come find me in the afterglow // revali x link

come find me in the afterglow

Revali thought everyone was dead.

When Calamity Ganon unleashed his attack, it was bigger, more powerful than they could have imagined. The Guardians and Divine Beasts that were meant to protect the land had been corrupted by his Malice, turning on the villagers and crushing everything in their paths. Their powerful laser blasts left no survivors.

Or so he thought.

Instead, when he goes to see the ruins of Hyrule Castle, he finds he's not alone.

Someone else survived, apparently. Someone who seems to have had the same idea.

He's a Hylian, Revali can tell. The pointed tips of his ears poke through his fair hair, and he's dressed in typical Hylian garb. He's sitting cross-legged on a crumbling stone wall right at the entrance gates to the castle, and—munching on an apple. What a strange person.

Something about him is intriguing.

Revali alights on the crackled cobblestones behind him, and he turns at the sound. His eyes are a shocking blue, all the depth of the sea combined with the infinite reach of the sky.

"I guess I'm not alone," Revali says.

The man shrugs and says nothing, but doesn't turn back around.

Revali motions to the destruction surrounding them. "I probably could have stopped this, you know," he brags. "I don't know why the princess chose Fyson to be the Rito Champion over me. I'm the most skilled archer of all the Rito."

Instead of looking impressed, the stranger's face is still blank. His mouth is scrunched to one side, like he's not too sure.

Revali frowns. How can he not be amazed at this knowledge? Is he deaf? "Can you hear me?"

Slowly, the man nods, and Revali realizes that was a stupid question. He'd turned when Revali landed, so he must be able to hear. "Who are you, anyway?" Revali tries.

The man still remains silent, but puts the apple down before raising his hands and starting to move them. Revali realizes he's using Hylian sign language.

L. I. N. K.

"Link?" Revali asks. The man—Link—nods. "What are you doing out here?"

Thinking. Link pauses, then keeps going. I went to the Royal Guard Academy, but after all that time, they rejected me after graduation. Said I wasn't the right fit. But it's not like I would have made a difference anyway. I'm just one person.

"Of course one person can make a difference."

Maybe someone like you can, O great archer of the Rito. Link smirks, and Revali rolls his eyes when he realizes he's being mocked.

"I could have," he mutters sullenly. "All that idiot had to do was pilot Vah Medoh. How hard can that be?"

I wouldn't know. But it sounds like you do.

"You're not funny," Revali snaps. Link's grin just widens.

Revali could leave. He doesn't have to stand here and be mocked. Nothing's stopping him from soaring back into the air and leaving this rude little Hylian in the rubble alone. But...he doesn't. For whatever stupid reason he can't fathom right now, he doesn't. Link still intrigues him, and the first question on his mind is why doesn't he speak? But even Revali knows that's rude to ask someone he's just met.

"Depressing, isn't it?" Revali comments after a few minutes of comfortable silence.

Link chucks the apple core to the ground, and it rolls into the gap between two broken slabs of stone. The state of the castle or the fact that we're literally the last two living people in all of Hyrule?