I Lost Myself

With no memories, no shrines beyond the Great Plateau, and only the weapons he could scavenge along the way, somehow, Link defeated Calamity Ganon just three days after the voice of the Princess woke him from his sleep. The battle leaves him wounded, but alive, and miraculously, the Champions awaken in their Divine Beasts, unharmed. At first, it seems that all will settle itself in an end come far quicker than anyone could have imagined.

Then Link disappears of his own accord, and no one, not even his former closest friends can find him. Perhaps too burdened by a past he cannot drag back from the void, or too smothered by the reality of that past come back to life, Link runs, and disappears into the wild, unfamiliar Hyrule, where his former friends cannot hope to seek him out.

Except one, of course, who isn't foolish enough to expect the knight of the past to ever emerge from the broken boy who beat the Calamity back so fiercely out of guilt.

This story is cross-posted on AO3 under the name self_indulgent_authorship (which is me)