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shatteredages · 4 months

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Displaced ch. 2: Stuck (in Your Body)

World: Minish Cap

Characters: Gabha, Cailleach

Warnings: ableism, body shaming, gossiping, a lot of doors

Summary: Smith had disappeared and no one knew what happened. Maybe an old woman falling out of the sky had some answers?

Read on ao3: here

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Normal text

"Speech"

'Thoughts'

voices inside the characters head

"something a character said in the past"

[Letters, books, anything written]

telepathic communication

“Grandma!”

What happened?

A young child's alarmed cries were still ringing in her ears, as hands pulled her off the ground. Almost drowning out the worried shouts and questions around her.

One voice was shouting for a doctor. Another one for a guard. Another again for some water.

The same hands as before were then pushing her firmly but gently towards a bench. Another hand pushing a cup of water into her own shaking ones, as soon as she sat down.

What was this place?

How did she end up here?

She was so terribly dizzy.

After she finally managed to drink a couple of sips of water, she slowly but surely started being able to properly hear again.

Someone was sitting beside her, talking at her. Mostly random things. But she was able to gather that she apparently fell from the sky. Right into some annual festival. A festival where they celebrate some kind of tiny mouse people? She didn't quite catch the name of those tiny mouse people.

It all just sounded very strange to her.

But any thought of strangeness vanished when her memories slowly came back to her.

She was home. She was cooking lunch. Something that was special to to someone important. A stew? Or a soup?

Someone was with her.

But who?

It was someone young.

A child?

A girl...

A young girl...

Dropping the cup to the ground where it burst into dozens of small pieces, she jumped up.

Hands were grasping for her. Voices telling her to stop and wait for the doctor. But she paid them no mind, as she ran back into the gathered crowd as fast as her battered and hurting body was able to.

Somehow avoiding the grasping hands of well meaning strangers, she shouted the same name over and over again. Panic taking hold of her every thought, as she searched for that little girl.

Her little granddaughter.

“Aryll? Aryll, where are you? Aryll!”

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Zelda woke up with the first rays of the morning sun.

Just like every day.

And just like every day, merely getting out of bed was a fight all on it's own.

Despite it having been just over ten years ago, she just never really recovered from being turned to stone. Her joints and muscles were still too stiff and too heavy. Just as if she was still a statue standing next to her father's throne.

Incapable of moving or doing anything. Only able to watch as Link – a child at that point – got sent on a dangerous mission. As her father was taken and impersonated by Vaati. As Vaati took her to that roof with that hungry look in his eyes.

And just like every day, she questioned herself as to why?

Why was this happening to her? Had she been a statue for too long? Was it the type of magic? Or Vaati's lack of experience? Her father was experiencing similar problems like her, after all. Just to a much lower degree.

And in his case it could have been attributed to his age.

Of course she knew that she would never get an answer to any those questions. And even if she were to get an answer, it still wouldn't give her back her mobility. It wouldn't give back her old life.

She had given up that hope a long time ago.

No matter how much she learned about magic. No matter how many spells she looked up. The answer always kept eluding her.

Instead she focused on the one silver lining she could find in all of this. That, at least for today, she was able to move at all. Which was not exactly something she could take for granted anymore.

Using some spell crafting to help her, the princess had forced her way into a dress that was getting too tight for her again. And once that 'monumental' task was accomplished, she slowly made her way through the castle hallways and towards the library.

Because sitting around and reading was pretty much all she was capable of nowadays.

So she might just as well focus on her studies. She could still learn to become a good Queen one day. Her physical limitations didn't change that at all.

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After what felt like an eternity, Zelda finally reached the door leading towards the entrance hall and was just about to push it open. But she stopped herself when she heard two young female voices gossiping on the other side of the door.

“The princess really let herself go, didn't she?” The first voice asked, the sound of a broom swishing across the floor momentarily stopping.

“Oh definitely.” The second voice wasted no time to add. “Is someone that lazy even suited to run a kingdom?” The sound of water splashing about stopped too now.

“I highly doubt it.” The first voice replied with a scoff, loud enough that even Zelda could hear it from her side of the door. “And the King isn't getting any younger either. There's only hoping that she'll get married to someone who's actually good for something.”

“But who would possibly want to marry someone that ugly?” The second voice replied with a cruel laugh.

One part of her really wanted to throw open that door and explain those maids in detail that she was in fact not lazy. That she simply wasn't able to move as well anymore. That it wasn't her choice to get fat.

However, the more rational part of her already knew that those two girls wouldn't believe her. Just how barely anyone else believed her over the last decade. In fact, her father, Link and Smith were really the only ones who truly did believe her. While everyone else either decided to humor her or called her a liar outright.

After all, she was young. What reason could she possibly have had to be stiff and immobile like an old crone?

Apart from magic, that was.

And the fact that the story of her becoming a statue wasn't well known outside of the castle, didn't help either. And even those who knew had long since been convinced by the rest, that she was just faking it.

Shaking her head, Zelda pulled out of her musings just in time to hear the maids switch to a more interesting – and less hurtful – topic: The Picori Festival. An annual festival she herself hadn't attended in years.

But she should probably just leave already.

Eavesdropping was quite rude after all. Even if it was on people who were equally rude.

Shaking her head, Zelda stepped away from the door. Even if she knew that those girls wouldn't mock her in her face, she wasn't really in the mood to confront them either. So going to the library was definitely out of the question now.

“Can you believe it?” One of the maids almost squealed. “Apparently some old woman fell out of the sky last evening. Just appeared out of thin air!”

That, however, stopped Zelda in her tracks. An unknown woman did what?

Could it be that...

“Are you serious?” The other maid squealed almost as loud as the first one. Obviously they didn't bother to hide the fact that they weren't working anymore.

“Yeah! The cobbler told me she fell onto one of the tents. So she only got some minor injuries.” When the maid started to sound disappointed at the end, the princess couldn't keep the scowl from her face anymore.

Did that girl seriously wish for someone to get hurt? Just because it would have made for a more 'interesting' story?

The depths people could fall to out of boredom.

“But then the woman started to rampage through the town square.” The first maid started up again with a more excited tone this time. “Always screaming 'Aryll! Aryll!' over and over again, like a madwoman.”

“Goddesses above!”

At that point the two giggling girls got shortly interrupted by an older voice loudly scolding them for slacking off. But after a minute or so of the only sound being the girls' resumed tasks, the gossip resumed too.

This time a lot more quiet, though. Forcing Zelda to practically press herself against the door, in hopes of one more piece of important information. One thing she really needed to know and hoped would come up soon. Preferably before anyone noticed her presence.

“Anyway...” The second maid whisper-shouted with barely concealed delight. “Did it take the guards very long to catch and lock up the madwoman?”

Another scoff sounded through the door. Along with the sound of the broom swishing across the floor a bit more forceful than necessary. “Oh they caught her pretty quick. But they didn't lock her up at all.” The other girl finally answered flippantly. “Instead they just brought her to the medical wing for those 'minor injuries'.”

And there it was. The information she needed.

With that Zelda finally stepped away from the door for good and turned around to head back, further into the castle. Towards the medical wing to be exact.

Because a person who 'just appeared out of thin air'? If she assumed right, then maybe that woman's appearance and Smith's disappearance last week were connected with each other.

Or at least she hoped so.

Link had been worried senseless since the morning it became apparent the elderly man was missing. Enough so that he had been even more rude than usual. And she was also pretty sure that he hadn't taken a single break since he had started searching.

Well, she knew that she wasn't able to help her old childhood friend with the actual search. And her father had already ordered several guards to help with the search anyway. But if those two incidents really were connected with each other, then she might at least be able to get him a lead he could follow.

With her mind made up, she made her way through the brightly lit castle hallways as fast as she could.

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With a speed she didn't even know she was capable of anymore, Zelda arrived at the medical wing in record time. Albeit quite a bit winded. And frankly, that 'speed' was still a lot slower than she had ever been before the 'statue incident'.

But she had reached her destination. And when she opened the door after giving herself a moment to catch her breath, it was to an elderly woman in a sickbed, the present physician sitting on a stool next to her and a guard leaning against the wall next to the large window.

She was pleading with them to let her go. Something about her granddaughter being all alone now.

Clearing her throat to catch the room's occupants' attention, the princess let the door fall closed and stepped forward.

“Good morning. Would you mind terribly if I asked the patient some questions?” She directed the last part at the physician himself. A rotund and rather short middle aged man.

“But of course, your highness.” The older man said with a high pitched voice, cutting off the guard, who looked like he was about to deny her request.

She had to hand it to the old physician. He was one of the few, who were not outright disdainful towards her. Even if he was merely 'humoring' her.

“Come on, young man. Let's give those two ladies some privacy.” The physician then started shoving the guard towards another door, leading to the adjacent doctor's office. “You can help me with some heavy lifting, meanwhile.”

“Just call if you need something~” He waved back at her. And with that the door fell shut, leaving her alone with the unknown woman.

As she walked over to the woman with a smile, the princess took a moment to study her guest. The woman was looking down on her lap, not acknowledging Zelda at all. She had fully gray hair pulled up in a bun and wore a red dress. Even sitting in a bed it was apparent that she was bend over by age and her constantly squinting eyes gave away her bad eyesight.

“Good morning.” Zelda greeted again as she sat down on the now vacated stool. “My name is Zelda. May I ask for yours?”

“Dorothy.” The older woman finally looked up at her with pleading eyes. “But please. I need to go and find my little granddaughter. She must be terribly scared.”

“And I promise I'll do everything in my power to help you with that.” Zelda reassured her while laying a hand on Dorothy's shoulder. Just in case she tried to get up. “But first I need to know what happened. Do you remember how you got here?”

“I... No. I-I was with my granddaughter, Aryll. We were making lunch.” Dorothy answered clearly close to tears and looking down on the blanket she was kneading between her hands. “And then I was suddenly in the middle of that town.” After a moment of silence, the elderly woman looked up at the princess. “Where am I?”

“You're in Hyrule, ma'am.” Zelda smiled and took her hand off Dorothy's shoulder, now that she felt sure the older woman would not try and run away. A race she, embarrassingly enough, wasn't sure she would be able to win. “The town you fell into is named Hyrule Town.”

Unfortunately the answer Dorothy gave her resulted in a lot less information than Zelda had hoped. Despite her promise, she had no idea how to help either her new guest or Link. The tracking spell she had tried for Smith hadn't worked. All she could think of was getting her father to spent some resources and guards to look for that Aryll girl too.

Something he would probably do even without her prompting him.

“Hyrule? I'm in Hyrule? But how is that possible?” Dorothy's mumbling pulled the princess out of her musings. And when the young woman looked up, she saw the elderly lady stare confusedly into space. “Hyrule is at the bottom of the ocean.”

Now that was interesting. Hyrule had only been founded two hundred and thirty eight years ago. And not a single history book in the library has mentioned that the kingdom had ever been flooded. For any amount of time.

“Excuse me? Ma'am?” Zelda grabbed both of Dorothy's hands and looked at her with wide eyes. Could it be? “I'm sorry, but could you tell me in what year the kingdom was flooded?”

“The... the year?” The older woman looked at her in confusion for a moment. Apparently taken aback by her sudden outburst. “I-I'm not sure. A new calendar was started when the flooding happened. We have the year one hundred and twenty four.” she squinted her eyes closed in concentration for a moment. “But I think it was somewhere in the five or six hundreds of the old calendar.”

Jumping off the stool, causing it to fall to the ground and ignoring the startled look Dorothy gave her, Zelda shouted for the guard. “Go and get my father and Link!” She only took a short moment to acknowledge Dorothy's alarmed expression when she mentioned her friend's name, before turning back towards the less than pleased looking guard.

“You want me to what? Why-” The guard started to complain, but stopped himself when he saw the princess' angry expression.

“Did I stutter? I told you to bring the King and my childhood friend here!” She pointed towards the door leading back into the hallway. They did not have time for that guard's disobedience because she wasn't 'pretty' enough for his tastes. “That was an order!”

Just a moment later the guard fearfully stumbled out of the room. Leaving behind an angry princess and a very confused physician and patient.

Time travel! That woman had time traveled!

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“So you haven't seen him either?” Link sighed when his question was confirmed with a soft 'pico' and an apologetic shake of the head.

With a heavy heart he made his way back towards the Minish portal further east in the Minish Woods.

Because of course the Minish of the forest wouldn't have known anything. Even the ones living in the forge didn't see what happened with his grandfather. The only thing they had known was that Smith had finished work as usual. If a bit later than he probably should.

And the next morning he was just gone. Not a single trace or sign of his whereabouts. At least as far as Link was able to tell. Because unfortunately he had to finish the request from the castle before he was able to properly go looking for the man who raised him.

Smith would have had his head if he didn't.

But that also meant that any trace he could have found, was probably long gone.

If there had ever been any leads to begin with, that was. He spent the entire first morning looking through the house and the surrounding area and found nothing.

What if grandpa was hurt? What if he waited too long? He really shouldn't have wasted his time with that request. The guards who are supposed to help him were also all just lazying around.

No. Stop it! Grandpa could take care of himself! He was a freaking guard himself before mom was born. He's the one who trained Link for crying out loud. He was fine!

He just hadn't looked everywhere yet. Hadn't asked everyone. Someone was bound to know something. And if he couldn't find him here, he'll just have to go beyond Hyrule.

Pulling out of his thoughts, Link realized that he had already arrived at the portal and shook his head. He also couldn't help the blush of embarrassment when he realized that a squirrel was giving him weird looks.

Because he had just been talking to himself out loud again.

He really needed to get a grip on himself. The people from Castle Town were already talking behind his back. They said that the worry about Smith was making him go insane.

Couldn't have that during the Picori festival, mind you.

Okay, that was mean. It wasn't like the townspeople were indifferent towards his grandfather's disappearance. They were worried too. But it was clear that most of them were not taking it all that serious either.

After all, nothing truly bad had ever happened in this kingdom.

The bliss of ignorance.

Still deep within the thralls of his own thoughts, Link entered the tree stump that served as a Minish portal. Fully unaware of the swirling black mass filling it out, until it had already swallowed him whole.

#shattered ages #displaced #loz au #links meet au #zeldas meet au #sa gabha #link minish cap #sa cailleach #zelda minish cap #minish cap #legend of zelda #tw: body shaming #tw: ableism #fanfic #fanfiction #ao3 fanfic

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