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The air in this Hyrule was a slow-acting poison, a dry, scouring wind that tasted of bitter dust and scorched earth. As we trekked through the sun-bleached canyons of this unknown world, every breath felt like inhaling ground glass. My throat was a desert, but the thirst I felt wasn’t something a mere waterskin could quench; it was a systemic ache, a definitive lack beginning deep within my marrow.
I could feel my skin tightening, losing its elasticity until it felt more like dried parchment than living tissue. Beneath my heavy traveling cloak—a garment I refused to shed despite the blistering heat—the first few teal-colored scales were beginning to flake away from my collarbone, shedding like dead leaves. I was "salt-sick," a term my people used for the slow, agonizing dehydration that occurs when a creature of the deep is denied the crushing, cold embrace of the tides for too long.
I was lagging, and I knew it. Every step required a conscious command from my brain to my lethargic legs. The heat haze turned the horizon into a shimmering, distorted mess, and the red rocks of the canyon seemed to pulse like a feverish heartbeat.
Warriors, ever the observant nuisance, dropped back from the front of the line to match my sluggish pace. He gave me that familiar, lopsided smirk, his blue scarf fluttering in the dry breeze, looking remarkably pristine despite the grit.
"Come on, Veteran," he teased, though there was a sharp edge of concern in his eyes he couldn't quite hide. "I know you like to complain, but even for you, this is a pathetic pace. Don't tell me the 'Hero of Legend' is being defeated by a little bit of sunshine. Twilight is practically skipping, and even Sky hasn't tripped in at least an hour."
I wanted to snap back, to bury him under a mountain of my usual vitriol, but my tongue felt like a thick piece of wool. "Mind your own business, Captain," I rasped. The words caught in my throat, coming out as a pathetic, airy whistle. I pulled my cloak tighter, my knuckles white as I gripped the fabric. I was terrified that he’d see the unnatural shimmer of my neck or the way my gills were beginning to flutter desperately against my skin, gasping for moisture that wasn't there.
"You're pale," Warriors noted, his voice dropping an octave, the teasing gone. "And you're not sweating. Legend, that's a bad sign. Hyrule!"
"Don't," I hissed, but the effort made my head swim. I stumbled, my boot catching on a jagged stone. Warriors caught my arm, and I flinched. His hand was warm—too warm. To my cooling internal temperature, he felt like a brand. I shoved him off with what little strength I had left, leaning heavily against a canyon wall. The stone was hot enough to blister, but I was too far gone to care.
The truth was, I was terrified of what would happen if they saw me for what I really was. I had spent a lifetime being a hero, a savior, and a warrior across multiple lives and lands. But I had also seen how the world treated things that were "other." I had seen the way people looked at the monsters we fought—with a mix of revulsion and cold, clinical curiosity.
I didn't want Sky’s earnest eyes to fill with pity. I didn't want Twilight to look at me with the wary eyes of a predator who found a strange new prey. And I certainly didn't want Hyrule to look at me as something that needed to be "cured," a broken thing to be mended back into a Hylian shape.
If they knew I was a creature of the water, a selkie stripped of his skin and forced to walk on two legs like a common Hylian, I would become a specimen. I would be the "oddity" of the group, a fragile thing that needed to be kept in a jar. I would rather die in the dust than see that look of alienation on their faces. So, I kept my jaw set, my secret buried deep beneath layers of linen, leather, and bravado.
But the desert is a cruel confessor. It strips away everything until only the truth remains.
The end came suddenly, a violent snapping of the tether that held my consciousness together. We were climbing a steep, rocky incline, a shortcut Wild had insisted would lead to a spring. The world simply tilted on its axis.
My heart gave a frantic, fluttering leap—the desperate flop of a fish out of water—and my legs finally refused to support the weight of my dense, oceanic bones. My skeletal structure was designed for the pressure of the tides, not the unforgiving gravity of a mountain path.
I didn't even have the breath to cry out. I felt the hot grit of the earth against my cheek for a split second before a merciful darkness rushed up to meet me, silencing the roar of the dry wind and the frantic thumping of my own failing heart.
I was vaguely aware of hands on me—frantic, warm, and far too dry. It was Hyrule; I recognized the gentle, buzzing hum of his healing magic before I could even open my eyes. It felt like needles against my skin.
"He's burning up!" Hyrule shouted. "Wait—no, his skin is cold. Warriors, help me get his cloak off!"
"No..." I tried to moan, but it was a breathless rattle.
As Hyrule tore at the fastenings of my tunic to check my erratic breathing, the image I had spent a lifetime maintaining, shattered like glass.
I heard his breath hitch, a sharp, terrifying sound. The cloak fell away, revealing the truth in the harsh, uncompromising sunlight. Patches of shimmering, iridescent teal scales covered my chest and shoulders, now cracked and weeping a clear, viscous fluid instead of blood. My fingers, curled in the dirt, showed the delicate, translucent webbing between the knuckles. Most damning of all, the gills along my neck were flared wide, pulsing in a desperate, rhythmic beat as they tried to extract oxygen from the thin, arid air.
"He’s not just dehydrated," Hyrule’s voice rang out, stripped of its usual calm. It sounded like he was speaking from the bottom of a well. "He’s... he’s changing? No, he’s dying. Look at his skin, it’s—it’s like he’s drying out like a beached fish."
I felt more hands—Warriors, perhaps, or Sky—touching the scales on my arms with a cautiousness that stung. There was no revulsion in their voices, only a frantic, high-pitched panic.
"He’s a creature of the sea," Sky murmured, his voice thick with a strange, ancient recognition. I remembered then that Sky came from an age where the world was clouds, but the legends of the surface remained. "I’ve seen legends of his kind in the oldest songs. He doesn't need a potion, Hyrule. Potions are for Hylian blood. He needs the water. He needs the salt. He needs to go home."
The journey that followed was a blur of heat and agony. I felt myself being lifted—Warriors, I think, his strong arms surprisingly steady despite the way he was breathing. I felt uncharacteristically heavy in his grip, my body reverting to the dense mass required to survive the crushing depths.
They were running. Every jolt sent a spike of pain through my cracked skin. I felt them pouring their precious water skins over my face and chest, but it wasn't enough. The water evaporated the moment it touched my feverish skin, leaving behind nothing but a stinging salt crust.
"Keep him wet!" Wild’s voice barked, sounding uncharacteristically commanding. "I see a treeline. There’s a canyon floor down there, it has to have a drainage basin."
I wanted to tell them to leave me, to save their water, but I was nothing more than a gasping weight in their arms. My consciousness flickered like a candle in the wind. I saw flashes of the Great Sea—the vast, rolling blue, the taste of saline, the way the light filtered through the waves in long, golden fingers. I missed the silence of the deep.
"Stay with us, Legend," Warriors grunted, his pace never slacking despite the armor he wore. "You don't get to die in a ditch. I haven't finished making fun of your hat yet."
"There! The grotto!" Sky’s voice was an urgent call.
Through a slit in my eyelids, I saw a flash of green—real, deep green—hidden in the shadow of a limestone cliff. We burst into the cool shade of a hidden spring, the air suddenly thick with the scent of damp moss and standing water.
Warriors didn't stop at the edge; he didn't even slow down. He plunged straight into the pool, boots and armor and all, wading out until the water reached his chest. He lowered me into the turquoise depths with a tenderness that felt like a prayer, his hands lingering on my shoulders as the water finally, blissfully, closed over my head.
The transformation was instantaneous and violent.
As the water hit my gills, the searing pain in my lungs vanished, replaced by a rush of cold, life-giving oxygen. The "salt-sickness" broke like a fever. My legs, those heavy, clumsy things I had forced to walk the earth, fused together in a shimmering ripple of muscle and light. My tail, a long, powerful fluke of iridescent scales, lashed out, sending a plume of water into the air as my musculoskeletal system realigned.
The cracks in my skin knitted shut in seconds; the minerals in the spring sealing the wounds and restoring the luster to my scales. I drifted to the sandy bottom of the pool, my eyes snapping open to find the world clear and sharp again. The silence of the water was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard.
I stayed under for a long time, watching the silt settle. I watched the way the sunlight danced on the surface, a shifting lattice of gold. I looked at my hands—fully webbed now, the claws sharp and clear. I looked at my tail, which stretched nearly six feet behind me, powerful and elegant.
I was a monster. I was a myth. I was beautiful, and I was terrifying.
Eventually, the need for air—or perhaps the need for answers—pushed me upward. I breached the surface slowly, my eyes leveling with the bank.
They were all there. Huddled at the edge of the spring—Sky, Hyrule, Wild, Wind, Time, Twilight, Four, and a dripping-wet Warriors who was currently trying to dump water out of his boots.
My first instinct was to dart into the shadows of the underwater rocks, to hide the monstrous length of my tail. I felt the familiar shame coil in my gut, the fear that now that they had seen the "beast," the "hero" was gone forever. I waited for the screaming, or the questions, or the look of disgust.
Instead, Sky reached a hand into the water, palm open, not grasping for me but simply offering a connection.
"You look much more comfortable," he said softly, a genuine smile breaking across his face.
Hyrule followed him, splashing his feet in the water with a wide, fascinated grin that held no judgment—only relief. "Your magic... it feels different now. It’s not fighting itself anymore. Legend, you're beautiful."
"Beautiful?" I croaked. My voice was different in the air now—richer, with an underlying resonance like a crashing wave. "I'm a fish, 'Rule. I've been lying to you all for months."
Warriors finally got his boot back on and looked at me, wringing out his blue scarf with a huff. "Nearly gave me a heart attack, you idiot. You’re not a fish, you’re a menace. And if you’d told us, we would have detoured to every lake on the map. You think we care if you have a tail? Wild eats rocks and Twilight turns into a literal dog. We’re not exactly a 'normal' group, Veteran."
Twilight nodded from the back, his arms crossed. "The wolf doesn't mind the fish, Legend. Just stay out of my water bowl."
The shame didn't vanish instantly, but as I submerged and surfaced again, splashing a playful spray of water onto Warriors’ face with my tail, I realized the burden of the secret was finally gone.
I was still Legend. I was still the cynical, sharp-tongued veteran of a dozen quests who hated being touched and loved to complain about the rations. I just happened to have a heart that beat in time with the tides.
As we made camp by the spring that night, the sound of the desert wind was muffled by the lush trees. Sky began to hum a song about the Great Sea, a melody I hadn't heard since my own time. I floated in the center of the pool, looking up at the stars, and for the first time in a long time, I didn't feel like an oddity or a monster.
I just felt like a brother who had finally found his way back to the water.