sometimes i think about just how sad memory 16 + 17 is. in memory 16, zelda breaks down over not being able to save king rhoam and the four champions, how she's "left them all to die." the next memory is link being an inch close to death, and he would likely have actually died if zelda still didn't unlock her power by the time the beam fired. she would have lost everything, and i want to see the scenario then just cuz angst ❤️
Sometimes? Woof, it's the best part of the game imho and I feel like I'm thinking about it all the time 😂 If Zelda didn't unlock her powers when she did though, I doubt she would have survived for any meaningful amount of time afterwards. 🤔
That having been said, I do have a prompt in my inbox right now that reads, "What if they never made it to the shrine of resurrection, or Link took the blast even though she unlocked her powers?" and I fully intend to tackle it the next time I do some prompts!
In the meantime, I did write Breathe In, Breathe Out, which is memory 17 from Link's perspective, and also Forced to Beg, which is a pre-memory 16 catastrophe scenario. And if you haven't read Even in Death (ffn / ao3) by @intangiblyyourswrites, in which "There is no resurrection shrine. A new Hero is born. And the boy that saves her is not the one she loves," ya should.
(Even in Death also has an AU I'm going to plug here, in which the Link that saves her is a timeline-jumping OoT!Link, which is fantastic. You can read it here: Duality and Solidarity. There's also art!)
Hope that holds you over for a bit! Thanks for the ask!
