Chapter Text
Link does not find out that Revali has invited himself along on his quest to free Hyrule upon his departure from Rito Village. The single blue-feathered figure standing atop Vah Medoh, watching him head south on horseback, rather implies the opposite.
He does not find this out upon his arrival in Gerudo Desert, either—though maybe the weirdly knowing look that Kass had given him after asking after the Rito Champion should have clued him into the fact that something was going on.
But no, he finds this out after he goes to all the trouble of wearing clothes that get him gendered very differently than he normally settles for, and during his meeting with the (small, too young) Chief of the Gerudo, because Revali comes flying in through the doorway with at least three guards in hot pursuit and, in his rush, flies directly into a stone pillar.
“Link!” Revali blurts out, scrambling to his feet. And then he pauses, squinting, and goes— “What are you wearing?”
…At this point, Link wouldn’t even blame Riju for throwing them both out and making them reckon with Vah Naboris on their own.
It’s probably for the best that she’s apparently inherited her great-grandmother’s sense of humor—and, possibly more importantly, her great-grandmother’s healthy respect for loophole abuse.
He doesn’t get any real answers out of Revali until the pair of them have been sent off to steal back a certain Gerudo artifact from the Yiga Clan. He doesn’t even get a chance to ask until Revali takes a break to breathe before launching back into a rather long-winded tirade about how of course the Yiga are still around, it’s not like they’d have the courtesy to die off or at least leave everyone else alone after their master had essentially won.
It’s only then that Link clears his throat and signs, “Why are you here?”
Revali blinks. “Do you think me incapable of realizing that my actions likely contributed to our being tasked with this, instead of… oh, I don’t know, someone slightly more capable of stealth than the pair of us?”
“Weren’t you listening? Riju said they’d tried that before. No one that made it inside ever came back, stealth or no.”
“Unfortunately rather characteristic of dealing with the Yiga, or they’d have been flushed out from their little hideaway a century prior,” Revali mutters.
“Anyway!” Link waves a hand in front of his beak. “That isn’t what I meant. Why are you here?”
“Because we were—”
“Why are you with me at all!”
Revali opens his beak, but not enough to say anything. He slowly closes it again, without saying anything.
“Ah,” he says at last. “Well.”
Link raises an eyebrow. “You made it pretty clear that you didn’t want anything more to do with me than you had to.”
At least, he made that clear when he knew Link was listening. Link hasn’t brought up that quiet moment in the inn, partially because he’s not sure he didn’t dream it and partially because he doubts doing so would result in anything but vehement denial of Revali doing any such thing.
Still. He’d like to know, on the off chance Revali is willing to tell him.
“Rito Village has… changed, quite extensively, over the past century,” Revali mutters. “I knew that surely it must have, but knowing that and seeing it for myself are… two different things. The achievements I worked my entire life for are seen not as something anyone could do with enough hard work, but completely unattainable for anyone but me, and I…”
“I thought you wanted to be a legend,” Link signs.
“Not like this. The village is my home; that will never change, whatever time period I find myself in. But there are too many new faces, too many echoes of those I knew once and never will again.” Revali sighs, shaking his head. “It’s almost a kindness, that you can’t remember those you left behind.”
Link’s… vaguely aware of the fact that he had a family, in the times before the Calamity. Mipha’s alluded to it. Daruk’s gone to rather extreme lengths not to allude to it. A part of him wonders—what did happen to them?
The rest thinks perhaps he’s better off not knowing until the Calamity is defeated, once and for all. Like it should have been the first time, and wasn’t, because they weren’t ready.
“Do you regret it?” Link asks. “Coming to the future?”
Revali doesn’t answer at first. He only looks up, at the sandstorm that seems to (finally, finally) be clearing enough for visibility. Link is half expecting him to take off the moment that he can do so again.
He doesn’t. Instead, he looks back at Link.
“I don’t believe that matters,” Revali says tightly. “I swore to pilot Vah Medoh in the assault against the Calamity, and I can hardly do that if the assault against the Calamity will only occur decades after my death. Does that answer your question?”
Link considers this. At last, he signs, “You don’t know. Do you?”
The glare Link gets is an answer in itself, and not a reassuring one. Revali stops walking then, crouching in the sand, spreading his wings to call upon his Gale. Evidently, this conversation is over.
Though perhaps it isn’t, because before Revali leaps into the sky, he says over the wind, “If it’s Urbosa you are worried about, I don’t anticipate that she’d choose to leave Zelda.”
He soars. Link watches him do it. And then, as the wind ruffles his hair teasingly, he pulls out his paraglider and shoots up as well. The squawk of surprise Revali makes at a sudden addition to his airspace is hilarious, even if Link can’t maintain altitude as well as he can.
And, for however little time that Link can glide, it’s much, much faster than trudging through the sand.
The Yiga Clan is kind of terrifying. Or, more accurately, they are terrifying, no kind of necessary… right up until Revali nearly gets caught, Link throws a bunch of bananas at a guard in an attempt to distract him, misses horribly—and the guard is, bafflingly, distracted anyway.
After that particular revelation—and especially after the rather anticlimactic battle with one Master Kohga—the Yiga pretty quickly go from kind of terrifying to not terrifying at all. Riju certainly is happy—if about as confused as Link still feels—to hear about the Yiga’s greatest and weirdest weakness.
The important thing is that the Thunder Helm is back. Which means that Link can take on Vah Naboris, with Riju’s help, and… hopefully, one way or another, save Urbosa.
One more Divine Beast shouldn’t be that hard, not when Link’s already fought three and their respective Blights. Waterblight, Fireblight, Windblight…
…Honestly, what Link is most worried about is the fact that this time, he isn’t doing it alone. Every time before, he’s had help getting into the Divine Beast, but said help never went inside with him. Sidon couldn’t, Yunobo wouldn’t, and Teba wanted to before he took a bad hit in the timeline where Revali died.
This time… is a little different. Riju has no interest in going inside herself, just in making sure that Link can get there and is equipped to do so without dying horribly the same way Urbosa did. Revali, on the other hand, is quite adamant about not sending Link in to fight whatever awaits by himself.
“Out of the four of us Champions, Urbosa is…” Revali sighs, clicking his beak irritably. “Urbosa was, perhaps, the one who would have come out on top if ever any of us had to fight each other. She was very good in a fight. Whatever took her down has to be fast, and strong, and you may very well need my Gale in fighting it.”
Whatever it is, most likely, is another Blight of some kind. Whatever it is, Link isn’t particularly excited to fight it. He doesn’t remember much about Urbosa, only bits and pieces and flashes, and one very distinct memory of being hugged by someone whose face he can’t picture.
“I shall do my utmost to keep both of you safe with the Thunder Helm,” Riju says at last, hugging said priceless Gerudo artifact to her chest. “However, there is a related matter that has been eating away at me. Champion Revali… how are you here?”
Revali looks at Link.
“I’m not explaining that,” Link signs.
“What do you mean?” Revali says carefully.
“I know that both Champion Mipha and Champion Daruk managed to defeat the monsters sent to kill them and yet live to this day,” Riju elaborates. “I know that Lady Urbosa… perished. I know that your fate was unknown, but anyone who knew of you certainly thought that… I know that the Zora and the Gorons both live for really long amounts of time, are the Rito—”
“Do we live longer than Gerudo?” Revali shakes his head with a scoff. “Hardly. The eldest of my people currently living would be our current Elder, Kaneli, and he is scarcely fifty-one.”
“...Oh,” Riju says. “Then how could you be—”
Revali looks at Link meaningfully.
Link sighs. “I have… something… that lets me travel back in time in specific situations. I haven’t discovered any situations where it lets me do that except when I’m inside Divine Beasts, confronting the monsters that killed their Champions a century ago.”
“Champion…s?” Riju frowns at him. “But only Lady Urbosa…”
“I’ve done it three times already,” Link explains. “Once for Mipha, once for Daruk, and once for Revali. Both Mipha and Daruk were able to take the long way back. Revali… didn’t.”
“I took a shortcut,” Revali says mildly.
For the sake of not confusing Riju further, Link decides he’d better not mention exactly what said shortcut entailed. “Once we go back and save Urbosa’s life—it’s up to her what to choose. Not me.”
“I… see,” Riju murmurs. “Either Lady Urbosa will remain in the past, or…”
“Or she returns with us.” Revali breathes out, slowly and quietly. “One way or another, nothing will be the same. I don’t trust Link not to erase me from existence entirely by accident if I remain behind, so I’ll be accompanying him.”
“I see,” Riju repeats, nodding. “That seems perfectly reasonable.”
It seems pretty reasonable to Link, despite the way Revali worded it. Especially once it occurs to him that, if Urbosa remains in the past alone, it will be both his and Revali’s only chance to say goodbye.
“Thank you! I knew there was something I liked about you,” Revali says breezily. “Now, I suppose… shall we make for Naboris today, or wait until tomorrow?”
“I would prefer to do this sooner rather than later, but—”
“Tomorrow,” Link signs, eyeing the window set into the wall—and the last rays of the setting sun illuminating the desert beyond Gerudo Town.
“...Tomorrow, then,” Riju declares. “That does give me time to learn how to use this properly! Though, first things first…”
Without any ceremony, she raises the helm and puts it on. Riju has to adjust it a bit, so it looks slightly less big on her, but eventually she seems to be satisfied.
“How do I look?” she asks. “You both knew Lady Urbosa, do I look… at all like she did?”
“I can’t recall her ever using the Thunder Helm,” Revali says carefully. “However—you carry yourself similarly now that you have it, more confidently. You certainly appear to be her relative.”
Beneath it, Riju beams. “Thank you! Link, what do you think? …Link?”
Link neither signs nor says anything. Because, something about the Thunder Helm, something about Riju here, something about dusk in the desert—
He remembers. He remembers Urbosa, better than he had before. He remembers her being a better parent to Zelda than the long-dead king ever had been, he remembers Vah Naboris, he remembers—not everything. Not even close to everything.
But he remembers enough.
Link may not know a lot of things about himself, not for sure, but he knows this: he doesn't scare easily. Lynels aren't anywhere near as intimidating as they used to be. Guardians still make his heart race and his breath quicken, but as long as he's got a pot lid or something similar on hand and the ability to get the attention of only one at a time, he'll generally be alright. The Yiga are infinitely less scary now that he knows they'll drop almost anything for bananas.
Approaching Vah Naboris by seal surfing, with Riju relying upon her own beloved seal and Revali flying low so as to stay within the Thunder Helm's protective sphere, is legitimately scarier than anything else Link can remember doing. The air around them crackles with electricity even close to Riju. The hair on the back of Link's neck stands on end.
"Like we planned!" Riju calls out, steel in her words. "Stay close, take no unnecessary risks!"
"The risks I take are quite necessary, thank you very much," Revali grumbles, but he too is careful to stay within range of Riju. "Surely Naboris cannot keep this up forever..."
Link shoots him a wordless glare. He's not wrong, but when a single misstep would result in them all being cooked alive, Link is much less inclined to fuck around and find out.
Riju, her focus evenly divided between maintaining the barrier keeping them all alive and steering Patricia through a helm that is slightly too big on her, does not see the look Link gives Revali, nor the challenging eyebrow he raises in return. If she does somehow see either of those things, she doesn't comment on them.
Instead, she calls out, "You're right, Champion Revali—but I'm inclined to be more cautious now that we're out here, and Naboris isn't moving any closer to Gerudo Town than it already is. We can take a lap around it and better survey what we have to do. Everyone, to the right! Let's circle about the back!"
As it turns out, Link's own rented sand seal is much less thrilled about taking a sharp turn to the right than Riju's. Consequently, he's treated to a clear view of Revali twisting gracefully in midair, gliding easily ahead of Riju before falling back to fly alongside her as Link races to catch up.
He can also clearly hear Revali say, "Her."
"...Her?"
"Vah Naboris," Revali says, his voice clipped and curt. "It's an understandable mistake, but I didn't refer to my own Divine Beast as it, and neither did Urbosa."
"Oh!" Riju winces. "I apologize—"
"No need to. You had no possible way of knowing, unless you've been hiding an ability to read minds from us?"
Riju stares at him for a moment, then actually giggles. "Believe me, I would have significantly fewer problems if I could! I don't suppose you're capable of that, either?"
"I regret to inform you..." He pauses. "No, I'm afraid that reading minds is indeed beyond my capabilities as well. Though I'm in full agreement regarding how useful that would be!"
Link, who had been keeping a careful eye on what Naboris was doing even while paying some attention to Revali to make sure he didn't say anything overly mean to Riju, nearly lets go of his sand seal in thankfully nonliteral shock. Revali has snapped at him for much, much less than that. So why...
It occurs to Link, quite suddenly, that every single kid in Rito Village has an even higher opinion of Revali than they did before he'd turned up after a century where no one knew what happened to him. He thought, assumed really, that maybe they just hadn’t talked to him much.
But maybe he's just good with kids?
(Riju, for all her determination, is very much still a kid herself.)
All that aside—Link can't really sign anything while holding onto a sand seal for dear life. He whistles instead, the sound high-pitched and audible even over the crackling of lightning, though probably not to the horse he left at Gerudo Canyon Stable a couple weeks back, a horse with a coat so dark it’s nearly purple he dubbed Tael.
"Right!" Riju clears her throat. "It does seem like Naboris can only fire off an attack every several seconds, and she does not seem to recognize that she is not doing anything to us while we are protected here. So long as my own resolve remains—and it will— the Thunder Helm will keep us safe."
"That's more than enough time to work with," Revali says. "I'll take out the farther two feet. Link, are you capable of shooting the near two in one pass?"
Link nods. Or more accurately, Link starts to nod, and then he thinks about it and shrugs. He'd like to do both in one pass. He probably could if he wasn't being hauled through the desert sands by a sand seal, an animal he had almost no experience with before today.
"If you can't hit them all, come back," Riju says. It sounds more like a desperate plea than an order.
"Of course," Revali says airily. "After this next strike?"
Link nods, more resolutely this time. And, as the lightning dissipates harmlessly around the Thunder Helm, both of them go. Link focuses on the front left foot first. It's closer, much closer, than the back foot on his side, and a single bomb arrow connecting dead on is all that it takes to make the first foot stop glowing with that horrible, horrible purple-red.
He hears explosions, slightly distant explosions, from the other side. He pays them no mind. He knows Revali is good at what he does, and what he does is archery and fancy flying and... Link doesn't actually know what else. He doesn't have the time to wonder about what sort of hobbies the Champion of the Rito might have in his free time.
He's got a job to do, and he's not in the habit of letting down his friends.
(Not that he thinks he had been, before—not on purpose.)
His next arrow flies true, but the massive camel doesn't stop. It trudges onward, one foot after the other, slowly charging up for another devastating attack. Link turns his increasingly nervous seal back towards Riju, even as he's looking desperately over his shoulder for Revali.
Where—
There! Arrow nocked to his bow, string pulled back. He should be falling, but the wind beneath his wings holds him up, giving him time to make his shot from the air. He doesn't fall. But the lightning—
"Revali, get back!" Riju shouts, spurring Patricia to move closer, just as Revali lets his arrow fly.
Just as Vah Naboris looses yet another surge, and Revali dives for the protective dome that is proximity to Riju. Link's eyes widen. He passes the lead of his sand seal to one hand and—desperately—he reaches with the other.
Revali's gaze meets his. His wing brushes against his fingers, through the edge of the Thunder Helm's protection—and then Revali's entire body slams into Link with enough force to knock them both to the ground and knock the seal's lead out of his grasp. The final assault of Vah Naboris crackles harmlessly against the barrier, just a few feet away from them, and Riju said she can't hurt them but Daruk's Protection flares to life around Link—and by extension, around Revali—all the same.
Everythin' okay? Daruk asks in the back of his mind.
Yeah. We're about to board Naboris, Link thinks back, and gets a feeling of vague acknowledgment from Daruk and unmistakable worry from Mipha. Anything you want me to pass on to Urbosa?
Please do not die, is all Mipha has to say. Any of you. I will do what I can, but...
Better not to rely on it, Daruk agrees. No matter what Urbosa picks, Mipha and I'll see her again. She's not got an easy choice ahead of her. But I don't see a little thing like death stoppin' her even if she stays behind.
No one will begrudge her for whatever choice she settles upon, Mipha murmurs, quieter than before. Focus upon ensuring that you all live to see that decision.
Daruk's gone again, then. Mipha, too. Maybe if they had stayed dead, maybe if Link hadn't gotten the ocarina from Paya so early on—he really needs to thank her personally for that—and maybe if he hadn't remembered Zelda playing the Song of Time for him and had the thought to try it within Vah Ruta… maybe he'd still be able to get help from their spirits that way.
But there's something about the way he'd prevented their deaths from ever happening, maybe some magical interference somewhere that Link doesn't know or care enough about to understand—they can communicate with each other and with Link, over very long distances indeed, when either of them lend Link their respective powers.
Nothing of the sort has happened with Revali. Then again, Revali's never offered Link his Gale, and Link's never asked for it. He never thought to—but it certainly came in handy when going against the Yiga Clan, when Revali could touch down beside him and send them both high into the air.
(Neither Mipha nor Daruk offered to travel alongside him, either—Mipha certainly wanted to, but her people needed her more. So did Daruk's. And Revali didn't... offer, exactly, so much as turn up in the absolute last place Link would have expected to run into him again whether he liked it or not.)
"Link?" Revali says, in an uncharacteristically small voice, and that unceremoniously yanks Link out of his own thoughts. "Would you particularly mind getting off of me?"
...Oh. Right. They've just been lying in a heap for... however long he was talking to Mipha and Daruk. The storm surrounding Naboris has cleared, the great camel herself has knelt to the desert with a clear way inside visible, and Riju is eyeing them both with a mixture of amusement and confusion written all over her face.
Link hopes that Urbosa, her spirit trapped inside Vah Naboris somewhere, can't see this. He has a funny feeling that the look on her face would be nothing but amusement, no matter how little she understood what was going on.
"Sorry," Link signs, and pulls himself to his feet. "You okay?"
He offers Revali a hand. The Rito stares at it for a long moment, blinking rapidly. His feathers seem to be more... fluffed up, for lack of a better word? Than they normally are?
...Is he okay?
"More or less," Revali says at last. "Nothing that an elixir or two will not fix. I will admit that was, perhaps, slightly more reckless than I normally would have been. Still, no one involved perished, so as long as we can maintain that I'll consider this to be a tentative victory on our part."
Surprisingly, he takes Link's offered hand.
More surprisingly, he says nothing for a long moment afterwards, until he hastily pulls away and says, "As much as this pains me to admit, you do know what you're doing."
"Same," Link signs, if only to see the look on Revali's face. When it doesn't change, he clarifies, "To both."
Revali stares at him. Then he laughs to himself. Link can't tell if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
"Your company is almost adequate when you bother to talk back," Revali says, and it almost looks like he's smiling.
Riju, looking between the two of them, at last coughs into a fist very loudly. Link realizes that both she and the sand seals are staring at them.
Honestly, that's fair, he'd probably be staring at himself too if Link was wearing her sandals. Metaphorically speaking. He’s pretty sure they don’t share a shoe size and there are several issues with asking, not least of which being that he doesn’t know what his shoe size is.
"Naboris seems to be waiting for your entry," Riju says, the Thunder Helm tucked beneath one arm, "but I wouldn't wait too long, personally... though I know full well that I would not be allowed aboard her myself."
"You might just be surprised," Revali replies. "Urbosa would like you."
"You... do you truly mean that?"
"I make a point of not saying things I don't mean, not unless I have a very good reason." He averts his gaze. "Which is to say: yes, I do mean that. She would be incredibly proud of what you've helped us do here today."
Without the Thunder Helm on, it's clear to see the surprise written all over Riju's face. Though she does regain her composure quickly enough, after that, and continues, "I... appreciate that greatly, Champion Revali. Is there anything else I can do to aid you before you go in? Anything at all?"
"...I would not say no to a resupply of Bomb Arrows," Revali says, "but I strongly suspect that I already bought every bomb arrow being sold both within the walls of Gerudo Town and outside them in Kara Kara Bazaar."
"We have a lot of arrows stored inside the Sheikah Slate," Link signs, and pats the slate at his hip. "Haven't hit a limit yet."
(Though given that Revali seems to consider it a point of pride to use as few arrows as possible, and also keeps turning up with more Bomb Arrows than his quiver can hold, Link has a sneaking suspicion that if there is a limit, the two of them are going to find it sooner rather than later.)
"Ah. Very well, then." Riju takes a deep breath. "I suppose... this is goodbye, then."
"More than you know," Link signs. "You won't remember this once we've saved Urbosa. We won't have ever needed to take on Vah Naboris the way that we did in the new timeline."
"Oh," Riju whispers. "Do you think... will I... be able to meet her?"
"That will depend on Urbosa," Revali says. "Thanks in large part to my own endeavors in testing that, we could bring her to this time with us."
Revali's own endeavors in testing that is certainly one way to say Revali throwing himself and Link off his own Divine Beast without explaining himself first.
"It's up to her," Link signs. "Is there anything you want us to pass on if she doesn't return with us?"
"I... I suppose I just..." Riju takes a deep breath. "Perhaps it is selfish to hope that she will come to the future with you, but I truly... would like to meet her. If she decides that her efforts are better spent in the immediate wake of the Calamity, far be it from my place to tell her otherwise. I suppose, do just... please... please tell her that the Gerudo will be alright, without her, and I will protect our people when she no longer can."
"We will," Revali promises. He eyes the ledge that has lowered for both of them appraisingly, the ledge that is more than low enough for him to simply hop up onto it. He doesn't, of course, because he's Revali and Link is halfway convinced that he will perish on the spot if he doesn't continue being a dramatic bitch at every potential opportunity.
So of course he crouches, the wind gathering itself up beneath his wings, and soars up into the sky before circling back down to the platform and holding a wing out to Link.
"Coming?" Revali asks. "Or do you intend to stand there until the end of time itself?”
Link nods and takes the offered hand up without a moment's hesitation.
"We'll see you on the other side," he signs to Riju, before the platform begins to rise beneath them both.
Riju nods, exchanges glances with her sand seal—and then apparently thinks better of her inhibitions, because she waves with her whole arm as they rise.
Link looks over at Revali and signs, "You like kids, don't you?"
"Children are... yes, they can try my patience at times, and I'm not certain whether I would want to ever be a parent myself. But as a rule, I tend not to trust anyone who outright dislikes them," Revali responds, staring out at the desert. "What about it?"
Link shrugs. The motion draws Revali's gaze back to him.
He signs, "Seems wise."
"I... can't say that I ever expected to hear that word in reference to me, coming from you," Revali says. Then he pauses, squinting at Link, and amends, "Or perhaps see that word, but I will not get into the semantics of it all. Whatever horror lurks within Vah Naboris brought down Urbosa; we will need to be more on our guard than ever."
Link nods. He doesn't say what has been plaguing him for... some time. Since the Yiga Hideout, or maybe even since Revali inexplicably turned up in Gerudo Town and caused far more problems getting in than Link did.
On the one hand, if Urbosa chooses to stay in the past, this will probably be the only chance Revali has to say goodbye.
On the other— does he regret coming to the future?
(Link doesn't know. But if Revali decides to stay in the past, there won't be anything Link can do to stop him, and—he'd miss him. Far more than he ever thought that he would.)
That thing is fast does not, as it turns out, even begin to describe Thunderblight Ganon. Fast is a word that Link would use to describe Revali, but even he has limits. Thunderblight moves so fast that it seems to teleport, sometimes, and that's somehow even more intimidating than Vah Naboris's exterior defenses had been.
The good news is that Revali is quite effective at keeping Thunderblight's attention off of Link, which is great for him. He can find a somewhat secluded corner to crouch with the ocarina in hand, and he can start to play the Song of Time upon the ocarina that feels warm in his hands.
He feels breath on his neck, though no one is there.
He hears Urbosa whisper, though he can't see her, "Now, what are you up to? I can't expect that Revali would particularly enjoy serving as a distraction, though I also wouldn't have expected you to get along so well with him... is that my little bird's ocarina?"
Little bird had been Urbosa’s nickname for the princess well before Link ever met her and started using it as a namesign. She'd been more of a mom to Zelda than Rhoam had ever been a dad, after she'd lost her own mom very young. Which means...
Oh. She knows exactly what the ocarina is.
She knows what it is!
Carefully, so as not to risk having to start the song over, Link nods.
"I see," Urbosa says. "Revali is buying you time. That would be how he is here, isn't he? You've done this before."
Link nods again. He's almost to the end. Fortunately, the song doesn't do anything in most places. He played it for Revali, once, before they'd set out to take Naboris on—because he always goes to the past after finishing the last note, and if Revali isn't in contact with him when he does...
...Well. Revali knows what to listen for. It'll be fine.
(He hopes.)
"Urbosa, I want you to know that this thing is terrible!" Revali squawks as he flies past, narrowly dodging a ball of pure electricity from Thunderblight.
"I'm well aware," Urbosa mutters. "...You're going back in time. I truly won't remember any of this. Perhaps that is for the best."
Link nods a third time. He's on the second to last note, and he deliberately plays it louder than any of the others he's played so far. If Thunderblight gets interested—well. He's got a little help from Daruk, still. Which is usually how he gets away with playing the song while actively under attack. But for the moment, Revali's got it covered.
...Given that Thunderblight's options at range are severely limited, Link is starting to think that Revali could kill it himself. But that might ruin their only chance to get Urbosa back, and Link refuses to let that happen.
"You know full well how fast it is," Urbosa continues. "I mistakenly thought that I was close to defeating it, a century ago. Then it threw down a hail of metal posts around me, obliterating each one with lightning, and… it was all over for me, after that.”
Oh, that's useful. Link wishes he could do something to thank her other than nod, stand up, and move on to the final note. He holds it for as long as he can. Daruk's Protection flares to life around him, and he looks desperately for Revali—
"Incoming!" Revali shouts, soaring upward through an opening he's just made—and then, tucking his wings in, he dives for Link.
"Take care of each other," Urbosa says in a low voice—one Link suspects only he can hear over Thunderblight Ganon realizing too late that the annoying Rito really was up to something.
Once again, Link can only nod. A strike from Thunderblight's sword shatters it harmlessly against Daruk's Protection, and in the time that Thunderblight's reeling, Revali lands, looping a wing around Link's shoulders.
"Let's go!"
See you soon, Link thinks.
He lets the ocarina fall from his lips, and the interior of Vah Naboris gives way to nothing—or perhaps almost nothing.
For a moment, just a moment, he can feel Revali's wing across his back.
For a moment, and only a moment, he can feel how fast Revali's heart is beating.
"He's coming to," is the first thing that Link hears. The words aren't spoken in Revali's voice, though.
They're in Urbosa's, which Link only knows from a singular short memory and from the brief amount of time he's spent in Vah Naboris already. He's still in Vah Naboris, from the rumbling of the massive camel traversing the desert beneath him. And from the fact that—he hadn't exactly been paying a ton of attention to what the upper portions of this Divine Beast's interior looked like, but it looks like something made by the Sheikah, it's got that same stonemetal as every other Divine Beast...
Also, a familiar blue-feathered face suddenly appears in his field of vision, waving a wing in front of him. Above him. He’s on the floor again, because the vast majority of his floor time lately has not been his idea but the ocarina’s.
"About time," Revali mutters. "I hope you're aware that it has been a good deal longer than you were asleep when you came for me.”
"You weren't there when I woke up on your end," Link signs sleepily—and then adrenaline kicks in, he fully realizes what Revali means, and he sits up, very alert despite the pounding headache. "Wait, we need to—"
"Revali told me everything," Urbosa says gently, kneeling to put a hand on Link's shoulder. "He was quite emphatic about the fact that I could not go anywhere near the controls of Naboris until after you woke up... and that you were both from the future. A future where we were all meant to perish."
Link nods quickly. "Don't have time to get more into it now."
"No," Revali mutters, "but you were taking a very long time to awaken from the side effects of your magical time-travel instrument and I certainly had nothing better to do than to read her in."
"Fair."
Urbosa clears her throat. "I can't say that I didn't appreciate the chance to breathe before throwing myself into combat anew. Now, though..."
She eyes the doorway into another room, pulls herself, and draws her scimitar to hold both it and the shield on her arm at the ready. Link doesn't have the map open to check, but if he had to guess that doorway leads to the central room. The one with the main terminal in it. The one that Thunderblight Ganon is hiding in, waiting for its chance to murder her.
"One thing," Link signs. "In the future, you... I didn't see this myself, but I was told that once we've backed that thing into a corner, it'll send a lot of metal spikes down around us and use them to devastating effect. With its electricity. Revali, did you—"
"Yes, I passed on that her that her Fury wouldn't do much good," Revali says. "More metal, hmm? Can't say I'm particularly enthused about that."
"Nor am I," Urbosa mutters—and if she's put together the pieces as to how they know this specifically, which she probably has, Link is grateful that she isn't commenting on it now.
"Wait," Link signs, and pulls out the Sheikah Slate. Magnesis stares out at him from the rune selection screen.
Revali, peering over his shoulder, squints at it. "You don't think...?"
Link puts the slate away again, for what he suspects will not be a very long amount of time at all, and signs, "If nothing else, I bet smacking it with one of those spikes would distract it!"
"Perhaps it isn't immune to its own lightning," Urbosa says thoughtfully. "I'm not immune to mine.”
Revali looks at her. He looks again at Link.
"We're just going to ignore the rather concerning implications that raises, I suppose?" Revali says.
Link nods. "At least until after we've survived."
Link keeps a handful of elixirs on hand for emergencies, stored in the Sheikah Slate. One of these elixirs, he discovers or more accurately rediscovers when he's looking for something to help with his headache, is an incredibly potent Hasty Elixir. Another, equally potent, increases the strength of attacks.
Revali gets the Mighty Elixir, once he figures out how to drink it with a beak. Urbosa gets the Hasty Elixir, which she chugs before stepping up to the central terminal.
"Ready?" she asks.
Link nods, a broadsword that isn't his in one hand and the trusty pot lid that might as well be his at this point in the other. Revali only responds by crouching, then taking to the air.
Urbosa lays a hand upon the terminal, then leaps backwards as malice pours out of it, at a speed that may have been previously unattainable to mortals.
Thunderblight Ganon is just as fast as it had been in the future, and possibly even faster. It still moves so fast that it almost seems to be teleporting.
"That thing is fast," Urbosa exclaims with a laugh, in an entirely different tone from the last time Link remembers her saying that.
The Gerudo Champion is fast even without elixirs involved. Probably faster than Link.
With elixirs involved? There are two combatants who seem to be teleporting rather than running at each other with sword and shield. Link's fast, too, but not that fast—he ends up retreating to use his own bow. To occasionally freeze Thunderblight in place with a well-timed use of Stasis, allowing Urbosa to pause her deadly dance in favor of just whaling away on it. Revali keeps well out of range of most of Thunderblight's attacks, striking it with Bomb Arrow after Bomb Arrow whenever it disengages enough from Urbosa. Though he also uses more regular arrows than Link has ever seen him use before, since precision is key.
Thunderblight lets out a horrifying shriek, actually teleporting almost as high up in the chamber as Revali is. Metal spikes appear from nowhere, hemming Urbosa in with nowhere for her to go. Nowhere for her to run.
(This is how she died.)
Link drops his bow entirely in favor of the Sheikah Slate. Stasis is available again, so he freezes Thunderblight in place first to stop it from attacking. Then he clears a path with Magnesis. Only once Urbosa is safely out of the way, only once Stasis is on the verge of running out, only once Revali has flown far closer to Thunderblight than Link would like for him to be and sent most of their remaining Bomb Arrow supply into it before retreating—
Only then does he grab one of the discarded spikes again and hurl it at Thunderblight's horrible face. Mask. Thing. What it is doesn’t matter.
(This isn't how she'll die again. Not today.)
Thunderblight comes out of Stasis with a louder shriek, and does exactly what he hoped it would: it shocks the spike hurtling towards its face, in an effort to keep from being hit. It doesn't get hit, not by the spike.
It does, however, scream in agony as it shocks itself. It drops its weapon and its shield—both almost Sheikah tech in make, yet not quite. Thunderblight itself falls to the floor, trying desperately and ineffectually to pull itself back together.
It doesn't succeed.
It doesn't have time to succeed, because Urbosa rushes in. With the last of the Hasty Elixir that should have run out by now, she leaps up, slams her shield into its mask with a loud cracking noise, and drives her scimitar into its single eye.
"We'll come for your master next," Urbosa says—her voice steel in a way that reminds Link, ironically enough, of Riju. "Give the Calamity my regards, won't you? The Gerudo stand strong without him, and we don't remember him fondly."
Thunderblight wails, but it's ultimately unable to do anything except dissolve into Malice, and then into nothing at all.
Link stares at the spot where Thunderblight had died for a long moment, not sure if he entirely believes it. That it's... over, at least for now. That this fight is over. That he's actually pulled it off—that he's saved all four of his friends from their untimely deaths within their own Divine Beasts. But Urbosa sheathes her sword alongside the shield on her back, and Revali's feet find the ground again as he pats out a few smoldering feathers, and he can't not believe it.
He's won. And he won without having to call upon Daruk or Mipha for aid, which...
Having both Revali and Urbosa fighting alongside him really made a difference, against a being of malice and Malice that he suspects would have been much harder to fight alone.
(Really, Urbosa did almost all of the work. Not that Link's going to object to that—his head still hurts, more than it ever has before. He's not sure that he could have taken down Thunderblight on his own, not like this. Not alone.)
(A damn good thing it is, then, that he wasn't alone. That he hasn't been alone, not truly, since he realized the ocarina let him change the past and fix the future—since he realized that Mipha was back, that the changes he'd made had stuck, and that he could save the others too.)
"Well then," Urbosa says, sheathing her scimitar and slinging her shield into its place on her back. Link follows suit with his own equipment.
"Well then," Revali echoes. "You know what time it is."
Realistically, there is probably nothing Link could have done to prevent Revali from telling Urbosa (nearly) everything ahead of time except simply wake up sooner, and while he would have loved to wake up sooner, clearly his body disagrees. Clearly there's something going on with the sudden and repeated temporal displacement that his body just really, really doesn't like.
He's gotten very tired of headaches.
"Thank you both for fighting alongside me," Urbosa continues. "But... yes, I suppose that I do. Time to choose whether I stay, or go."
Link gulps and nods. He signs, "Mipha and Daruk wanted me to pass on that they'd see you again no matter what you chose."
Urbosa snorts, amused. "No help in deciding from them, then. How are my people doing, in the future?"
Link looks to Revali, first, who only shrugs and says, very unhelpfully, "I didn't exactly spend much time in Gerudo Town. For obvious reasons."
Obvious reasons indeed. Link thinks about it.
(It sounds damningly like Urbosa is legitimately undecided on whether she'll stay or she'll go, which is a scary thought. Link wants her to return with him and Revali, he desperately wants for all of his friends to be there with him—but it isn't as if he doesn't know, all too well, that Urbosa must have friends and family she'd be leaving behind. Sometimes Link's own amnesia is a curse—but sometimes, like now, it's a blessing, because he misses far fewer people than he probably would otherwise.)
"Could be better," Link signs at last, "could be a lot worse. Your successor is younger than me, but she's doing alright, she has support and the Gerudo love her. The biggest problem at the moment is actually Naboris, and that's a problem that will never happen now. One way or another."
"Hm," Urbosa says, dissatisfied. "So my options are to leave without saying goodbye... or to say goodbye to the two of you for what very well may be forever. If I'm still around in a century—which is a very big if—I won't be in any shape to aid you against Calamity Ganon."
"That largely sums up what qualms I had," Revali mutters. "I have no intention of missing the fight against him. But I—"
"Do you regret it?" Link signs, and immediately regrets asking, because Revali's initial response is to just stare at him.
"...No," Revali says at last. "I don't. I would make the same decision again now, except... I wish that I had the chance to say goodbye, first. To tell the few people that I do happen to care about that I would never see them again."
Link's shoulders slump. He does, too—though at least Revali remembers the people he'd want to say goodbye to. Maybe his amnesia is a curse after all.
Urbosa hums to herself thoughtfully, and at last says, "Perhaps I do. Revali, it was when you left Vah Medoh with Link that you both were transported to the future, correct?"
"Yes, but—"
"And Link," she continues, "every time that you returned to the future was specifically when you left the main room of each Divine Beast, correct?”
Link nods. "Probably because I've got the ocarina." He's come up with a sign for that now, a combination of the signs for time and flute. Though he probably could just use flute on its own, it's not like he's seen any other musical instruments around besides the very different one Kass carries around and it's... not that far off from a flute? He thinks? Probably?
(Kass would probably know. Maybe he'll ask him, the next time their paths cross each other, though Link hasn't seen him since that brief period of time when he was terrified he'd somehow erased Revali from existence. He'd been... preoccupied, to say the least, once Kass informed him that wasn't the case. He probably owes Kass an apology for rushing off as quickly as he had, or at least an explanation.)
"Then that suggests that I could leave, say goodbye, and return—so long as you don't leave this room as well."
Urbosa's gaze finds a certain direction, a direction that is nothing more than Naboris's walls to all appearances, a direction that Link could not say what without pulling out his Sheikah Slate given that the only lighting comes from Naboris itself. Link can't tell what direction she is looking in, not for sure—but he'd be willing to bet every rupee he has on him, which is no small amount of rupees, that Gerudo Town is that way.
"Wait a plucking second," Revali says—though says is a generous description, it sounds more like a squawk to Link. "You mean to say that I could have... and I..."
Her gaze falls to him, then, and she offers him a sympathetic smile. "There's one way to find out, isn't there?"
With that, with no further ado, Urbosa leaves the room.
...Nothing happens. She goes several paces out and down, towards the lift down to the desert sands below, but comes back before she can take it and announces to them both, "Certainly looks like I can leave. I'll... try to be fast. Do either of you want anything?"
"No?" Revali manages.
Link, at even more of a loss for words than he normally is, numbly shakes his head. Urbosa looks at him, looks at Revali, then shrugs.
"Fair enough," she says. "I'll be back."
Link watches her go, until the elevator lowers itself out of sight and he can't watch her anymore. Revali, for his part, suddenly uses his Gale to take to the air again, conveniently ending up high enough that he can watch Urbosa go through the windows too high for Link to easily reach.
He could try, if he was particularly pressed. But he isn't. He busies himself with pulling some wood and a spare Flameblade out of the Sheikah Slate. The Flameblade breaks as soon as he uses it to start a fire, because of course it does—he'll need to pick up a new one, somewhere, sooner rather than later. That, or he'll need to actually start using his rather extensive stockpile of flint, but why would he do that?
Thinking about that, thinking about stockpiling things that he already hoards to an extent that would be impossible without the Sheikah Slate and its physically improbable storage functions, is vastly preferable to thinking about the blue-feathered Rito who touches down, talons scrabbling against stone, on the opposite side of his growing campfire inside Vah Naboris.
Of course, Revali manages to shove his way back into Link’s thoughts within moments anyway, before he’s even opened his beak.
“Starting a fire? Inside Vah Naboris?” Revali tuts in clear disapproval, even as he sits cross-legged opposite Link. “I doubt Urbosa will be particularly happy with you for this. I wouldn’t be, if this was my Divine Beast.”
“This isn’t Medoh,” Link signs, staring into the flickering flames.
“...No,” Revali allows, and falls quiet.
“It helps me pass the time. Especially if I’m alone.”
Some strange, foreign emotion flashes in Revali’s eyes and he snaps, “You’re not alone, in case you somehow missed that fact!"
"I know," Link signs.
"Then why—"
"Urbosa might be gone for a while."
"Yes? And?" Revali rolls his eyes visibly. "It certainly does appear that way. Particularly considering that, by all appearances, Zelda has sealed away the Calamity by now."
...He's right. From what little Link can make out of the sky through the high-up windows, it isn't the angry red of Malice any longer. The sun is starting to rise. If the interior of Vah Naboris wasn't as carefully controlled temperature-wise as the other Divine Beasts, it would be getting really hot in here soon. As it is, the air's warm, but not uncomfortably so—and he can chalk up that warmth to his fire. (Which he will be cleaning up, once Urbosa returns. Obviously.)
"You're a fast flyer," Link signs. "Aren't you?"
Revali puffs up in either pride or offense, or maybe some strange mix of both emotions that he wouldn't put past Revali at all. "The fastest, thank you very much! ...Over short distances."
"And long distances?"
"Hmph." That's an answer in itself. "I'm fast enough, though I won't deny that I'm deeply curious as to where you're going with this."
"How long would it take you to reach Rito Village from here?"
Instead of actually answering the question, Revali's head snaps around so fast that Link can scarcely follow the motion, his feathers fluffing up in a way that really reminds Link of a startled animal.
"If this is your idea of a joke," Revali says tightly, "it is rather in poor taste. I don't find it amusing. I don't expect anyone would find it amusing, and I wouldn't have expected you to find it amusing either, but evidently I have misjudged you—"
"Genuine question," Link signs. "Not a joke."
"Ah. I see." He hesitates, however briefly. "I can't fathom why you of all people would care to know that, and even the most reliable of mail carriers can only estimate how long it will take them to make it from one location to another..."
"Could you make it to Rito Village before Urbosa returns?"
"Well, yes, but..." Revali trails off, squinting at Link. "You didn't say there and back again, did you?"
Something warm and wet that Link refuses to acknowledge pricks at the corner of his eyes. "You really could go back if... if that's what you want. With all of you saved, I don't have any reason to go back in time again, so... you'd be able to just stay here. If you wanted to."
"If I wanted to," Revali echoes dubiously. "I believe I have already made it clear that I am standing by my decisions, thank you very much."
"You could also just go for a little while," Link signs hastily. "To say goodbye. If Urbosa can leave to do that, I don't think there's any reason that you can't too. I'm the one who's stuck here. Not you."
"You... make a compelling argument," Revali says, as if calling a single thing that Link signed compelling isn't even more ridiculous. "And I can't deny that, while I do not regret much about the manner of my travel to the future... I would have liked to say goodbye."
Link gestures vaguely at one of the windowed walls. The openings are high up enough that he couldn't reach them himself, but Revali easily could with his Gale. Revali's taller than Link, but less broad, and he thinks that either of them could squeeze through a gap that size without too much trouble.
"...Fair enough," Revali murmurs in response. "Provided that you and Urbosa are willing to wait for me, I could pass along a goodbye on your behalf. To whoever you're leaving behind."
"I'd wait for you. But I don't know—I can't remember—"
"Oh. Right.” Revali winces. "Never mind, then. I'm afraid we were never close enough, before, for me to have known... anything about you, really."
Link is going to regret asking this. But he signs anyway, "Now?"
"I..." Revali inhales sharply. "I don't know. I'll get back to you later, literally and figuratively."
"You're coming back," Link signs, as Revali spreads his wings.
"Obviously." Yet Revali hesitates before calling upon his Gale. "Do you... want me to?"
"I'm not sure what I'd do if you didn't."
It's perhaps the most honest thing he's told anyone all day. His initial impression of Revali was of an arrogant little bitch. And yeah, alright, that... still isn't an inaccurate description of him. Revali is arrogant, and Link wouldn't be wrong in describing him as bitchy. But something's clicked between them now, something that never clicked before and maybe never had a chance to in the first place, not with how closed-off Link knows now he was, not with how determined to assume the worst of him Revali was.
They're not enemies, anymore, though formally they never were and even informally they were still always on the same side. Link doesn't even think that rivals is the right word, anymore, though maybe it was the right word once upon a time. They might be friends, though that still doesn't seem quite right.
Friendship is what he feels for Mipha and Daruk, for Yunobo and Sidon and Teba and Riju. Friendship is helping out Daruk with his plan to build up his grandkid's self-confidence, babysitting Teba's young son while he and Saki are cleaning out their roost, signing seal pun after seal pun while talking to Riju about her own beloved sand seal and keeping a straight face as long as he can until he can't anymore and he joins Riju in giggling madly. It's staying up with Sidon after a particularly nasty nightmare about everyone he cares about dying, it's climbing Death Mountain again with Yunobo because another Goron's gone missing and everyone else is either too busy or not worried enough to go looking for him, it's tracking down a ceremonial replica of Mipha's trident alongside her and figuring out how to replicate a particular ceremony in order to reveal a shrine neither of them had known was there.
He doesn't remember Urbosa well enough to make any decisions about friendship with her, yet. He'd been afraid to try to remember too much, to make himself hurt more if she decided to stay in the past after all. But he'd like to be friends with her, too, and what little he can remember suggests that they'd at least gotten along in the time he mostly refers to as Before. Even if she had chosen to stay behind, it would have been a disservice to her memory not to try to remember—though it'll probably be easier, the more time he spends with Urbosa.
It's gotten easier to remember things involving the other Champions, with them physically present. With them, considerably more importantly, not dead like they should have been, like they originally were, like no one remembers but Link unless he's told them.
He remembers Mipha working up the nerve to offer him the armor he never could have accepted, and thankfully not holding it against him when he didn't feel the same way that she did—though, he supposes, she's also had a century to move on now. He hadn't had the nerve to ask her if there is anyone else these days, not even after telling her that he'd remembered that day. He hopes there is someone else, if that's what makes her happy, or that there isn't if an additional century has revealed that she has about as much interest in romance as her little brother or the average Goron.
He remembers Daruk showing him how to use a Cobble Crusher, the sort of weapon that most non-Gorons simply wouldn't be strong enough to use at all, never mind effectively. Link isn't most non-Gorons, or most people in general. He'd ended up having to two-hand the crusher, and it would never feel as natural in his hands as a broadsword—but according to Daruk, it was more effort than a lot of people would make, and maybe that was part of why Link found himself as an honorary brother not long later.
(He remembers Urbosa showing up near the end of Daruk's impromptu crusher lessons, ostensibly for some other reason. That reason was very quickly forgotten in favor of learning how to use a crusher herself, because while Urbosa clearly favors a scimitar and shield and typically fights similarly to Link, to say that she was excited to figure a crusher out would be something of a massive understatement.)
Thing is—he remembers Revali, too. He remembers Revali avoiding him, mostly, apart from that rather disastrous meeting upon the landing that would, many years in the future, come to be named for the long-lost Rito Champion. He remembers avoiding Rito Village when he could, and Revali himself when he couldn't, and not really caring enough to figure out why the Rito Champion didn't like him when he could do literally anything more productive with his time.
He also remembers the paraglider that was, as he suspected, not originally Rhoam's at all. It was his, a hundred years ago. Somehow it lasted that long.
(That memory doesn't have anything to do with Revali—it was just prompted by the strange look on the Rito Champion's face the first time that he pulled it out in front of him. Revali had told him later—quietly, seriously—that paragliders are a mobility device used by Rito who are too young or too injured to fly. He hadn't seemed to know how Link got his hands on one, though he'd changed the subject weirdly quickly afterwards.)
Revali clears his throat, snapping Link out of his reverie. "Still with me, Link? Did you remember... something?"
Link shakes his head in response to Revali's second question. To his first, he signs, "Just thinking."
(He doesn't think that Revali ever called him by his name in their lives Before. It was always hero or knight or some variation thereof, in the most derogatory way he could possibly say a word that definitely wasn't meant that way originally. He wouldn't have thought that Revali had even known his name, back then, if the first thing he'd said in the past hadn't been it.)
"So you're capable of that after all." Revali smirks at him as the winds whip up around them both, ruffling his feathers along with Link's hair. "I do wonder, sometimes."
"Very funny," Link signs.
"Oh, I'm well aware." The smirk fades slightly, as the Gale intensifies. "No sense in continuing to waste time, then. I'll be back. Wait for me?"
Weirdly enough, that's a question.
"We will," Link promises.
"Of course you will," Revali says loftily. "What would you do without me, after all?"
He takes off, of course, before Link can even think of a response, never mind sign one. Link watches him go, watches him soar through one of Naboris's upper windows with an ease that seems effortless, watches him wave as he flies off into a time that Link himself can never return to. Not that he'd want to, he can barely remember it!
...Link kind of wants to, even so. But trying to leave will just strand both Urbosa and Revali in the past, after he went to all the trouble to make sure that they would be okay with coming to the present, with joining him and Mipha and Daruk in the future. He's not so desperate to see the Hyrule of a hundred years ago that he'll ruin things for them all.
So he settles in to wait, staring back into the flames as he does. He must fall asleep, at some point, because one moment he's pulling his legs up to his chest and setting his head on his knees and the next, Urbosa's sitting there, polishing her scimitar.
She doesn't look up from her work, when she says, "I'm going to take a wild guess that Revali realized he could say goodbye to his home after all, since I could, and reacted accordingly?"
Link snorts, and nods. Sounds like Urbosa's just as good at reading Revali like a book as she is for Zelda. As she is, judging by the look she fixes him with then, for even Link himself.
"Well then." She offers him a smile. "I doubt he'll keep us waiting for too long, but in the meantime... Revali did tell me that you had amnesia?"
He nods silently. "Don't remember you too well. Don't remember anyone too well. Spending time with people who knew me before it all... helps."
"With remembering the memories that have slipped away from you?" Urbosa eyes him speculatively, sheathing her scimitar back where it belongs, as he manages another nod. "In that case, let's see if I can't do something about that.”
"I'm sure you can," Link signs.
Even if she can't, he appreciates it. Talking about the past, talking about the Link of Before that is intrinsically different and yet not so much from the Link that exists now—it does generally help. The thought means a lot, either way.
Plus, it’s something to do, while waiting for Revali to come back. Because he will—Link’s sure of that, now. More sure of it than he was before. It’s a weight off his shoulders he didn’t know was there.
His friends’ choices are their choices to make, not his—and while Link would not have done anything to stop them from choosing what they wanted, not what he wanted, he’s… relieved, incredibly so, that both of them chose what they did.
That, once the Calamity’s defeated, once they’ve gotten Zelda back too, they can all be together again. That, for once in Link’s life—everything can turn out okay.
There’s nothing he wants more, really.