A/N: this is completely unbeta'd and written in my phone's notes app. Spot any errors? DM me! If you leave corrections in a review just pls try to leave your thoughts on the story there as well. See the end for more notes.

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A Hero's Chance

Prologue: Calamitous

Chapter summary: The end of an era.

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Link's breathing is heavy and pained when Zelda's bow appears between him and the Calamity. Racing his horse as fast as she'll go, he quickly dismisses Revali's bow back to the depths of his korok-enhanced pouch; the poor weapon is on its last legs, the fine string worn down and the polished wood pocked from battle and nearly splitting from overuse. His attention is back just in time to snap the glowing bow out of the air. Divine energy seeps through his battered arm and down his spine—it must be Zelda, helping the only way she can.

The Bow of Light. When wielded by the hero, it fires arrows of pure light strong enough to oppose the Calamity.

Shooting the glowing targets Zelda paints across the giant's hide would have been the easiest thing Link had ever done, but each step the beast takes crushes trees twice Link's size and sends tremors through the ground; with each toss of its head its mighty tusks gouge holes the size of houses into the dirt. Its fiery breath shoots hot and bright, scorching black everything it touches. The Calamity's pure demonic form is slow, and Link is nothing if not fast, but Link is tiny and those cloven hooves are gargantuan; they cover half a kilometer in one stride, six times faster than his steed can keep up with—or dodge away from. The other champions' magics buzz low in the back of his mind, too spent to use for another few minutes at least. Though he might just need it soon, lest he be trampled to death, Mipha's gift is by far the dimmest of the four.

It's close call after close call, but the divine arrows conjured by the Bow of Light shoot the straightest he's ever shot and those targets glow warm like a beacon against the roiling purple sludge of the demon's flank. His horse is a little thing like himself, reliable, Bokoblin trained and hard to spook, so though her gallop sends jolts of pain through his wounds at least she doesn't bolt wildly away from the Calamity's lasers like a lesser horse might have been inclined to do. It's only a matter of time before Zelda's voice rings out in his head one last time, though he thinks for the first time in a century he might be able to hear her voice aloud as well. She says to target the Calamity's final week spot. So, he does.

He prepares his own magic, lets it curl around his fingertips and blur the edges of his vision. Breathes slow as the malice beast roars behind him. Steady. The second a glowing eye forms from the malice at the center of the beast's head, he leaps from the saddle and draws back the bowstring. His magic rushes forward and time around him slows as he launches a single light arrow toward the eye.

Of course, despite all of Link's injuries weighing his limbs down, his arrow still flies true. The dark, bubbling malice making up the Calamity's terrible boar-shaped body explodes into golden light. A shockwave of pure radiant energy blooms from the demon's insides and knocks Link through the air. It's all he can do to pull out his paraglider, and jerking the Rito contraption from his bag jars his dislocated shoulder and sends a lance of heat and pain through his side, where he knows he has a deep half-cauterized wound he received from the Calamity's flaming axe during the second stage of this battle.

He's still riding the gale-force winds from Ganon's destruction when his body fails him. His stamina runs out and he tumbles across the scorched and trampled grass, rolling up and over a boulder. His heartbeat pulses in his ears when the frantic tumble finally ends, but he knows his bag is empty of meals. Even if he had anything cooked, he doesn't think he could will an apple into his hand if he tried, let alone a full meal. Somehow, Mipha's lightscale armor has held up through the abuse, and Urbosa's bejeweled shield clanks uncomfortably as he manages to roll himself onto his stomach.

Link can tell the wounds that a fairy cured an hour or so ago had reopened in his fall. His ears are ringing. The Master Sword hums a major chord from within her sheath across his back; he can almost feel it when her glow finally dims, for what will hopefully be the last time.

He hears Zelda's voice carry from across the field. Not in his head this time. Good. The princess is free. They finally defeated the Calamity.

The soft suede nose of his mare nudges his face, nibbles at his hair. She's safe too. He really needs to name the animal, and soon—there are too many "shes" in his life by now—

The horse, his brave, fearless horse, suddenly backs up with a distressed neigh. What could possibly have startled this wild thing that just helped him defeat the greatest demon Hyrule has ever known? With great pain and a sinking feeling like a stone in his gut, he carefully turns to meet his fate.

Something green, glowing like the wisps that surrounded his comrades' ghosts when he released them from the Divine Beasts, floats next to him. His vision is double, triple, blurring like he's using his magic but without the energy drain. He can't make out what it is. It's almost instinctive, barely a conscious decision when he musters what's left of his willpower to reach out and touch it.

Zelda's voice is closer than it was before, but still so far. He still can't decipher what she's saying except for the worried lilt of her voice. His field of view darkens. Turns green.

When Link first entered the ruins of the Temple of Time, long before he regained the precious few memories of his past life stored on the Sheikah Slate, he thought he could hear a tune on the wind—scattered clusters of notes playing through the rafters. Maybe, possibly, it was a memory he hadn't recovered. Now with that green overtaking his sight, that song plays in full, over and over again in his head until he's gone.

A/N:

Link, who is 118 years old: *falls and breaks his hip after the final battle*

Someone better get this old man Life Alert I stg

notes:

• Controversial opinion but Link totally has magic in-game. He can stop time mid-fight to change weapons. More importantly, he can slow time to a crawl when he's shooting mid-air or dodging attacks. That's not normal. He's not gaining any new unnecessary powers in this fic, don't worry. I'm just calling it how I see it.

• Mipha's Grace reloads in something like 20 minutes of gameplay, I think. One minute of gameplay is one hour in-game. So, you can only use Mipha's Grace about once a day in-game. Suffice to say, Link has many hours left to wait before Mipha can bring him back from the brink of death again. F

• yes, he's wearing the Zora armor Mipha gave him to fight Ganon. I love that trend among gamers and in this house we stan Mipha

• We callin the Master Sword "she" in Link's pov because even though Fi isn't in BotW and she probably won't make an appearance in this fic she's still the spirit of the Sword that Seals the Darkness. Some subconscious part of Link would know that. I'm not bending on this

• This fic is named after the trance remix of the Hyrule Castle theme by Emdasche! You can find it on youtube, it's a bop

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Chapter 1 is already written (and already much longer than this prologue), but I miiiight add a second Prologue just to set some things up for later on. I'll probably update March 31st or April 7th, 2019. See you next time, and thanks for reading!