Chapter Text
#11 “Can you get through all the pain inside you?”
The Skyloft had a small population of people. Therefore there were slim pickings of who Link could packbond with. Back before Zelda fell, Link had thought he would live packless. A fine if a bit lonely fate. Or he might have been very lucky and gain an in-law pack through his future mate.
He would have joined Zelda’s pack shortly after he presented if it hadn’t included Groose. He had been grafted as her pack brother, and possible future mate, thanks to the pack bond between Groose’s father and Headmaster Gaepora. Link might have pack bonded with them after Zelda had been recovered if Cawlin and Stritch hadn’t also been pack to Groose and Zelda.
But Link had been given hope in the vastness of the ground. He had hoped that below the clouds he might have found a pack that would have accepted and respected a male omega. Even as he and Zelda started to woo one another to mate bond, he had still hoped to find a pack of his own to connect to Zelda’s pack of four. So that he and Zelda would have pack outside their mating bond to trust with their souls.
Sadly only Hylians could form true pack, and there were still few Hylians outside of Skyloft and less that wanted to move to the surface. Link knew they would eventually, but for the time being, the newness of the surface was too much for most. Link had then decided to one-way pack bond with some of the people from other races that he had met. Surely a one-way pack was better than none.
But then he had been called to go through time and space with Fi restored to him. Thoughts of pack had gotten shoved to the back of his mind, and he had focused on the new quest set before him. It was during this new quest that he had come across the cutest, little alpha he had ever seen.
Alphas tended to have a gravitas and presence that kept them from being cute. They were expected to be the main protector and glue of the pack, and no matter the personality, they always took that seriously. Even Zelda, for all her teasing and mischievous nature, had a grace and draw about her that made people sit up and listen. She could be cute, but that was not her default. This little alpha who shared Link’s name had no grace and no impact beyond being adorable in Link’s eyes. Link found it hard to take the chubby-cheeked, expressive, barely presented teen seriously.
The pouting when Link cooed over the smaller Link’s cuteness did nothing to dissuade Link of the notion. Even after the little alpha proved himself a hero of his own make. No one said heroes couldn’t be cute. Or perhaps someone did and that was why the smaller Link got all huffy when Link asked to squeeze his cheeks.
“I’m not a pup,” the cute alpha grumbled. “Please take me seriously. I have presented and am the Hero of the Great Sea. I am trying to show you I can be a good pack alpha.”
Link held back chuckles at the teen’s declaration. While a pack bond with the little alpha was tempting as Link had wanted a pack for so long, pack bonding with the cute little Link would not work. From what Link had gathered, they were time travelers. Two heroes across time sent to defeat an evil that made monsters stronger. And yet this little alpha kept insisting that they should pack bond. To form a familial bond that would join their souls together and sharpen their instincts for the other’s benefit.
Link liked the little alpha Link a lot, but at some point they needed to return to their own times. Link couldn’t let this young hero tie himself to a man that would eventually leave him.
Link’s heart would break if he left the cute alpha with a broken pack bond.
Problem was that the little alpha kept throwing himself headfirst at any danger to prove himself “capable” of being what Link needed in an alpha. And Link was starting to worry the kid would get himself killed.
“I’m fine, Link. You use the last potion. I’ll haggle for more at the next town,” the little alpha claimed, but Link wasn’t buying it. So far “fine” had included a couple of broken fingers, a bruise along the little alpha’s whole back, and what Link’s knight training had warned were probably broken ribs.
“You either take this potion, or I’ll never consider you being my alpha.”
A slump came over the little alpha’s full form, and Link frowned. That threat normally had a different effect.
“Even if I drink that potion, you won’t stop thinking I’m too young and cute to be your pack alpha.”
Part of Link winced a bit while the rest of him stood strong. “You need to take this potion. You’re bleeding out. You won’t be anyone’s pack alpha if you bleed out and die.”
The little alpha shrugged and fell backwards onto the dirt floor.
“Okay.”
“Okay?” Link repeated hoarsely. His blood began to boil. This stubborn little alpha had thrown himself in front of Gleoks and Lynels and Darknuts whenever they came close. He had broken his legs and arms, had a concussion, and been nearly sliced in half. And he kept refusing healing because he felt the need to show how strong an alpha he was. To someone he would be destined to lose to time itself. Link grit his teeth and tried reasoning again, “It’s ‘okay’ for you to bleed out on the dirt?”
“I’m not going to bleed out,” the little alpha huffed. “I know how much blood—”
“No,” Link snapped. “You don’t. Sit up and take this potion before I make you.”
Sea-green eyes snapped to his, and they held. Without flinching, the little alpha said, “Do it.”
Link sprung. He wrestled the smaller Link into a chokehold, uncorked the bottle, and nearly had it in the alpha’s mouth when the brat tried to bite his fingers. Link retaliated and bit his ear.
“Ow!” the alpha cried out, and Link took the opportunity to stuff the bottle into the bitey brat’s mouth. Once the potion had fully been downed, Link untangled himself from the smaller Link’s limbs. The little alpha plopped face down on the ground and didn’t move for so long that Link felt the need to drag him up by the back of his blue shirt. The little alpha refused to stare at anything but the ground.
With a loud sigh, Link straightened the teen up into a sitting position and sat opposite him. Time to use the sense Zelda had verbally beaten into him. She had repeatedly said that ignoring a problem doesn’t make it go away.
“All right. Explain why you want to be my alpha so badly.”
The sea green eyes dragged off the floor and onto Link, and for a second Link wanted to shut his eyes and forget his offer. There was deep pain in those eyes. So much he almost wanted to ask the kid “Can you get through all the pain inside you?”. But he held the sea green gaze, and the little alpha’s expressive face went blank.
“I’m older than I look. Not a lot. I once knew a guy who was a lot older than he looked because of time stuff. But I’ve dealt with some time stuff too, and I’m not a newly presented pup who doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
Some time stuff? Link kept his own face from flinching. He didn’t like the way that sounded. Didn’t like the memory of his oldest friend (the love of his life) encased in amber.
“I know someone like that. Were you trapped in a crystal or something for many years? Or under some sort of sleep spell?”
“No. I’ve heard stories like that. About ancient princesses that were trapped in crystals made of pure light,” the little alpha whispered, and Link wondered if those stories were his and Zelda’s. They were traveling through time so that was more than possible. Maybe this little alpha was his successor. A hero he cursed by being too slow to destroy Demise. “But that’s not what happened to me. Tetra was encased in stone during one of the times I presented so that might count as like a sleep spell.”
“One of the times you presented?” Link gaped. He remembered presenting, and while omegas and alphas had vast differences in both biology and experience during those times, presenting was never an easy process. For someone to have gone through it multiple times…
“The first was in a realm that was like a dream.” The little alpha’s voice took on a melodic tone, like this was a story to be told before bed. Link sat up straighter to keep from falling asleep. “The second was in a time were time joined itself. Both presentations were undone when I went home. Both times, I found people I would have called pack. Both times I was too young. And I kept being too young. I’m tired of being 'too young.' You’re amazing, Link! I think you’d be great pack, and I want to pack with you. But I’m too young again.”
The statement struck a deep chord in Link’s heart. Because the little alpha meant it from the bottom of his heart. Link could detect no lie in the posture or the longing etched on every line of the little alpha’s face. No one had ever so sincerely pursued a pack bond with Link. Zelda had made off-handed offers that she knew he wouldn’t accept because of Groose, and after he became Hylia’s Hero, others had made ambitious offers to pack bond with the Hero. But not Link. Especially not Link the omega.
“Even if at the end of this quest, we go back to times centuries apart, I want to pack with you,” the little alpha continued. “I wished I had packed with the people I met before in those other times even if they’re gone to places I can never reach. Just because pack is far away doesn’t mean they’re not still pack. Back home, packs can be leagues and leagues apart, but those packmates re still pack. No one would go out to sea if they didn’t know that. My mom and dad went out to sea knowing their pack would support them from Outset. Even when they didn’t come back, their pack still helped Granny with me and Aryll because our parents are pack. Even death doesn’t change that.”
Back home, pack was until death. One could honor fallen pack members, but no one clung to them. No one thought of them as still pack. But Link liked the thought that this little alpha would think him pack even centuries after he died.
But he couldn’t let this kid pack bond with someone that would one day leave. Especially if for him pack was forever.
“Even if you’re older than you look, even if you might regret not pack bonding with me one day, I think it’s better that we do not form a bond that will break. You’ve never lost a pack bond. You don’t know the pain involved.”
“You haven’t either,” the little alpha accused with a growl. And he wasn’t wrong. How could Link have experienced the loss of a bond when he had never had one? “I have lost people who I wanted to pack with and didn’t, and it can’t hurt worse than that. I still want to pack with you. But I guess I understand if you don’t want to. I’ll back off. I just…I didn’t want to miss out on packing with someone who mattered to me again.”
Link wanted to remind the little alpha that they had barely known each other for two weeks. That no one could be so sure so fast that their soul could be bared to another. But Link knew better. He knew that if he could keep the little alpha he would have bared his soul and pack bonded after the first week. Their souls were too similar and sang in the same key. But he wouldn’t get to keep the smaller Link, and he would break to lose him if they were any closer in soul.
A crash from the nearby bushes suspended their conversation as they both stood side by side and held out their swords, shields bumping and covering their off hands in a technique they had developed from having opposite dominant hands.
A man wearing a fur pelt and decorated with odd marks stumbled into their small clearing. Link’s little alpha was the first to drop his shield and point down his sword.
“Are you lost, sir?”
Link didn’t roll his eyes at his little alpha asking that to a man that looked like he would be very comfortable in these woods.
“A little,” the man answered, surprising Link. The muscled fighter put his hand behind his head and gave a ridiculously dopey grin that revealed sharper than expected teeth. “Would one of ya happen to know where we are? I was investigatin’ a weird swirling portal thing, and I thought I might find a…a friend through it. So I step in, and I step out here. You wouldn’t happen to know what that was and how it brought me here, would ya?”
Link could feel his little alpha basically vibrating. He skipped forward to strand right in front of the poor unfortunate soul and stare straight up at him.
“Hi, my name is Link, and so is his. I’m guess that’s your name too. Would you like to pack with me?”