Never the Same

Into the Past

Link gasped when he saw them.

A graceful zora. A prideful rito. A goron brother. A gerudo tempest. The silent knight.

The people who sacrificed their lives for a future. The future of Hyrule. His future.

"No," he said breathily. He stumbled back, "No no no no no. you're dead. I killed you. You died, and I failed you. I FAILED" tears were now streaming down his face.

"How?" he whispered between sobs.

"I-" Zelda started, then paused.

The champions of the past suddenly looked tense, like they were expecting a fight. Link could only see blurry outlines of the champions, but he could see them getting into defensive positions.

Riju came up to link. "Hey Link? How about you put the sword down."

Link startled, and as he looked down, he saw his hands tightly wrapped around the scimitar of the seven, so tight that his knuckles were turning white. He dropped it as he fell to the ground.

Sobs shook his body. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe. He could- H e c o u l d n ' t

b r e a t h e

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Zelda looked on in shock as the Hylian champion from the future crumpled to the ground. All of the Champions, including Urbosa, Daruk, Revali, Mipha, Sidon, Teba, Yunobo, Riju, and finally, Link looked shocked. Zelda could see the conflicting emotions cross over Link's face. This was weird. Link was the stoic knight, who never showed any ounce of emotion, but here he was, reacting in such a way that it was showing on his face. The carbon copy of himself was covered in scars they had only seen on corpses. That would scare Zelda too.

Urbosa was the first to react. "We need to bring him to a secure location. He must be on the edge of hysteria, the poor boy" the chieftess said, a look of worry crossing her face.

"Yes," Zelda said. "I wonder what could have happened in the future to warrant that reaction"

"I do too, Little bird," Urbosa said with a purposeful look at Zelda, "But we don't want to stress Him out with questions, in case of another reaction of this sort"

Zelda huffed.

Sidon jumped into the conversation, "If I may, my Link is a resilient hylian, but the magnitude of his quest has been wearing on him over the last three years. I won't go into detail, as it is not my place, but Link harbors so much guilt over you all."

And with that, the Zora prince wandered off to find his sister.

Zelda sighed. What had happened in his hyrule was so terrible, that Link, one of the strongest people Zelda knew, couldn't handle it?

The Link from the future had mentioned that the champions had died, and that he blamed himself for their deaths. Had they failed? Had all of their work been for nothing? Had she-

Had they lost?

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This is my first story! Hope you like it!

I actually already wrote the entire thing I am just now publishing it. :P