Chapter Text
They make good time after their encounter with Tetra’s husband. Hyrule Field proper has lots of ruins – former settlements and outposts – that are now occupied by the dead, and they stop briefly at the Wetland Stable to check in with the people there; they’ve already begun leaving snacks out each night for the dead.
It’s relieving – as scared as these people are, they trust Zelda’s word, trust the notices Paya has sent out, and with the dead being generally respectful of the livings’ space –
It helps, Link thinks, that Hyrule feels so much more alive now. It’s – comforting. Easing.
Their pace slows to a crawl, however, as they come up on the outskirts of the battle.
The Calamity may have attacked the castle, but Hyrule had been preparing for a cataclysmic war before its return. Hyrule Field had been a sea of military encampments by the time of the attack, as equally full with lifeless Guardians as it had been with living, breathing soldiers.
Over a century after that battle, and the whole Field is still – dangerous. Deadly, filled with traps and collapsed dig sites and fortifications, Guardians and other Sheikah technologies just waiting to come to life and kill again. Worse are dig sites and tunnels that haven’t yet collapsed; one wrong step could see you drowning in earth or impaled on rusted weaponry.
On top of that, the remnants of the Calamity’s last battle are still visible – great furrows and trenches where the beast had skid through the earth, scorched blast marks and great swaths of earth blasted wholly dead with malice or divine might.
Sheik’s eyeing the two of them.
“What?!” Zelda asks defensively.
“Do you know what the definition of collateral damage is?”
Link scrambles out of the way, and Zelda lunges with a shriek.
“It was like that when we got here!”
Link’s worked his way through the mess before – slowly, carefully, mostly at night to avoid catching anything the attention of anything unsavory – but he typically approached the castle from behind. It’d be more effort than it’s worth to go around now, but…
“Ranch ruins…ahead. Plan our…route there?” He asks, after Sheik and Zelda have stopped their bickering. He gets their agreement, and they start working their way through it.
It’s not so bad, this far out. Castle Town’s ruins are where it gets really bad – people had fortified streets, barricaded homes, used whole buildings to defend against the Guardians. Very very few had had the opportunity to flee. At least those out in the Field hadn’t been walled in on all sides.
“You called this a ranch?”
“Oh, yes. Lon Lon Ranch – my childhood horse came from here. Before the Calamity it was one of the oldest settlements in Hyrule – the same family has run it for millennia. It’s sometimes been a town, or a village, or an outpost – but always held a ranch.” Zelda’s voice is stilted. She’d been friends with the owner, before the Calamity - Link had escorted her to visit often. Zelda isn’t a particularly gifted rider, but she had cared deeply for her horse. She’d insisted he deserved to visit with family.
“Dead, I assume?”
“Mmm, the practice of family names died out after the Calamity – it had only ever been popular among the nobility, those with quite a lot of land or wealth. I have to imagine any descendants will work their way back here, though. I know there’s been work to reclaim other ruined settlements, farther out from the epicenter of the attack.”
Hyrule doesn’t have the population to sustain all of the lost settlements, but – it would be something, Link thinks, to see the villages and citadels restored.
“Are you organizing the rebuilding, then?”
“Want to…help Akkala.” Link says, even as he shakes his head.
“Akkala?”
“Akkala Citadel. That would be…well, with everything going on having a fortress up and running would be a wise precaution.” Zelda murmurs, frowning as she picks her way over a broken Guardian limb.
“A fortress, still standing?” Sheik sounds surprised.
“Technically yes. It’s ancient, built to be as self-sufficient as possible – think of a very large, circular fortress. We have no idea how to replicate the way they built the vents and air shafts. Fixing them will…well, anyway. There are underground springs beneath it for water. Unfortunately the air vents were not particularly well hidden on the outside of the building, and the Citadel’s farmland was located on terraces above it – and Guardians could climb. They destroyed the outer layers of the building and suffocated or starved everyone inside.”
It hadn’t been fully manned, either. Most of the soldiers had departed for the Field before the Calamity struck – Hyrule had been at peace.
“It sounds like the Temple.” Sheik says, a little wistful.
“The – the Shadow Temple?”
“Mm. It wasn’t always buried, but…”
Sheik stops, jerking awkwardly around the rotting remains of a cart, and Link’s senses prickle with the same warning. He snaps to attention, turns – and freezes.
He has never seen this horse before in his life.
But he knows her.
She’s a big thing, brown and white with eyes dark with uncanny intelligence, and she picks her way nimbly through the rubble between them. Presses herself against his chest, and he holds her back.
There’s – something, thrumming under her coat. Power, maybe. Magic, probably. She pulls away and nudges his shoulder, gently, and then steps past him. Pauses briefly at Sheik’s side, and whickers softly – sadly. Sheik abruptly looks away from her. He’s blinking back tears, Link realizes.
He follows. Zelda and Sheik follow him – and where she steps, the ground is clear.
They pass the Sacred Ground ruins, pass the wall that once encircled Castle Town – pass through the absolute nightmare left of Castle Town. She stops, when the town clears out and the road to the castle loams lonely in front of them. Turns to regard them.
This trip should have taken them – hours, if not days. The sun does not even look like it has moved.
“Thank you.” Link says, softly. She lets out a soft sound, warm and comforting. Says her goodbyes to Zelda just as briefly, and – hesitates in front of Sheik.
“I’m sorry, Epona.” Sheik whispers. She nudges his shoulder chidingly. Flicks him with her tail as she steps past him.
Something in Link’s settled at her presence.
He hadn’t doubted that – that they could do this in the first place. But now he knows.
“Let’s…find your father.” He says. Sheik scrubs his eyes with his wrists, and nods.
“Thank you – thank you both. For – coming.”
“Of course.” Zelda says softly. She reaches out and takes Sheik’s hand in hers. And then takes Link, with her other.
They set out for the castle together.