Chapter Text
Monster after monster, hoard after hoard, it was relentless .
Snow buried the crops and froze the lakes, gale force winds making it near impossible to fly. Warriors had frozen to death, had been ripped to pieces by Ganon’s unholy beasts, fledglings were starving as their parents fought tooth and nail just to scavenge barely enough to feed them.
He heard it day in day out, from the beaks of warriors and mothers and all in between. It’s the end of the world.
Revali knew better.
He’d trained his entire life for this. The war, the battle of the ages, the great fight between good and evil that he was destined to lead charge. He could fly through the winds, he could shoot through the snow, where others fell he would rise . This was the Calamity, and he was ready.
Certainly it was a lot at times. Flying back and forth across the lands, aiding the Princess on her pilgrimage between shrines in some attempt to unlock her still absent powers while learning to fight alongside his fellow champions, then returning to his roost to hunt day and night to provide food and firewood to his people during the hideous storm, to keep the hordes of monsters at bay from his village. He was exhausted more than he wasn’t, his muscles ached indefinitely, he got scarcely any sleep – but excitement and exhilaration pushed him forwards through every laboured beat of his wings.
This was Revali’s time. His moment, his destiny. To pilot the great Divine Beast, to dispense of Ganon once and for all. To puff out his chest and revel in the pride and love of people all across Hyrule as they finally recognised his unmatched talent and skill, finally saw the true extent of what the Rito were capable of and gave them the respect they deserved for it.
The world wasn’t ending because Revali would save it. He would be the hero of the story.
So when that echoed voice seemed to call his name in the night, beckoning him towards swirling clouds like a sirens song– he had ignored it.
He already had his role. He had his place. He had no need for siren songs.
Revali knew better.
The whispers begged his aid and he covered his ears like a child, brushing it off as wind or waves. Exhaustion – that’s all it was. Sleepy voices in his mind. He didn’t have time for duties of whim. The whispers promised him aid in return and he laughed in its face, twirling himself in the sky with his bow. Perfect warriors like Revali did not need aid.
He was the best of the best, the greatest Rito to ever live. He would make them all proud and he would do it alone.
Looking back in this moment, Revali ponders upon the childish naivety of his unwavering confidence. For all he’d taunted others for their ignorant defeats, it seems it is his turn to feel the fool now.
An eerie moment between life and death.
He’s gone, he thinks, he’s sure of it. His heart no longer beats, his lungs don’t scream for air. But he can see the scene around him. The looming figure of the Blight, a cutting silhouette amongst smoke. Blood and bones and viscera spilling across the cold stone floor in an unsightly dark streak. Charred feathers and burning flesh, but no more pain, for all its gory horror in appearance.
No more pain or fear or suffering. No more pride or determination or fight left in him anymore.
All that was left was the faint feeling of guilt over his failure. Of sorrow, of fear, of tragedy. And perhaps somewhere beneath it all, the last threads of hope that somehow – somehow, this would not be the end of the world yet. That somehow he would see the sun once again.
Revali knew better.
The fight was over, and he had lost. Tonight was the night that the world ended because it’s hero was not strong enough.
Revali is filled with an odd sense of calm despite it all, as if caught in the surreal moment between sleeping and waking. He can’t hear Medoh’s agonised screams anymore but the unsightly red glow of her lights still surrounds him. Malice pumps through her veins, she is more Ganon than she is herself now.
Malice. Vibrant magenta streaks glow in the dark ooze that makes up the bodies of the Blight.
Such a strange substance that reeks of coppery blood and frothing bile. It burns the skin it touches, leaving horrible visions and nightmares behind the eyes of whomever falls it’s victim. He thinks it must be a physical manifestation of all the evil the world has to offer, condensed into the most hideous syrup of vile cruelty imaginable.
Revali’s body lies limp, too many of it’s features no longer attached, his chest blown open and across the floors and walls, his once beautiful face soaked with tears and blood, petrified in an immortal scream. He shouldn’t be able to see his own face, he’s vaguely aware of that. Perhaps this is what they always meant by ‘the soul leaving the body’. He’d expected it in a less literal sense.
Malice moves like spiders. Like a thousand tiny legs, scuttling and hairy, writhing in and out of one another in an eldritch soup. He watches it seep from the cracks in Medoh’s stone like blood from a pus-filled wound.
Revali has no sensory coherence any longer, but as he watches the foul ooze start to rise around his corpse, tendrils of sticky gunk climbing inside of the cracks in his shattered beak, seeping into the corners of his eyes – he can almost still feel the visceral nightmarish feeling of it. It crawls down his throat and fills his burst lungs, filling his cavernous chest and leaking out. It writhes under his skin and almost looks like blood pumping and muscles flexing.
All he can do is watch as the malice consumes his material body as his spirit finally drifts into the dark void.
It’s so strange how the darkness feels just like drowning.
--
When Revali awakens, he’s certain he hadn’t intended to sleep. Immediately his back aches and the scent of charcoal assaults his senses.
Strange memories and dreams forgotten, the Rito sits up sharply from his slumped position against the wooden wall of the little hut and instinctively grabs a cloth to remove the smoking cooking pot from over his little fire, grimacing the blackened remains of what was once a piece of fish and some mushrooms.
With an irritable grumble he stretches out his stiff wings and tosses the ruined food out into the snow, glancing around at the frosty covering of white painting his flight range, flurries of thick snowflakes still coming down heavy. The storm still wasn’t letting up, it seemed.
Revali wasn’t one to nap really, usually he couldn’t stand such lazy behaviour as sleeping during the daylight hours. He must have closed his eyes for just a moment and fallen victim to the cozy warmth of the fire as a respite from the cold.
Life was just so busy these days.
He woke early to train before gathering supplies for the village, then he taught the fledglings before lunch, in the early afternoon he trained the village guard in their archery and combat skills, he aided the villagers with any errands that needed to get done – usually mundane enough tasks, taking out a stray Lizalflo scaring travellers on the mountainside or gathering some hard to find ingredient for a recipe. Once he was done with that he usually trained with Tulin, the two of them pushing their flight abilities to new heights, and when the boy inevitably had to return home for his curfew to have dinner with his family, Revali would head off to join one of his other companions to train with into the night.
Frequently it was Mipha, the girl would meet him in the river flowing through Hyrule Fields and the two of them would battle low level monsters together, honing their abilities even in the low light. She would filter to him information about Castle Town in it’s early stages of rebuild, and how Zoras Domain was fairing, and he would update her on the social and political climate in Rito Village. Then eventually either they would head their separate ways and he would return exhausted to Medoh for a few hours of sleep, or they’d decide to simply camp under the stars and he would return in the morning to restart the routine.
However, more often than not, it was Link.
The little knight spent many an evening these days visiting Rito village so that the two of them could train with their full strength, fighting one another tooth and nail to hone their skills to a fine point. Revali was – of course – the only worthy match in the land to the little hero, after all. And such in reverse.
The brat was…more tolerable these days. The fact that he was slowly becoming more talkative certainly helped, and Revali was attempting to be a little more cooperative with him - even when the pretty little fool ruffled his feathers for no good reason.
Link often visited for a week or two before vanishing back down to Hateno where he resides with the Princess (well, Queen . However it still feels so odd to refer to her as such. He scarcely bothers unless it’s a formality) these days. Sometimes Revali joins him for a change of scenery and to visit Zelda of course, but never for long, Rito Village is his home after all.
There was some sort of excavation going on beneath Hyrule Castle at current, the boy had mentioned as such. One of the princesses’ little research endeavours to uncover information about Ancient Hyrule that Link was of course accompanying her on like a lost puppy refusing to leave it’s owners side. After their spelunking expedition, he was supposed to swing by. He and Revali had plans to race one another to Death Mountain to test their endurance and speed tonight. Revali had been rather looking forward to rubbing his anticipated success in the boys face.
‘Then he simply hadn’t turned up.
Revali had exasperatedly practised his archery for hours waiting for the blond twit to make his appearance. Eventually the sun had begun to set and his stomach had started to rumble, so he had decided to prepare food while he continued waiting for the knight to stumble into the flight range, probably looking like an animated snowbeast from the heavy storm.
The fool had probably gotten distracted. He often did.
Heavy wind whistles through the wooden slats of the small shelter and Revali warms his wings by the lit fire, Perhaps it was time to call it a day and retreat to the village. Clearly he had been abandoned in favour of whatever nonsense had caught the Hylian’s attention today that was apparently more exciting and important than the great Rito Champion . The sheer audacity of it.
Then, just as he moves to sling his bow over his back, something white seems to come crashing through the doorway at suprising speeds, and admittedly he’s momentarily taken off guard by the fledgling before him skittering on unsteady talons as he catches his footing on the wooden floor.
“I knew you’d be here! Dad said you were probably up in the cloud already investigating but I knew you were probably still here moping over where Link was!” Tulin’s voice sounds proud for all he is breathlessly heaving , the kid puffing out his fluffy chest as he finds his footing at last. The kid swings a little fabric bundle from his shoulder and all but tosses it into Revali’s wings. “Mom told me to bring you some food ‘cus she’s worried you don’t eat enough.”
“I don’t mope , and I eat plenty enough- ugh, whatever,“ he starts to argue before furrowing his brows at the kid, shuffling over to brush away the snow practically weighing down his downy feathers, “What are you doing here? Isn’t it past your bedtime?”
Tulin rolls his eyes and it irritates him slightly. When did this kid get so bratty .
“I’m not some little kid anymore, I’ll be thir teen soon, I can go out after dark if I want,” Tulin rattles off dismissively, instinctively moving his little wings over the fire to warm away the chill, “Besides, everyone is up watching the weird cloud. How could anyone sleep through a storm like this? ”
Squinting a little, Revali unwraps the small bundle of fabric, turning over a large chunk of some sort of mushroom and nut bread in his wingtips before trying to break off a piece to eat, sighing wearily when it becomes apparent that it has frozen solid during the short fly over here. “What are you babbling on about, weird clouds? It’s just a snowstorm, I’m sure you’ve seen hundreds of them before.”
“It’s not ‘ just a snowstorm’ , look! ” The fledgling urges, nearly tugging him by the wing unwillingly outside onto the balcony in the icy night air, pointing up as both of their eyes shift to the dim moonlit sky above Rito Village where a bizarre looking cloud seems to swirl almost menacingly, the heavy flurries seeming to pour from below as if never-ending as a waterfall.
“There’s something super weird about it right? The storm is getting way worse too, Harth said the southern bridge is out, and everyone is bordering up their windows in case it turns into a tornado or something. Everyone was worried about where you were and mom was gonna come look for you but dad freaked out and wouldn’t let her so she pretended to put me to bed then sent me to come find you instead.”
In truth, Revali tones out what the boy is saying, sharp eyes focused on the peculiar swirling mass in the sky. As lightning crackles he swears for a second it looks as if there’s something dark at it’s core.
Why does this all feel strangely familiar?
“Come on, let’s get you back home before your father grounds you for the rest of your life,” Revali sighs, half lost in thought as he struggles to break eye contact with the strange cloud lighting up the sky. Slowly he douses the fire and readies his gale as the kid crouches in preparation for them to beat their wings against the powerful storm winds.
A strange heaviness settles in his gut as a frantic feeling in his chest tells him ‘ It’s the end of the world’ , but he shoves the unwarranted concern down as he takes to the sky. What a foolish sentiment.
Revali knows better.