearby hill.
I was there, when my body rose from the frozen drifts of the Gerudo highlands in the first bloody moon of my Master's revival, and I knew Obsession for the first time. When sand-scraped bones grew dark red sinew and shadowy muscle, and the light of the red moon imbued me with my dark purpose. Whatever I had been before, I knew I was now only a monster. I was His monster, and I would do his bidding. Never to remain dead or still, never to breathe my last so long as my Master remained.
I was there when he first dove off the island in the sky, watching as he plummeted down to what seemed to be his doom. I tracked his progress as he glided gracefully into the lake's waters and emerged, soaked but unharmed from the shore. I tracked his unshod steps as he made for the nearest forest and was harassed by one of the trees that had drunk greedily of my Master's influence, quickly felling it and turning it into a campfire to dry himself and his clothes. I saw as he peeled away the sodden, anachronistic garb he had somehow acquired that his right shoulder twinged where it had been fused to another's to save his life. He was still unused to its reach, its musculature, and its powers, and I cataloged every weakness with rapt eagerness.
I had been readying the world for the Hero's arrival, for my Master knew he had escaped death by Rauru's hand. The cruelties I visited on the still fractured, struggling people of Hyrule were entirely unnecessary, and I reveled in them. But I could not continue eternally, even the mightiest of my Master's creations succumbed to their body’s baser needs. And so, with my greatest enemy at his weakest and most vulnerable point, I was there watching his breath rise and fall. Rise, and fall.
I dreamt of the Yiga, the utterly insane, omnicidal cult of the western fringes. Fools to the last, though powerful fools in their own way. Well equipped, buoyed as they were by their stolen Sheikah magics and the strange fruits of the Faron jungle. A paper tiger with real fangs. I dreamt of my life before, over a hundred years ago, abandoning my home and my ways in despair to join their faceless ranks as the Princess declared her intent to exhume the very technology my people were exiled for. My bitterness, my spite, etched into my bones by the sands I was left to die in.
I awoke well ahead of my quarry, alerted by the change in his breathing even in my sleep. He was stirring, his fire guttered and the cold seeping into his bones. I had to be away before dawn's first light, to begin the next phase of my plan. Ahead of his wanderings, to plot out his next move and guide his steps. A rumor of his precious charge, the one he was sworn to protect, appearing in Kakariko beneath a ruin to pique his interest.
By day I continued ahead, varying my guise as I had learned under the thumb of the Yiga when I still lived. I even saw one of my erstwhile kinsmen foolishly recognize and accost the most famed swordsman in the land. He was felled in moments of shedding his disguise with a brace of arrows and a hammer the Hero had cobbled together from some rocks and branches using his new arm's powers. I watched as he grew more used to the thing, despite its alien nature. I wondered if he would adapt so readily to awakening with his entire body replaced as I had, if he would continue on forever using only his obsession to rely on. But I was more cautious, more intelligent than he, and certainly moreso than my quickly cooling comrade-in-arms. I was the traveling merchant who met the Hero further down the road, and sold him a bundle of arrows at a price I knew he couldn't afford. I let him know the carefully constructed rumors that would guide his incurious, naive way into my trap. And I watched him head down the road towards the stables where I'd stashed the merchant I tied up at the bottom of the well. Dressed in a ragged skirt and the remains of a drape, on a quest to save the world. The fool.
I dreamt of a time before, before the Yiga, before the word Calamity was on everyone's lips. The Sheikah lived peaceful lives, peasant's lives, but they kept their lore well. Stories passed from parent to child in a chain unbroken for thousands of years. Of a time when we helped the King drive back Ganon beneath the earth with our technology, only to be shunned for our advanced ways that may threaten his rule. Of the fractiousness that led to families splitting down bloodlines. And, in my family, the tale of a recurring hero, backed by a Princess and wielding a sword of purest light to vanquish the evil again and again. Of Link, the Hero of Hyrule in perpetuity. Only one of my family was to ever know the truth in each generation, the truth that we live in a world of cycles, never truly allowed to flourish in peace, but never able to fall into inescapable despair. I was not chosen, but I learned nonetheless.
I was there, watching him chase after his Princess, the phantom puppet being dragged along before him like bait on a hook. The Princess he would forever chase, forever fight for. Forever die for. His last incarnation has been particularly cruel to him. Twice now he's been nearly killed by my Master before mustering his strength again, only saved by a last ditch effort by the royal family. He could not know how many times he's suffered a near identical fate, how ill-prepared and lonely his journey through this eternal cycle has been. The hardship, the struggle, the familiar names and faces he can't ever remember from ages past. He just silently solves the problems of every person before him with seemingly no care for his own health or needs.
He's at least properly clothed now, after curing that terminal case of Gloom from a granny he could afford some Sheikah garb. I remembered how well-fitting it was, flexible while not being skin-tight like the Yiga's poor approximation. Still, on his short, muscled frame it hung well, and would keep him warm at night and hidden from all but the most keen eyes. All but my eyes, in fact. My obsession had grown, I could no more fail to spot him in a crowd than I could disobey my Master's orders. Harrying this hero had been my entire reason for being.
I could sense his confusion as he was told Zelda had barred all access to the Ring Ruin. It would not do for him to learn of his most powerful ally too soon, before it was too late for any help to be enough to save him. My Master's power over the land grew by the day, and the blood moon's rise refreshed the ranks of his minions far faster than the pitiful squads of ill-equipped soldiers could strike them down, even with the Hero's help. Soon the last of their weapons would shatter, and they would be defenseless. I think the Hero would fight with fists and teeth then, or with the long, jagged nails on his mis-matched right arm. He is as dogged and as obsessed as I, in his own way.
I dreamt of the sands. The endless heat and frigid cold of the desert. The nights wandering with my partner, probing the defenses of Gerudo Town. I had convinced him through no small effort that we absolutely could not assault them openly, nor disguise ourselves as foreign vai and waltz right inside. Either plan was foolish when they knew the Yiga were after their secrets and their relic, and I had seen their leader training in the desert. She hardly needed the shield and sword she carried habitually, not when she could end a man's life with a snap.
Luck was not with us that day, however, as our ambling patrols, looking like utterly lost, pitiful hikers beneath the guard's notice as we were voe and far from the main gates, took us just past Urbosa speaking to Zelda. The Princess was here, beyond the town walls! And without her guard. I could tell my reckless, feckless bastard of a partner wished nothing more than to try his luck, but I ushered him on and whispered words of caution on deaf ears. His blood was pumping through them too hard. Still, my hand guided him subtly away as I tried to focus on both his reactions and Urbosa's words. It was a doomed effort. When she called out to us, when I heard the word Traitor... for a moment I would swear my vision went red. It was all the distraction my companion needed. The fight was unmercifully short. With my idiot partner running in alone to get his sloppy brawling torn apart by Urbosa's calculated movements. She didn't even need to turn the edge of her blade to him. But then, as he knelt gasping in the sand, I saw her raise one hand to the heavens and my blood ran cold.
I didn't think, my body reacted on its own. Lightning strikes the highest conductor nearby. I leapt as high as I could into the air and held my weapon above my head. The world went white.
Vaguely, over the erratic beating of my heart, I could hear her say something as my partner dragged me away in a stumble across the sand. Later, when my heart finally gave out, he left me where I collapsed for the sands to slowly take me.
The plague I visited on the Gerudo was particularly vicious. Shambling, artless, immortal monsters of sand and bile and spite. Much like my own unnatural flesh, although laid bare of any artifice and nicety. The souls of those swallowed by this wasteland would endlessly animate more and more of these impossible foes until they were overrun. And with the sandstorm the Queen had brought down, Riju's lacking mastery of her element would prove wholly inadequate.
It wouldn't end them, I knew. It would be an admirable stumbling block, much like the others I had devised. As my master invested more power and agency into me, I was regaining more of myself and my memories had nearly all returned. I knew my Master's aims were doomed to failure, that he could not stomp out the Gerudo here, not all of them. There would need to be enough left for his next incarnation to be born. For he was as doomed to fail as the world was doomed to suffer him. The Hero would come, Link would destroy my skeletal horrors just as he had destroyed the basalt dragon I had made of the slopes of Eldin. He was driven, he was bold. It was all but inevitable.
But why? Why did he do it time and again, without ever uttering a word? Without showing doubt, fear, or hesitation? Adapting to madness that would scar lesser men, standing firm with injuries that would fell them outright. Braving the heat and cold, the fire and the storms for what? For Zelda. For Hyrule. For an heiress to a throne who would always need her Hero to win it back from the brink of defeat. For someone long since dead, thrust back through time to the age of the gods and the founding of Hyrule. She was no longer there to save him should he dive into a fight he had no hope of winning. No longer there to chase. In her place a puppet, a phantom. Me. I was the merchant on the side of the road. The person reading him the paper at the inn one stormy night. Even once the Yiga simpleton, vanishing artfully before he dealt me the final blow. He has seen me dozens of times, scores of conversations. Yet he seeks only her, has eyes only for her. For duty? Are he and I alike in bindings, never to be free of our obligations to the two great powers of the world? I was obsessed with knowing.
I looked down into the lake near where he had set camp. Zelda’s perfect features and short-cropped golden hair stared back at me. I could be anyone, anything, in the time between my Master’s last command and his next. My form swirled around me, my clothes taking on a modified version of the Sheikah garb I had last worn over a century ago. Golden bangs still poked free from the headwrap I adopted, but the skin was darker and the eyes red. It would throw off any suspicions. It felt disturbingly natural.
That night, Link dreamt of a handsome Sheikah man stirring him gently on the banks of the lake. His fire was nothing but embers, and the moon was the only light to see by. The man put a finger to his cloth-covered lips, but the smile in his eyes told Link he knew this was an unnecessary gesture. His other hand rested next to Link’s thigh, and it was with a questioning glance that he moved it to brush the backs of his callused knuckles against his leg. The hairs rose on the back of Link’s arms and he shuddered involuntarily. It had been so long since he had felt so tender a touch. He could almost believe he was back in Hateno, the Princess’ hand casually dragging across his back as he diced peppers for their next meal.
But she was gone. He knew that now, even as he tracked the cruel puppet Ganon had left to fill the void she left. She was gone, and for a night he would allow himself to dream of pretty, mysterious men whose eyes shone like rubies in the gloom. He intertwined his fingers with the man’s and softly, boldly, asked him his name. The Sheikah seemed surprised to hear him speak, but muttered his reply into the cool night air before giving his hand a desperate, lonely squeeze.
Both of them were faltering, hesitant, and fumbling at first. Link’s seemingly untamable nails on his right hand left lines of pink across the Sheikah’s hip as he pulled down the tight, midnight purple leggings he wore. He looked mortified as the Sheikah hissed in pain, until the man kissed him so hard through his face-wrap that he could feel his lips bruising against his teeth. He was stunned only a moment before returning the kiss in kind, growling under his breath as he shoved the slight man to the ground and straddled him.
His movements were hungry now, raw, his hips bucking against the half-covered crotch of the mysterious stranger as his cock strained against the fabric. Link had no such barrier, having long since developed a habit of sleeping in the soft, well-worn ancient skirt and tunic he had found on first waking in this strange new Hyrule. The stranger gasped breathlessly beneath him, hands pushed into the dirt, neck bared, his hips arching into Link’s pelvis as he whined with plaintive need. The two struggled for dominance like this as the coals flickered, Link always managing to keep control. He frotted and bucked manically until the other man broke one hand free, and immediately gripped his wrist and brought Link’s arm to his own throat to send him a clear message of desire. Link’s fingers tightened experimentally as the other man quickly freed his straining, twitching cock and wrapped slender fingers around both of them, squeezing and pumping in time with Link’s thrusts.
They stayed locked into that rhythm, Link never holding too much pressure on the fragile throat in his grasp, and the Sheikah man never going so fast that Link’s climax arrived early. Still, when it did come he sped up his motions until he could finish himself as Link painted the eye on his garb with glistening white. As he slowly relaxed his fingers, he could see faint, drying rivulets of blood left by his monstrous nails before the tension began to drain from his limbs and it was all he could do to shove himself to the side before collapsing into the dew, panting heavily and his stamina spent.
When next he opened his eyes, dawn was breaking and his dream companion was gone, no evidence left except his raging erection and the sticky nocturnal emission he’d have to wash away in the lake’s waters before it stained.
I was obsessed with the Hero from the moment I first drew breath. And I was there, standing on the cliff overlooking their little Lookout, the cliff I watched his descent through the sky from after he miraculously survived my Master. I felt him drawing nearer, for he was the Hero, and I was His Monster. It was time for the puppet to have its strings cut.
As I saw him entering the observatory, I smiled my cold smile with Her warm, pink lips. I reveled in taunting him when I could feel his eyes on me. And though I will never know if he could see it through the spyglass, for the briefest of moments my eyes flashed like rubies in the gloom.