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“…Do you believe in souls…?”
Her question sounds loud, the sound of her voice ringing in her ears after the quiet of hiding.
“ …I’m asking, because I heard Urbosa and Revali talking about it once--Revali doesn’t put too much weight into it, while Urbosa was saying she thinks it’s more in the metaphorical sense.” Purah looks up from her lap, the light from the Sheikah Slate casting odd shadows on her face. When she looks away, out into the dark room, the harshness of the light when she looks back at the screen makes her close her eyes, blinking to get rid of the lines and zigzags behind her eyelids.
Purah waits for an answer, though Link was never talkative even on the best of days, but she still tries to give space if he wants to try. She’s always had the habit of dropping verbal bombs as Robbie calls them; presenting odd questions that have harsh answers without warning, her brain having already changed between three different topics, from A to B to C by the time it takes her to blink. So maybe Link has to think his answer over first, to catch up. That’s fine, he can have it.
She scrunches her eyes one last time, and scrolls through the Slate again, making sure everything is organized, sending anything that’s important to the host guidance stone back in the tech lab. With it going into stasis soon with Link, there’s no real telling what’ll get lost without being backed up. And her eyes are starting to hurt, burning and pulsing from the long hours before, no time to rest, and the malice and smoke making the air sharp, not helping in the slightest.
.
She picks up her question again, because despite what a lot of people thought—including the princess, until that Yiga incident in the Gerudo Desert—even if Link isn’t talking, he’s listening. So she’ll give him more food for thought while they wait.
“There’s got to be some sense to souls though, right?” She lifts an eyebrow squinting her eyes at her own question. She’s had to rethink a lot of her previous beliefs over the past couple years leading up to this. She really didn’t put too much weight into the confusing thought of reincarnation. That’s more Impa and Rhoam’s part of the equation. All she knew was that danger was coming--is coming--is already here. That there were tools to try and fix it, and variables for her to work with.
“The legend goes that Demise placed the anathema curse on himself and the souls of the hero and goddess reborn. If it’s been strong enough to hold on this long, then it has to be attached to something… ” Purah leans her head back, turning it to look at the silent knight, not expecting an answer, especially now. Link is quiet, his body still, lain under the water in the Shrine. He wouldn’t be able to even give a head nod if he wanted to, his body had almost gone under rigor mortis before she was able to put him in there. He rests now, in a flexed position on his side, knees loosely up to his chest, and his arms folded close, submerged in the oblong basin of water.
She was able to slip a hollow reed between his lips though, held in his teeth. The reed connects with the Shrine, simulating the exchange of air for his lungs, and keeping the solution he’s submerged in from getting into his lungs. She knows this shrine will work, and he’ll be revitalized and able to speak and eat. She knows this. It has to work. But regardless if his soul leaves, regardless of their one-sided debate on the validity of souls and their existence, and this sleep is his final, or he crawls back out of the shrine, he’ll at least have been treated well. ‘ He’d better come out,’ she thinks . The reed is also tied to a small blue rupee that hangs down to rest near level with his chest, weighed down even now in the water. It’s an antiquated practice now, something the old Sheikah used to do for the dead, back during the era of myth, probably when the shrines, guardians, and this chamber (she won’t call it a tomb, though it’s pure semantics) was built. But, she figures at this point, the Calamity is already here. If there’s going to be nightmares, myths, and oracles brought into the equation, she may as well play along. He’ll either have the reed and payment with him to breathe and eat after journeying to his afterlife, in the beliefs of long ago, or he’ll have some good luck to make it out of here and to the castle.
She has already wasted enough time as it is, going through antiquated funerary habits when she knows ( she hopes) that it won’t matter, that Link will wake up soon, resurrected and moving. She still has to place the Sheikah Slate into the pedestal, closing the Shrine off from the outside, and meet Robbie and Impa at Kakariko. Zelda must have already made it to the central part of the kingdom by now, and here she is, hiding when she has work to do. She can hear Impa’s nagging now.
Purah takes a slow, steadying breath, trying to steady her nerves so she doesn’t scream and it comes out as bile. And another. It takes a long moment, but she mentally psyches herself into venturing back out again, her legs are able to move without strain from the run across Hyrule before. She takes the Champion’s tunic with her, maybe Impa will be able to save it for when he needs it.
One more breath. She has to safely cross the Great Plateau, dodging Guardians, monsters, and decay through Proxim bridge and the Dueling Peaks, and rendezvous with Robbie and Impa at Kakariko bridge. From there, it’s splitting off to help evacuate at Hateno, Kakariko, and Akkala Citadel between the three of them.
She places the plain clothes and Slate in their places for Link to find, and briefly mourns if he has any family that’s wondering where he is. She has to put that thought away, with the rest.
It’s time for her to go now. She tells herself that they’ll all see Link again soon, and she’ll be able to have that conversation about souls with him and Zelda when they can meet up again.
She seals off the Shrine behind her, and the tomb goes dark and quiet behind her.
_
Link wakes up in water laying on his back, leaving him shivering and his fingers locking up from the sudden cold. His breath sounds hollow through the wooden reed, and the first few breaths are sharp and jarring. His sudden wake response makes him gasp, and he manages to turn on his side to cough out the piece of wood that was in his mouth. His chest and lungs finally calm down, giving him a slight burn in his chest and nose from expelling the water.
Everything is so bright, piercing blue and orange leaving impressions behind his eyelids as he scrunches his eyes closed. Link lets himself lay there a bit longer, hoping the voice that woke him can be patient a bit longer, curling his legs and arms close back to a fetal position, gritting his teeth trying to keep warm.
His fingers catch and drag on the odd wooden piece that he nearly choked on, and a blue… crystal? It’s small, tied to the reed. He stares at the shape of it long enough for him to zone out and lose track of time. He snaps back out of his daze with the goosebumps on his now dry skin reminding him to find warmth.
The lone voice from before walks him through finding the clothes left for him, his atrophied muscles struggling with the sleeves, and later using the… Sheikah Slate , it’s apparently named, to leave this cave he’s been sleeping in. He decides to keep it, but it feels foreign in his hands.
Link claws his way up the cliff leading out of the Shrine, already feeling the warmth from the sun. He glances back at the chamber and basin inside it, something in the back of his mind trying to wonder why he was left there, and what the small trinkets he was left with were for. His eyes eventually adjust to the sunlight, and he walks out into the forest rim, leaving those pieces and the strange bed behind.
_
It’s been three months since he and Zelda sealed Ganon. The Calamity. Malice, or Harbinger, or [G-BOAR] when signing, or any other name the denizens of Hyrule had for it. It’s nearing nighttime, and Link finds himself sitting in Purah’s Lab, nursing the hot drink Symin made earlier. It’s a very warming mixture, something he’s never tasted before, but it’s much sweeter than tea or coffee. He’ll have to remember to ask Symin what this is and where he got it. He does recognize the cinnamon and chili spice though, leaving the low heat on his lips. And Link knows if he’s not careful, he’ll end up sleeping on the rug like a house cat.
Zelda is sitting over by Symin at the other end of the table, going through her own stretches, still regaining her balance and strength from being in a tense stasis for a century. She holds a weighted block now out in front of her in one hand, trying to keep her arm level, the arm raised shoulder height parallel to the ground. Symin sits with a notepad, keeping track of her time and how long her arm can take it compared to the last session.
Visiting Purah a couple times a week in the evening has become a routine habit of theirs. It gives Zelda chances to build her endurance and lung strength back up, with time to catch up with the two old and new friends, giving Zelda an anchor of support outside of Link and Impa.
And it keeps Link from spending near hours at night in a daze, staring at weapons on the wall being lit oddly by his wall lamps, thinking about how houses can be haunted in different ways, and not all the things that haunt them are dead.
But he doesn’t think too much about that part. Living is already better, with Zelda at least returned. Even with the pros and unexpected cons of the Blood Moons and the Calamity’s army gone, the days and ways of living are already improving. Everything is fine.
It’s when Link gives a silent hum, almost finishing off the drink, and trying not to glance too heavily at Purah’s own half empty mug, that Purah takes her eyes off her current notes, sending a look at Link that he can’t quite place.
“Linky, what do you think of souls?”
The question catches Link off guard, but any hesitance he feels gets soothed when he sees only the curious look on her face, one hand resting her chin and the other bringing her cup closer to sip. It must not have anything alarming to do with her research, or anyone else’s health, otherwise she’d have her pen tapping in her hand, the words would’ve come out quicker. So with no real need to worry, he gives the question some thought.
He takes a slow breath, preparing his throat and voice for talking, and lets his eyes slowly wander as he speaks.
“I...I guess I don’t, really. I haven’t really thought of them too much.” He finishes by looking at Purah, as was his habit of holding conversation. He can’t make eye contact when talking, like his thoughts are floating around the room instead of his head, but then making eye contact again when listening or waiting for the other person to speak. He pulls his thoughts back in, and gives Purah a better answer, because even for him that was a lame response.
Purah continues, trying to draw more out of Link now that she knows he’s in a talkative mood. And she mentally files a reminder to keep sweets around more often, if it makes him more comfortable to talk.
“Do you believe in them?” Purah takes a gulp from her own mug, her small hands managing to hold the cup steady, the froth leaving a mustache on Purah’s face but like hell is he going to say anything about it.
“I know that because I’ve met the spirits of the champions, and R--” He shakes his head quickly, sending a quiet glance over at Zelda that she doesn’t see, --“they were aware of everything around them, that must leave some answer to souls? They died, but their souls stayed. And I know it was them, because they remembered things from before that I didn’t. But also they matched up from the memories I recovered so far…so I think I do, to an extent.” Link takes the last sip of his mug, licking his lips as he thinks. “I don’t think there is a lot of correlation between someone’s soul and if they’re a good person or not though. Even with the… reincarnation ,” Link says that word like it’s a curse, his mouth awkward around the shape of it, “of the hero, Ganon, and the goddess, at one point I think all three were just bystanders. Just trying to do what they felt they had to, and the curse got stuck on along the way?”
Purah gives an open look, softly nodding at his answer, “Huh. I see…I think I get it.” Her voice ends in a higher lilt, the tone keeping the conversation light. She pushes her glasses up her nose, turning to Symin and Zelda to get their point of view.
Symin and Zelda at this point both look over, but their attention is an easy weight, more from just the fact of being in the same room, and less of the one they sometimes do that says “Do you mind?” that they share when one of the others starts sounding a bit too stupid.
Link is a bit too tired despite the sugar to explain that while he can believe souls, as a concept, is a real thing, he isn’t quite sure that everyone has one that is capable of staying to shed last rites and forgiveness on chosen wanderers with swords. The champions and late King may have been outliers.
After the Age of Burning Fields, what the people called the succeeding years after the fall of the kingdom, the ways people treated their dead had to change. Expanding the towns outward for more space is hard enough, and impossible with recurring Blood Moons reviving monsters and Guardians to keep the territories and stable systems at bay. If someone in Hateno was really willing to pay for the escort and burial labor, they could rest their urns in the Robred dropoff, a small cemetery near the road by Fort Hateno. The main practice changed to cremation, so families could have multiple members in one lot, with a statue standing guard over it, or a carved stone to commemorate the lots with like they do in Kakariko.
Sometimes there were cases Link heard of, where someone’s ‘ foolish adventurer of a mom, dad, son, cousin, regular’, or whoever left to the ruins in the Central plains, or took a detour off the path on the way to a stable, and they or their belongings weren’t found afterward, unless someone was brave or paid enough to go recover it. Link supposed he’d hate to have his soul linger on after that as well, if nothing else they deserve rest.
The Rito take comfort in sending souls of their dead off with song, or music. The Zora send them on their way down banks with lanterns, the mourners remembering them for decades after. The Gorons Link still isn’t sure on. When he visited, there wasn’t ever someone grieving or mourning. There were older ones, certainly, Bludo struggling with hairline fractures, and rind and cortex weathering stiffening up his joints. In the Gerudo desert, they get their favorite scimitar, or their tools of their trade to take with them. Rhoam came to him as a spirit, weighed down by regrets both from his reign as a king and a father. He and the other Champions are passed on now, but he and Zelda are still trying to make sense of them and before, versus now. Link showed Zelda Rhoam's recovered diary, a couple weeks after their reunion, and the retroactive grief was coming back for a second round. He remembers her crying, first quietly, then her sobs turning raw as it hit that any attempt at forgiveness is gone now. Rhoam's soul left, and Link didn't know any better to ask more questions before the old man departed. Whatever conversation of compromise and apologies and should-haves is now only in theory.
Link was laid to sleep with clothes that weren’t bearing the weight of the Hylian crest, the Shiekah Slate, and a rupee of five to send him off. They couldn’t bury his sword with him, separate locations of the puzzle pieces meant it was harder for Ganon to find. He doesn't know where to find records of his own kin, and their souls certainly didn't stick around for a last message for him. He has a theory about his house, but nothing has helped him remember. Maybe they forgot to bury his memories with him. He has yet to ask Purah why she thinks they were gone when he woke up.
Impa can call it a ‘blessing in disguise’ until the cuccoos crow at dawn. But there was something missing in his brain, in his soul, when he woke up. And coincidentally, suspiciously, no one knows where they went.
Link can tell his thoughts are starting to spiral downward. He has no intention of ending the night with three different people asking “are you okay?” “do you want to talk about it?” “Why would you stress yourself out thinking about that?” So Link files that string of thoughts away as well, getting up to stretch, and walks over to the pot to ladle more of whatever addicting drink it is that Symin made.
This time, he seats himself at the small cushioned wicker couch against the wall next to Purah’s desk, placed here for when Symin or Purah’s workaholic tendencies keep them from climbing up to their rooms. Link tries not to linger on the question, though. It’ll just make him zone out and stare at a random spot on the wall again, and he doesn’t need that when he’s here.
His eyes eventually droop down, the steady flow of the other three talking keeps his mind from spiraling again while he dozes off. He feels Purah pull a throw blanket over him, and he melts into a warm sleep.
Link’s last joking thought is if he wakes up with a rupee or a piece of wood by his face he’s going to throw something first thing in the morning.