Snow White-adjacent Dreamling AU?
Dream is the prince of Time and Night's kingdom (with skin as pale as snow, and hair as black as ebony). Hob has some sort of huntsman-ish role in the palace. Dream goes out hunting fairly often, not for the sake of hunting itself but to have some space from the weight of his responsibilities (and from other people) and the ability to be alone with his thoughts. Maybe to mope a little.
Hob has liked Dream from the moment he set eyes on him, half-despite-half-because he was acting like an arrogant little snot at the time. And although Hob's initial infatuation was mostly just that, infatuation, he really did want to get to know Dream better. So when Death told Dream that he should get out among the people more, which led to Dream, grudgingly, attempting to make conversation with Hob the next time they were alone together, Hob genuinely made an effort to keep the conversation going and get to know him. They meet up every month or so, Hob talks about what he's been up to, a beautiful friendship blossoms, etc.
But they're in a weird space, with each other. Hob thinks of Dream as a friend, and Dream... wants to do the same, but he's too aware of the difference in their stations and the politics of the court, the way it would be so easy for Hob to just be- pretending to like Dream, in order to get something from him. He wouldn't even have to try very hard. Dream's lonely.
And maybe, given enough time, they could have reached an understanding. But the problem is, everyone is aware of Dream's tendency to be alone, in the dangerous forest, with only his huntsman for company, and someone (Night? Time? Desire?) gets Hob alone and asks/bribes/orders him to kill Dream next time they go out hunting.
Hob does not want to do this. Obviously. But the person who ordered him to do it is literally royalty and could have him painfully executed if he doesn't. Not to mention that he has no idea how deep the conspiracy against Dream goes, if there's anyone else in the palace he can trust to help, who'd go running straight to Dream's enemies if they caught him making plans. But he can at least warn Dream, right? Maybe come up with some sort of plan to fake Dream's death and get him to safety.
So the next time Dream goes hunting, as soon as they're far enough from the palace, Hob tells Dream that his father ordered him to ensure that Dream didn't come home from this little excursion.
Dream, obviously, assumes that this is the prelude to Hob stabbing him, punches him in the face, and runs. Hob is left going "Wait! Come back! I said that really badly! I meant it as a warning, I want to help you!"
He chases after Dream, but between the punch and the fact that Dream has some level of magic powers over his namesake- either he made Hob hallucinate or put him to sleep for a bit- Hob isn't able to catch him. He panics for a bit, but he figures at this point the only thing he can do is feed Dream's enemies as much misinformation as possible. So he goes back to the palace and tells Time-or-whoever that he killed Dream and left the body in the woods, giving the completely wrong direction so that when/if someone goes searching for Dream's body they don't find him.
Now, obviously Time doesn't fully believe that Hob went through with it and killed Dream, especially since there's no body. But the fact that Hob's nose is fully broken helps sell the story, at least for a couple of days. Hob spends those days trying to figure out a way to sneak out of the palace- he doesn't want to be executed, but also, if it's at all possible, he wants to make sure Dream got away. (And as long as he's daydreaming, he'd like a chance to apologize.)
He gets his chance when Death tries to kill him for killing her little brother. Unlike Dream, she actually gives Hob the chance to explain, and when he does, she helps him sneak out (under strict orders that he find Dream).
Hob is much happier to obey those.
Meanwhile, Dream has found shelter with a group of raven shapeshifters living in the woods (definitely Matthew, Jessamy, and Lucienne, maybe include other Dreaming residents to make seven). He is much happier being Dream, who lives in the woods and writes stories, than he was being Dream, prince who is hated to the point of assassination attempts. He's maybe making a little money granting people restful sleep and good dreams using his powers. He misses Hob, though. With some distance from the utter betrayal and terror of the moment Hob said he'd been sent to kill him, he's beginning to wonder if he hadn't overreacted, maybe just a smidge. But that's all tied up in and complicated by the fact that he's also beginning to realize he was probably in love with Hob, and he's not sure he can trust any of what he feels about him.
Unfortunately, the king of the neighboring kingdom, Roderick Burgess, hears about a powerful magic user living in the woods and decides to take that power for himself.
Double-unfortunately, Time realizes Dream is alive and sends one of Dream's former bodyguards, the Corinthian, to kill him. Dream's able to fight him off, but he's exhausted to the point of his powers turning on him and putting him into a coma, and that's when Burgess swoops in and captures him.
Dream is caught in a strange, deathlike sleep, making him mostly useless to Burgess. But having him nearby means that everyone around him sleeps peacefully, and occasionally has prophetic dreams, and Burgess is doing the same 'I'll force him to work for me' thing he does in canon except the logic is 'one day I'll figure out how to wake him up (and force him to work for me), and/or how to actively use his powers while he's still asleep.'
So Burgess has a glass coffin built for Dream, and seals him inside.
Back with Hob, he's spent most of this time on the run from Dream's enemies, unable to actively look for Dream, and slowly going mad with worry over what might have happened to him. He's also slowly, painfully come to realize that the feelings he'd felt for Dream were a little closer to 'love' than 'friendship'. It is a bad time. But eventually he hears rumors about Roderick Burgess, who 'rescued' a comatose prince from the woods and is offering a reward to anyone who can wake him up.
Hob goes chasing after these rumors- Dream showing up alive took a lot of the heat off him- eventually ends up in Burgess' kingdom, and decides to try his hand at waking up Coma Prince. Worst case scenario, it's not Dream. Best case scenario, it's Dream, he's able to rescue him and explain, and- well. Dream will go off and do whatever it is he wants to do, and maybe he and Hob can be friends.
(Hob doesn't let himself hope for anything more, any sort of soft little happily-ever-after.)
But for all that Roderick is pretending to have rescued Dream out of the goodness of his heart, Hob steps one foot into the room with the glass coffin and is immediately aware that isn't the case. He doesn't know much about magic, aside from the couple of times Dream showed off his powers for him. But it's not exactly difficult to spot that the glass coffin, and all the magic circles surrounding it, are somehow vampirically feeding off of Dream, and even though he only understands every third word of the larger explanation he's given, it's more than enough to confirm his suspicions. Burgess' fellow mages give Hob the tour of the apparatus, snickering among themselves because clearly this idiot won't be able to do anything magical that they couldn't. Hob nods along and plays up the 'idiot peasant with delusions of grandeur' vibe right up until everyone has stepped back to see what he'll do.
And then he drags his heel straight down the middle of the largest circle of runes, sending the spell completely haywire.
The backlash of the spell collapsing causes Roderick and his mages to pass out, and gives Hob time to smash open the glass coffin and get Dream away from all the spell circles.
But Dream doesn't wake up, even as the spell collapses. Just remains in Hob's arms, cool and lifeless.
Hob is not about to let it end like that. Sure, none of the most talented mages in the land had been able to wake Dream, but none of them tried getting him out of the stupid coffin, first, so Hob's clearly a step ahead of them already.
He sneaks out of Roderick's palace, carrying Dream, while Roderick and his servants are asleep. Gets him to relative safety (with the help of Jessamy, who'd been waiting for a chance to break Dream out and jumped in to help the moment Hob started breaking things).
And Dream's still in the weird death-trance but he isn't dead. Hob's sure of it. It might be wishful thinking but he swears Dream looks a little better now that they're away from Roderick's palace- a little more color in his cheeks, the faintest, threadiest suggestion of a pulse when Hob feels for one.
So Hob keeps a vigil at Dream's bedside that night, but eventually exhaustion causes him to drift off to sleep.
When he does, Dream is waiting for him.
"You need not have come to my defense," he says, staring at Hob suspiciously.
"Yes, I did," Hob tells him. "You're my friend. Of course I did."
Dream sizes him up for a long while. He's powerful enough, in this dreamscape, to tell that Hob genuinely means what he's saying. It takes a long time for him to decide it might be worth it to tell Hob how to shock him out of the dream he's trapped in (by fulfilling one of his most treasured dreams), but finally, he says, "You might be able to wake me up."
Hob's immediately like "Yes of course how whatever you need."
"Kiss me," Dream says, and then, while Hob is still trying to process that, "This dream is over."
And Hob wakes up.
And yeah, a good part of him dismisses the dream as some extremely strange wish-fulfillment fantasy. But it had seemed so real.
So, with the extremely romantic thought, alright it's worth a shot, Hob leans forward and kisses Dream.
Almost immediately, there's a little shiver of breath against his lips, and when he pulls away, Dream is blinking sleepily up at him.
Hob immediately pulls Dream into a hug, and by the time Dream is actually, fully conscious, Hob is sitting in the bed with him, supporting him with an arm around his shoulders, fussing over him just the tiniest bit frantically.
And Dream, eventually, manages to explain why Hob kissing him awake worked, which means that OBVIOUSLY Hob needs to kiss him some more.
(And they both get a soft little happily-ever-after)
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Do you remember the asks I sent a while ago about how another hero would have risen faster if Zelda had let link die in the calamity and the new hero’s « imaginary friend » was the spirit of botw link acting as the companion for the new hero? And how it would make botw link’s family feel? Do you think you could write something with that?
(@wildsage00 @luckybyrdrobyn @artisticgamer)
There was chatter of a strange swordsman amongst the gossipers in Hateno.
Abel was wary of it. He didn't like when there was "exciting" news in Hateno. He preferred it when the village was quiet. It had been quiet for so long, any change in the status quo immediately put him on edge.
He could only handle so much these days. Hylia knew Lyra was enough of a handful.
It had been fifteen years since the Calamity. Fifteen years since he'd lost nearly everything, fifteen years since he'd failed in his duty as a knight, as a husband, and as a parent, fifteen years since he'd buried his soldiers, civilians, his father-in-law, his wife, and his son all within the span of a few weeks.
He still had never spoken of it since then.
In a way, it was foolish of him not to bring it up. Clearly Lyra was just as affected as him, and she had far more of her mother's temperament than his own. He handled the matter silently while she fell apart. He held her while she cried herself to sleep night after night, shivering from nightmares, begging him to make it better and find a way to bring her family back.
She'd stopped crying, after a while. He'd hoped it meant she was improving, but he knew better. His daughter's one saving grace was that both her parents were stubborn, and she had inherited that. It had been interesting, watching which child took after which parent and how they blended them together. Link had always been sensitive, and he had grown quiet under pressure, putting duty above all else like his father. Lyra had always been louder like her mother, understanding the importance of duty but always questioning it; despite this, she held much of her father in her, growing resistant, angry, driven, outright frightening in the face of pressure. She would rise to the challenge and destroy any obstacle in her way out of pure spite if she had to.
As the years had gone by, Lyra's stubbornness and anger came to a head in her adolescence, that horrid time when a desire to grow, naiveté to the world, and self centered viewpoint all mixed into a stubborn and emotional teenager who wouldn't listen.
Those years had been difficult. Abel and Lyra had fought many times, and he'd had to leave the village in search of her more often than he cared to recall. She'd been insistent on learning how to fight, on reclaiming Hyrule as if she could do so by herself, on picking up her brother's sword and killing Ganon singlehandedly.
Those years had... strained their relationship. But they were trying to rebuild. Abel had compromised, teaching her a little of how to fight. She patrolled the forest just outside of Hateno and fought off monsters. Every time she returned with excited tales of her victories his smile grew a little more. It was a fair arrangement, and it kept things quiet and peaceful.
Until the talk of a swordsman started.
Visitors to Hateno Village were a rarity. No one dared venture out of whatever safe haven they had found the first few years after the Calamity. Refugees trickled into town the first few years and Hateno could barely support them. It wasn't until close to a decade later that anyone dared explore once more, and that was when word spread of the dangers of travelers. Strangers were watched warily these days.
Abel washed some dirt off his hands by the pond as he listened to some women gossiping. He heard feet shuffling and glanced to see Uma, one of the village teenagers, approaching him.
"Sir Abel, Mom says there's a swordsman in town," she noted.
Abel hummed noncommittally in acknowledgement.
"Have you seen him?" Uma continued gently.
Abel sighed. Uma was one of the chattier kids in the village, and she found events outside of Hateno fascinating. Naturally, she gravitated towards those who had any sort of experience with the rest of the world, so Abel had been victim to her interrogations in the past. An exciting visitor was definitely likely to pique her interest. "No. And you'd best be careful about him."
Uma gave a small pout, nodding a little in acknowledgement before asking, "Do you know where Lyra is?"
As a matter of fact, Abel did not know. Given the current excitement buzzing through town, he probably should look for her. "No."
"Oh. Ok. Can I get you anything before I go, Sir Abel?"
Abel paused from drying his hands on his tunic. The question was spoken innocently from the lips of a child who didn't know any better, but its origin was something he didn't care to think about.
Hateno Village was not a large place. Everyone knew everyone. They had all known Abel and his family, they had all seen Link walk through town to get home with a legendary blade on his back. Though many didn't know the happenings of Hyrule, word spread of the Hero of Hyrule, the Princess' Champion, and his role in destiny. Just before the Calamity it had gotten bad enough that Link no longer spoke in to anyone in the village and barely uttered a word in the safety of his family's home. When everything had fallen apart...
Well. Abel didn't care for the way people looked at him. Most did so with pity. Some with curiosity, eager to hear what had actually happened. The mayor had been kind enough to prevent any sort of interrogation. Over the years the concern and nosiness had transferred to their children. Uma was a kind soul from a kind family, and had clearly been told that Abel was in need of help, and so she always offered when she could.
He hated it.
"No," he answered quietly, and the teenager traipsed off, likely in search of Lyra, unbothered by his short responses.
Sighing, the world weary man turned and nearly ran into yet another teenager, though he immediately realized this one was not from the village. Based on the boy's dark complexion and black hair, he looked like he could be from Lurelin Village, one of the few remaining hamlets in the entire country. He was built strong; though short in stature, his muscles were apparent, sculpted from training though still softened by youth. He wore garb from the fishing village, all the more confirmation to Abel, and, as suspected based on the rumors, he had a sword on his back alongside multiple travel supplies.
Abel watched the boy warily. He hadn't expected the swordsman to be this young, but he still didn't trust him. What was he doing here, anyway?
"Um... hi," the teenager said, shifting in place awkwardly. "I... heard that girl--Uma? She... she called you Sir Abel. Are you Sir Abel?"
"What do you want?" Abel asked, crossing his arms and staring the boy down.
The teenager shriveled a little under his gaze before glancing to his right, staring at something for a moment. He took a shaky breath, his hazel eyes darting back to Abel for a moment.
Something about this kid was off.
"My... I..." the kid tried awkwardly, and then gave a sharp bow. "Sorry! I'll leave now!"
With that, the boy rushed by him, heading for the village inn. Abel watched him go, hackles less raised than before as he grew bemused.
XXX
The inn was really nice. Like, much nicer than the one back home. Of course, he guessed more people came here. Hateno was more centrally located. Maybe that was it.
Link didn't know. All he knew was this place was so big and overwhelming. He missed home.
After paying for a place to rest, he dragged his feet upstairs, thankful that he had the place to himself. Then he looked hesitantly to his right. "I'm... I'm sorry. He's... I..."
"It's okay," came the always quiet voice as the Hero reappeared, eyes downcast. "He can be intimidating."
Link watched his companion worriedly. The Fallen Hero often had an air of sadness to him, but he usually tried to hide it behind a neutral face or a small smile. Today had been a nerve wracking day for both of them - as soon as he'd been given this new task he'd seen the tension in his companion increase, and he'd spoken even less.
"You said he was the captain of the guard," Link offered with a shrug, trying to cheer him up and also trying to figure this out. "I mean... captains sound intimidating."
The Hero huffed a little, not commenting, still gazing somewhere far beyond where Link could reach. He wondered if it had to do with the Hero's guilt. Link had seen his friend through the years, playing with him, and as he'd grown older the visits had been fewer and far between until the Hero had finally admitted his true destiny with reluctance. He had apologized, stating that the fault was his own, but had promised to be with him every step of the way. Link had found what answers he could from his family and his village, but not much was known about the Hero of Hyrule except that he, alongside all the other Champions, had been killed.
Link supposed the true issue, then, was that the Hero's guilt made him think that he had failed the captain of the royal guard. After all, he had been tasked with protecting not just Hyrule, but the princess specifically. Now she was trapped in the castle.
This entire side quest was... terrifying to Link. He had been traveling with his friend for a good while now, but after many battles and growing in strength, the Hero had said they needed to find Sir Abel, who would be able to help him find the legendary sword that they would need to defeat Ganon. That had led them to Hateno Village.
The idea of taking the mantle of Hero had not quite sunk in until he'd realized that once he accepted that sword, he accepted his destiny. Having to do so was already weighing heavily on him... having to speak to such a scary looking man didn't help.
He kind of looked like his friend, though. That was weird.
"I'll talk to him, I promise," Link said as he sat on the bed. "I just... need to come up with a good way to approach him. Got any tips?"
The Hero hugged himself, looking opposite of Link.
Well, great. His friend was really upset about this. Link sighed. "Hey. It's... don't feel bad about... him. The Calamity destroyed the entire country and killed all the Champions. You know that it's... it's okay, right?"
He'd been trying to have this conversation for a while now. It was obvious his companion bore the weight of the entire Calamity on his shoulders. He'd tried dancing around the subject, thanking him for his help, saying he was great fun to be around. It had been complicated at first - he'd wondered if the Hero had befriended him as a child just to manipulate him into doing his duty when he was older. But he knew this person - he knew the reason he'd befriended him was out of shame, not some devious ulterior motive. So he'd been trying to cheer him up, because any joy he'd seen in his friend had slowly drained out of him as their quest had progressed.
The Hero looked back at him, face stony.
Link huffed. "It's okay. I wouldn't expect you to stop an entire freaking army of guardians. They look really creepy."
"You haven't faced one yet."
"Yeah, yeah, so I don't know how strong they are, whatever," Link said dismissively. "They still look freakishly strong."
"That's why I've told you stay away from Central Hyrule."
"Okay, but like, there were a million of them at the fort on the way here."
The Hero grew silent.
"Did... did Sir Abel fight them?" Link asked hesitantly. When he got no response, he sighed. "We'll figure it out, okay? I'll get the sword."
"Please," his friend suddenly said. "Don't... don't try to do this for me. I don't want you to do this for me."
"You want me to do it for Hyrule?"
"I want you to choose to do it."
"I already did," Link answered immediately. "I chose this. And I'll, uh... choose to maybe try some of the local food and go fishing before I get near that guy again."
His companion chuckled, a rare smile pulling at his lips. "I'll think of a way you can approach him in the meantime."
"Great! You think about it so I don't have to," Link chirped happily, hopping to his feet. "Maybe we can talk at dinner?"
"You know I can't maintain my form that long."
"Breakfast?"
His companion pointed outside the window, and Link slowly walked to it. This was another trial, wasn't it?
"Get the spirit orb from the shrine," the Hero instructed. "I'll meet you after that."
"Spirit orb. Got it." Link nodded, turning to smile only to find himself alone in the room. He felt a little cold and empty all of a sudden, sad and lonely, but he tried to shake it off. He wished his friend could just stay with him, but he guessed it took work being a spirit in a land of... not spirits.
Link looked back outside, catching sight of the knight he was supposed to talk to. The man was wandering by the inn, throwing a wary glance its way. The fisherman gulped.
Later. He'd deal with it later. It was time to relax for the day, and then defeat the shrine in the morning so he could talk to his companion.
They'd figure this out together, like they always did.
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