The body, once purged of its poison, begins the slow, methodical work of mending. Sinew reknits, skin closes, and strength returns. But the soul is not so easily repaired. A wound to the spirit, a deep cut of grief and failure, can fester long after the physical scars have faded. Link's body lay in the healing, luminous waters of the Faron Spring, but his mind, his truest self, had retreated to a place that no sacred light could reach. He had gone home.
His consciousness awoke not to the gentle, chiming sprites of the sacred grotto, but to the warm, familiar sunlight of an Ordon summer afternoon. He was a child again, perhaps seven or eight years old, his limbs light and free, his heart unburdened by the weight of a sword or the fate of a kingdom. The air was filled with the scent of fresh-cut hay and his mother's baking, and the world was a symphony of peaceful, happy sounds: the lazy buzzing of bees, the distant, rhythmic clang of his father's hammer, and the cheerful, thoughtless laughter of children.
He was playing in the pasture, his small shepherd's crook in hand, as a flock of perfectly white, perfectly content sheep grazed around him. Ilia was there, weaving a crown of daisies, her smile as bright and as uncomplicated as the sun itself. Everything was perfect. Everything was safe.
He saw his mother, Elara, step out of their small house, a basket of laundry in her arms. She smiled at him, a smile of pure, unconditional love that was the anchor of his entire world. He saw his father, Rohm, emerge from the forge, his great, strong form a symbol of absolute safety, wiping the sweat from his brow with a soot-stained hand. He waved at Link, a simple, proud gesture from a father to his son.
It was a paradise built from his most precious memories, a golden, sun-drenched sanctuary his wounded spirit had constructed to shield itself from a truth it could not bear. But even in paradise, the serpent of knowledge lurked. The perfection was too perfect. The sunlight was too warm, the laughter too bright, the peace too absolute. It was the flawless beauty of a painting, a scene frozen in a perfect, unchanging loop. And deep down, in the core of his being, Link knew that it was a beautiful, desperate, and utterly fragile lie.
The first sign of the truth was a single, red petal that drifted down from the perfect blue sky. Then another. Then another. He looked up and saw the sun, its golden warmth being consumed by a creeping, crimson stain. The Blood Moon. The sky began to bleed, the perfect blue darkening into the sickly, bruised purple of his nightmare.
The world shattered.
The warm, gentle breeze became a cold, howling wind that smelled of ash and sorrow. The cheerful laughter of the children turned into distant, echoing screams. The green, vibrant grass withered and turned to grey dust at his feet. His idyllic, remembered village dissolved around him, the houses crumbling into smoking ruins, the great oak in the square turning into a charred, skeletal claw against the blood-red sky. He stood alone in the graveyard of his own memory.
And then, they appeared. They were not ghosts, but manifestations of his own, all-consuming guilt, wearing the faces of those he had lost.
His parents, Rohm and Elara, stood before the ruin of their home, their forms translucent and flickering. Their faces held not the love he remembered, but a deep, hollow, and bottomless disappointment.
"Why did you leave us, son?" his mother's voice whispered, a sound of breaking glass. "You chose the path of the hero, and this is the price we paid."
"We gave you a home," his father's voice rumbled, the sound now devoid of its comforting strength. "A life. And you threw it away for a sword and a destiny that was not yours to claim. You brought this shadow to our door."
From the ruin of the forge, the form of Korgon materialized, not as the proud Goron champion, but as a shattered, crumbling statue of stone. "I taught you to be a warrior, boy, not a failure," his master's voice grated, full of scorn. "I gave my life believing you were worthy. My sacrifice was wasted on a child who was too weak to protect his own."
The accusations were a physical assault, each word a hammer blow against his wounded spirit. He stumbled back, his hands raised as if to ward them off, a silent, desperate no caught in his throat.
And then, the artist arrived to admire his work. Asmodeus shimmered into existence before him, his form once again the elegant, handsome, and utterly cruel demon from their first encounter. He smiled, a slow, predatory curving of his lips.
"They are right, you know," he purred, his voice a silken thread that wrapped around Link's heart. "Listen to them. They speak the truth. This is all your fault. You could have remained a simple, silent shepherd boy in a forgotten valley. But you couldn't, could you? You had to be special. You had to have a destiny."
He gestured with a graceful, claw-tipped hand at the devastation around them. "This is the true price of being a hero, child. Not your own pain. Theirs. Every tombstone in this valley has your name on it. Every scream echoes with your failure. You did not save them. You damned them."
The weight of it was too much. The grief, the guilt, the truth in the demon's words—it was an ocean, and it was drowning him. Overwhelmed, his spirit broken, Link did the only thing a terrified, heartbroken twelve-year-old boy could do.
He turned, and he ran.
He fled from the ruins of his home, from the accusing eyes of his family, from the mocking smile of the demon. The dreamscape became a chaotic, shifting labyrinth of his own failures. He ran through the burning Whispering Woods, the spirits of the Dryads now shrieking in agony. He ran across a battlefield where the bodies of Hylian knights and his friend Elwin lay like broken dolls. Every step was a new torment, every sight a new accusation.
He ran until his spiritual legs could run no more, until he collapsed, his consciousness on the verge of being utterly extinguished by the sheer, unbearable weight of his own despair. He had failed. He was no hero. He was a curse.
And then, the nightmare ended.
He found himself lying not in a landscape of horror, but on a field of soft, impossibly green grass. The air was calm and warm. He looked up and saw two suns, one of pure, golden light and one of serene, silver light, hanging in a gentle, cloudless sky.
He pushed himself to his feet. Standing by a small, crystal-clear stream was the serene, robed man. He was not looking at Link, but at his own reflection in the water. He seemed to have been waiting.
"It is a heavy burden, is it not?" the man said, his voice a calm, melodic sound that instantly soothed the frantic terror in Link's soul. "The past." He turned, his dark, all-knowing eyes filled not with pity, but with a deep, compassionate understanding. "Come. Walk with me for a time."
Link, having nowhere else to go, hesitantly fell into step beside the strange, omnipotent being. They walked in silence for a long time, the only sound the gentle hum of the twin suns and the soft whisper of the breeze.
"You have seen the work of the shadow," the sage began, his voice like that of a patient teacher. "You believe it to be a force of pure evil, and you believe the creatures who serve it are monsters."
He paused, looking at Link. "Let me tell you of the beings of Hyrule. The Gorons are born of the mountain's fiery heart. They are stubborn, strong, and unyielding. The Zora are born of the river's endless flow. They are graceful, wise, and ever-changing. The Hylians are born of the open plains, under the eyes of the Goddess. They are adaptable, ambitious, and filled with a fragile, beautiful hope. Even the Bokoblins, in their natural state, are simple, tribal creatures of the earth. Each is shaped by their world, their nature a song sung in harmony with the land."
He met Link's confused gaze. "The shadow you fight, the Great Silence, is a sickness of the spirit. It does not create monsters, child. It infects them. It finds the fear in a Hylian's heart, the rage in a Goron's, the base instinct in a Bokoblin's, and it silences all that is good, amplifying only the darkness that remains. The demon who taunts you is a being born of a realm without light, and so he fears and despises the light he cannot understand. They are not born evil. They are victims of the great despair, puppets who dance on their master's strings. A puppet cannot be evil, Link. It can only be tragic."
Link stopped walking. He stared at the man, a storm of anger and confusion raging in his silent heart. Tragic? The creature that murdered my mother is tragic? The monsters that burned my home are victims?
The sage seemed to hear his thoughts. "Your anger is a shield. It protects you from your grief. It is a fire that keeps you warm. This is natural." He looked at Link with his sad, ancient eyes. "But to be righteous does not mean to be without anger. It means to be the master of that anger. Hatred is a cage. It binds your spirit to the very thing you despise. To linger on it, to nurture it, is to give the shadow a permanent anchor in your own heart. The Master Sword rejected your rage once. If you allow that poison to take root, it will reject you forever."
Link turned away, his small body tense. He could not accept it. The philosophy was too clean, too neat. It did not account for the sheer, brutal agony of his loss. His hatred for Asmodeus, for the shadow, was the only thing he had left. It was the fire and the forge of his new purpose. To let it go felt like a betrayal of his parents, of Korgon, of everyone he had lost. It felt like forgiveness. And he could not, would not, forgive.
The sage watched him, a look of profound, sorrowful understanding on his face. He nodded slowly. "Your grief is a mountain. It is too high to see over today. That is as it should be. A wound must be felt before it can be healed."
He placed a gentle, incorporeal hand on Link's shoulder. The touch was cool, like a spring rain. "But the path to healing is not found by building a home in the shadow of that mountain. It is found by learning to climb it. I cannot walk the path for you. I can only show you that it is there."
The sage's form began to fade, the light of the twin suns shining through him. "My last gift to you is a choice. You can remain here, in this garden of your mind, and let your body fade away into a peaceful, dreamless sleep. Or you can choose to wake. You can choose to carry the unbearable weight of your past and walk the path, however painful it may be."
His final words were a soft, lingering promise. "When you are ready to climb, I will be waiting."
The sage vanished. The beautiful, impossible plain of twin suns dissolved. Link was left alone in a quiet, gentle darkness, with a single, terrible choice to make.
He thought of his mother's smile, not her death. He thought of his father's pride, not his fall. He thought of Korgon's gruff laugh, not his sacrifice. He thought of Zelda's eyes, full of a fierce, defiant hope.
He chose to wake.
His consciousness, a single point of light, began its long journey back. He felt the pull of his own body. The first thing he perceived was not sight, but the gentle, chiming music of the light-sprites. The second was the cool, healing touch of the spring's water. And the third was the warmth of a hand, small and familiar, holding his own.
He slowly, with an effort that felt like lifting a mountain, opened his eyes. The world was a blur of soft, green and blue light. But one thing was clear. The first thing he saw upon his return to the world of the living was the anxious, hopeful, and tear-streaked face of Ilia, watching over him.