Chapter Text
“Mikey, what's going on?”
Pac was bathed in crimson light as he was dragged down the winding hallways, wild hair flying out behind him like a rocket trail and legs almost buckling from the force of his feet hitting the hard stone over and over again.
Beep! Beep! Beep!
The shrill scream of an alarm made Pac’s ears throb. Mike’s claws cut into his hand.
“I’ll explain everything in time, just come on!”
The Zonai duo found themselves in a large circular chamber. It was dark, but Pac could make out the bed sized pool in the centre that emanated a soft green glow- It was surrounded by scattered books and papers that he had recognised from his lengthy visits here before, and propped up next to it was a similar sized stone slab, clearly the lid.
The shorter finally let go of his death grip on Pac’s hand and stumbled towards the object in the middle of the room.
“You have the stone?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Get in.”
“Wait, what?” Pac asked, wide eyed. “What about you? Aren't you coming too?” Mike’s face fell to look at the floor and Pac's ears drooped. Their eyes met and the shorter zonai let out a shaken sigh before quickly averting his gaze, he seemed plagued by guilt.
“You saw what happened, Pac. The ceremony failed, Mine is gone and I can't lose you too. You saw what their soldiers were wearing- you wouldn’t stand a chance even with your bow. This is for the best.”
Pac's ears shot up in anger and the man bared his teeth. “It’s not like you would either! It was always supposed to be us against the world, together!” His anger faded and his vision grew watery. “Please, isn't there a way you can come too? I don’t wanna be alone-” The zonai’s words were cut off by the shorter’s embrace. Mike’s arms rose from his back and landed on either side of his face, making unbreaking eye contact.
“Pac. Don’t kid yourself. We both know there’s only one stone and it’s bound to you. I’m a goner either way. Please, just let me walk out into that field knowing that you’ll live a good life away from all this bullshit.”
“...I promise.”
Mike patted his cheek and smiled sadly. He took Pac’s hand and helped the man into the pool, not letting go once he was settled. The water inside was warm and comforting. It reminded him of Mike.
“Pac, When you wake up, go to the laboratory. I’m sorry it had to turn out this way, but there isn’t enough time to explain right now, I can hear them coming. Are you ready to go?”
Pac looked up at his best friend and nodded. The zonai squeezed his hand before letting go, grabbing the lid of the vessel and positioning it over where Pac laid.
“Te amo, moço. Goodnight.”
The stone slab was fixed in place and Pac’s world became dark.
~~~
The long grass danced in a gentle breeze, and the air was warm.
Something Fit always liked about nature was its resilience, how even when the darkest days could come to pass, the sun would keep shining; the greatest tragedies and pain could be inflicted on the world yet that world would keep turning, keep living. It inspired the Gerudo man to keep going himself, that no matter what happened he still had the clouds, the trees, the earth beneath his feet, his life- which he dedicated to that same land around him.
To Fit, however, there was nothing more important to a place than the people living there. He was headed due west after a week’s stay at the quaint seaside village of Lurelin, putting his strength to use with lugging the fishing boats, and enthusiastically telling the children grand stories of his travels all over the kingdom of Hyrule.
It was actually a direct result of this stay that he found himself in the quiet forest he was now, hiking through the dense greenery and almost knocking his head on many a low hanging branch.
~
“Say, handsome, what did you say you were researching again?” The Lurelin innkeeper asked the Gerudo. “Zonai, right? I’ve got some gossip you might like to hear about that.” She was leaning over the front counter as he was about to check out, straining her neck from looking up at the man.
Due to their natural height differences, Hylians were dwarfed by almost every other race in Hyrule, and those races were dwarfed by Gerudo in turn. He’d find it comical if it weren’t for the back pain of constantly leaning down when indoors- sleeping outside came with its risks.
“You listened in on my stories, huh?” Fit smirked. “Come on, then. Gimme the fofoca!” He leaned down to her level, making sure it was impossible to miss out on a single detail. Even if Fit was the most educated in the Zonai, that didn’t mean much when your only research material is a couple pieces of jewellery and some almost illegible carvings found from the recently unearthed caves. Any information about the elusive group was enthusiastically welcomed.
“Eager, aren't you?” The woman flirted. “But seriously, you’ll want to hear this. my brother recently came back from his travels up in the woods near Floria river, and found a whole ruin!”
Now this really piqued Fit’s interest.
“Look far enough and you’ll find some old statues; he also told me that some caves had opened up in the area too, but was chased away by a gang of bokoblins before he could investigate proper.” She sighed.
Fit tipped her extra and was out the door within a minute.
~
The gargantuan trees loomed overhead as the sun beamed down on him, dappled by the leaves above yet providing a comforting warmth on his bald head. Birdsong could be heard faintly in the distance, melodied by the sound of running water from the river that accompanied the path he walked.
The man had done well to avoid the many monsters that lived in this part of the Faron region; they had a nasty habit of using weaponry fused with electricity which would quickly cut Fit’s expedition short.
“Shouldn’t be that far now…” The Gerudo muttered quietly as he hoisted himself over a small ledge. He’d never heard of anyone stepping foot this far into the forest until earlier that morning so there was no map to follow, only his wealth of survival and navigation experience.
It wasn’t until nightfall before Fit saw the first signs of the fabled ruin he was searching for all day; he could barely see where he was going and almost collided face first into a tall, foreboding statue. The monolith-like structure was tall and slim, dark grey and wonderfully cool to the touch after the air around Fit had grown increasingly humid to warn of oncoming rain. Atop the structure looked to be a carved head resembling that of a serpent or dragon, it grinned widely, a mouth full of great rectangular teeth and its ‘skin’ was adorned with beautiful swirling patterns.
“Jackpot!” He grinned up at the thing before taking in more of his surroundings. All throughout the nearby forest he could see similar statues in various states of disrepair and water damage, some toppled over and some half-buried in the ground after millennia of neglect. The Gerudo man was in complete awe of the site and continued further in.
Fit was startled out of his daze by the cold shock of a stray raindrop hitting his head, then again, then his shoulder, and suddenly the heavens decided that the Gerudo’s fun was over for today as the sky opened up, threatening to drench the man from head to toe.
He was standing under the chin of one of the statues he’d been near, but the storm only seemed to want to get worse and Fit needed to find somewhere to set up a camp if he wanted to eat something and get even a little sleep before beginning his research tomorrow. Gritting his teeth, he strained his eyes into the night for anywhere that might function as a temporary shelter.
That's when he found it, a cave entrance not too far from his current standpoint, but far enough that he would get drenched for sure on the way over.
The Gerudo male reluctantly untucked the Lynel hide from his belt and pulled it up over his head to make a semi-functional coat, ready to brave the roughly hundred meter sprint, praying to every goddess he knew of that he wouldn’t slip and eat shit in the slick mud under him. He wished he packed better shoes for this.
“Here goes nothin’!”
The goddesses must’ve been smiling down on Fit, because he made it to the cave without eating any shit whatsoever. After tucking his cloak back into its rightful place on his hip, the tall man headed further into the cave. It led him down a winding tunnel, deeper and deeper.
The many caves and chasms in Hyrule had only opened up recently, The majority of the remaining kingdom’s population steered clear of them, however, much preferring the safety of their settlements as more and more monsters were showing up these days it seemed.
The rumours told that these unholy creatures crawled out of the newborn chasms on nights where the moon shone a sanguine hue.
Fit was not one of those people. He didn’t blame them for what other nomads like him perceived as cowardice, if anything they were just being smart. Only meat headed idiots wanted to risk their lives everyday after all.
The Gerudo was snapped out of his thoughts by the texture of the cave wall, he had been absentmindedly running his hand across it as he traversed the cave to keep balance, but it had suddenly changed from its damp, rocky texture to that of a hard, smooth stone. It was then that he looked around and noticed that the tunnel had transitioned into a sleek hallway, lined with sconces shaped like flowerbuds.
He hesitantly tapped one of the bulbs, and it flickered a few times before settling on a soft, pale green glow from within, illuminating Fit’s dumbfounded face and the part of the hallway he stood in. It was truly remarkable, for a light source to have lasted all this time without the help of any ignition- the Zonai must’ve been extremely technologically advanced to pull off a feat like this.
The man kept walking, back into the darkness as the functioning sconce was left behind. The hallway was long and bare, but eventually Fit reached the end, and at the end was a room.
He decided against lighting a torch of his own, for a fire source near this newfound discovery felt wrong on many levels- especially considering most of them were books haphazardly spread out on the floor. The room was relatively large in size and cylindrical in shape, besides the scattered texts the space was practically barren besides the equally sparsely decorated pillars lining the walls and sitting in the centre of the room an odd rectangular table- no… altar?
Whatever the object was, it seemed to be of great importance to dedicate a chamber like this to it.
The tall man crouched down on all fours and began crawling around, examining the base of the altar. Fit imagined he must look quite silly to any nonexistent onlookers, but it was worth it as he discovered that under the lip was a small seam in between the top and bottom stones, indicating they were separated- perhaps this thing was a container of some kind? He wondered to himself what kind of marvellous treasure could possibly lay inside this intriguing vessel.
The bald Gerudo inwardly debated with himself over whether he should attempt to pry open the object. It was roughly the size of himself in length, and big enough that he could easily lie down atop the structure and sleep without fear of rolling off- not that he’d consider doing that, of course.
Fit didn’t own a reliable clock, but assuming based on the position of the moon before he entered the cave, he figured it was about midnight by now.
Since the man was vehemently against igniting a fire in the room, he wrapped the now mostly dry lynel hide around his body for warmth, the fur lining tickling his face slightly. He had organised the scattered books into neat piles based on the legibility of the text inside, ready to be escorted to the base in Kakariko village a week’s journey away. The Gerudo male would’ve much preferred to attempt to translate these himself, but as the head of field research and physically the strongest member of their little survey team Fit knew he was much more needed out in the wilderness- he could leave all the difficult stuff to Cellbit and Bagi when he rented a pack donkey at the nearest stable to send all this back to them.
For now, Fit had brought out a small notebook and began sketching everything he could see in the room, since his eyes were used to the darkness. Content with his sketches of the sconces, the vessel, the pillars and the wall itself yet lamenting the fact that he couldn’t just instantly capture exactly what he saw in a picture, the Gerudo male snapped his book shut and sat on the edge of the rectangular box with a huff.
The low groan of the stone lid grinding out of place caused him to jump up immediately.
He did not mean to do that.
Oh goddess, he did NOT mean to do that.
Inwardly panicking, Fit checked to see if he had damaged the item at all, and practically melted in the relief to see it unharmed.
The relief was instantly replaced with apprehension and curiosity as he noticed the green glow coming from within.
It was the same colour and as the sconce from the hall, yet had a stronger luminosity. Fit could barely contain his excitement at the discovery, with one more prayer for forgiveness at what he was about to do, the man placed his hands to each end of the lid and began to push.
The lid was surprisingly quite light despite being composed of solid stone, The Gerudo had gotten it about halfway off the vessel before the glow’s intensity had waned enough so that he could see inside. The sight that befell him in that box was one that would be sure to change his life forever.
The object was filled with swirling warm water, in which lying submerged was a person.
It wasn’t just a person, they were a Zonai.
Fit was absolutely entranced. He stared at the figure below unblinkingly, the man’s jaw was agape and it took him every ounce of power in his body not to start giggling and flapping his hands around like the Hyrulian children he paid visits to.
Questions and theories swarmed the bald man’s mind like furious bees but he had to prioritise. This Zonai seemed to still be alive; he needed to get them awake and fed and if possible, out of this dingy room and into the fresh air- Goddess knows how long it's been since they even saw sunlight. The Gerudo male took the opportunity to really take in the strange person’s appearance, he had never seen any visual record of their description and it had dawned on the man that he alone was the first person in Hyrule to have seen one in written memory.
The Zonai was clad in blue and orange clothes, adorned in turquoise and bronze jewellry not unlike the ones kept back at Kakariko. On their left leg a device of similar material seemed to have replaced it, it vaguely resembled a cage, teal arms wrapped around a glowing green core swirling up the length of their calf- a sort of prosthetic, maybe?
He absentmindedly clenched the hand of his golden arm on the edge of the vessel, admiring further.
Their body was lithe, long arms ending with clawed fingers clad in rings. Fit looked back up to their face and was truly fascinated by the sleeping form before him- had he not been here solely for academic purposes he’d have even said they were beautiful; he drank in every detail of their face like a man finding water in his desert homeland.
The sleeping Zonai’s face was dark grey and scaled like their arms, a protruding snout tipped with a small black nose that reminded him of the desert wolves he remembered fondly. They had long lashes that matched the flaxen highlights of their voluminous white hair, from the top of their head sprouted the most magnificent set of pointed ears he had ever seen on a creature.
Fit’s eyes were torn away from the slumbering person’s face to an alluring golden gleam coming from a similarly coloured tear shaped stone on their chest. The man leaned in to get a closer look before the body under him shifted and quietly mumbled a single word.
“...Mikey?”
His eyes darted back to their face, looking for any sign of consciousness but there seemed to be none- their eyes remained shut.
It was then that the Zonai suddenly rolled over onto their side away from Fit, limbs tucked into their body in a foetal position.
“...mph… mais cinco minutos…”
Fit was dumbfounded. This was of course the language he, Cellbit and Bagi were working to translate back at the base, yet while he was nowhere near as competent as them he was almost confident in assuming the line spoken was a petulant complaint- he had so many complex questions for this person, hopefully his infantile knowledge of their dialect could get him through a language barrier. Thank Goddess for his research team.
The Gerudo man kneeled down next to the sleeping Zonai and cleared his throat.
This noise seemed to spur them into realising that they were actually conscious, and Fit watched as gold eyelashes fluttered open to reveal a pair of big brown eyes, that when focused on him, widened suddenly as the Zonai scrambled into a half sitting position, ears flattening against their hair, chest rising and falling rapidly from the sudden activity mixed with fear of the intruder.
“Calma, eu sou um amigo.” Fit inwardly cringed at himself, it wasn’t like he got to practise his speech a lot; he held his hands up to show they were empty. “Eu não vou te machucar, I won’t hurt you.” He repeated.
“Y-you speak Zonai?” The person asked with a small smile, untensing and letting go of the edge of the pool they sat in. “Sua pronúncia é horrível!” They grinned, showing off a row of sharp white teeth.
“Oh, thank you!” Fit stammered, rubbing the back of his neck with his flesh arm- he had only just met a Zonai, and had already gotten complimented! The man could only imagine the envious looks on Cellbit and Bagi’s faces.
As quickly as that smile rose however, it fell to form a disgruntled expression.
“Eugh, I'm so damp in this thing. Help me up?” Without waiting for an answer the Zonai made a worthy attempt to exit the vessel they had been laying in but stumbled, most likely from the lack of muscle use, and Fits instincts kicked in as he shot forwards- one hand on theirs and the other around their waist to stabilise them as they stood.
“Y’okay there sleepyhead?” Fit smiled, he inwardly scolded himself for his flustered state and awkwardness as he was now practically hugging this stranger into his chest, the subject of which seemed to notice their close proximity a second too late, jumping out of Fit’s embrace as if the man’s skin had burned them.
“Desculpe! Sorry, um…” The Zonai stammered as their eyes flitted about the room, looking everywhere but his face. “Thank you for the help, though-” They absently fiddled with one of the rings on their hand before looking back up at the taller man and giving a warm smile. “That’s not my name.”
The Gerudo snickered, mirroring their expression and outstretched his arm for a handshake, hoping they would understand the gesture.
“Well, sleepyhead, if you ain’t gonna tell me your real name I have nothing else to go by! I’m not gonna force you to tell me, but my name’s Fit. Sorry I don’t have a new change of clothes for ya, but i just set up here and can get you mostly dry and fed.”
He looked behind him towards the rudimentary camp in the corner of the chamber. It was less of a camp and more of a worn cloth spread out next to the various piles of books he had gathered up earlier. He heard the tiniest hitch of breath from beside him.
They must've followed his gaze, because the shorter one failed to answer, walking straight past the man and towards the texts, sitting down on the floor and picking one up to flip through, it was as if they were hypnotised by the thing. The Gerudo wasn’t entirely sure what to do, so instead of standing around he cautiously approached the Zonai and took a seat next to them, unwrapping the hide from his shoulders and blanketing it over the damp Zonai keep them warm, though they didn't acknowledge it- completely entranced by the book they held.
“These were Mike’s books. We researched this place together only yesterday but- it's so… crumbly now.” They rubbed one of the pages between Their fingers and watched it disintegrate, a tiny pile of dust beneath grew on the floor. “Fit… how long has it been?”
Trying not to show the pain of a lost artefact on his face, Fit frowned, preferring to look at the dusty book over the lost one’s face.
“My friend, the Zonai have been extinct for ten thousand years.”