Linked Through The Ages: A Linked Universe AU

Chapter 1: Meeting the Calamity

He still experienced various burns, scrapes, cuts, and bites from monsters that he could heal from elixirs, but the bitter drinks could only help so much, especially with more severe injuries. Link highly doubted this fight would be any different, if not worse.

He cringed thinking about the time he came back dazed and confused from Thunder Blight. The only reason Riju let him into Gerudo Town, under the cover of night, was because his heart was beating way too fast and she noticed he was having a difficult time breathing. The swelling and tingling in his muscles didn't leave for days, as well as the confusion. Buliara had to hold him down during his stay one too many times because he thought he was in danger, or had a mind to leave before he was well. Water Blight left him with so many cuts and puncture wounds, if it weren't for Mipha's Grace keeping him from bleeding out, Link knew he would have died in that goddess forsaken elephant. Even though the Zora took amazing care of him after he was transported back to their domain, he remembered them looking over his plentiful wounds, commenting on how pale and cold he was when they thought he was asleep, but really was too weak and dizzy, from the blood loss, to keep his eyes open any longer.

Even the land itself, he couldn't count how many times he experienced hypothermia, heat stroke, poison, sickness, bites, scratches, wounds of different kinds, broken bones, any bodily injury you could think of, he had experienced. Whether it was from a battle or his own clumsiness or error, he had felt pretty much any pain imaginable at that point.

The same question slipped into his mind again. Why me? Why her? Why any of us? Regardless of his destiny, he was still a boy. He guessed maybe 16, 17, maybe 18 at the oldest when the calamity occurred? He thought that he was only just a couple months older than Zelda, maybe even just a couple weeks apart. Which would put him at about...18...maybe? It had been a year since he had awoken, and tried to put back together the pieces of his memory.

In the few memories he had, he had felt much older, probably because he was treated that way. He wondered how long he had been expected to take on these responsibilities? Was there ever a day where he didn't have them? He didn't know. Now, people treated him like a boy just barely coming into adulthood, if not younger. He had been mistaken for a boy as young as 14 before, as well as being asked the almost mandatory, "Aren't you a little young?" He couldn't even count how many times the people had been kind to him and sold items far below the traditional price line, simply because of his age.

Some of those people...if he didn't make it...he would miss them. Oh goddesses, he would miss them. Even though he didn't actively try to build any relationships with them, rather more than what was necessary, his heart ached at the thought of leaving them, or worse.

He shook his panic filled head and tried to take deeper breaths. Suddenly, a roar filled his ears and the ground shook underneath him. Small bits of stone and rubble could be heard falling from parts of the castle. Her power, it was weakening.

"Link....Link....you are strong enough....do not doubt....please hurry..."

He looked within the sanctum; he had spent so much time preparing for this. He had waited until a blood moon before entering the castle, spending the following week clearing out any or all monsters and guardians that resided within, in case Ganon could use them to his advantage while in battle. He snooped through the castle library to find anything about this beast. Unfortunately, there wasn't much, but he did find out that at least one point in time, Ganon took the form of a Gerudo. If that was the case, would he be fighting...a man? He honestly didn't know, but that's what he reasoned.