Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

FSSHHHHHH

Cold water straight from the back spigot came pouring into the bucket of fine dust before Kobb. Swirling hues of red vortexed around the center, the spigot pulled back up and the sight ceasing just as quick as it came. With its bare hand, Kobb dug in, mixing the concoction of dyed limestone around and around until it became slightly viscous. Under the light of the lantern, it looked no different than Kobb washing its hands - for the paint was the same color as its skin.

With steely eyes, it placed the lantern in front of a clear section of brick. It was a blank gray canvas - wide and expansive like the night sky above. Clenching its teeth, Kobb grunted and waved its hand across. Paint splattered unceremoniously in thick globs, small beads dripping down the wall like a snail’s trail. It found itself short of breath, desperate to get whatever was inside out, throwing its own essence onto the stone from the dripping paint on its hand. With a little more finesse, it continued its work with several swishes of fingers. Dipping a re-applying, a wide smudged oval-shape eventually emerged. Whatever it was making had no chance of competing with whatever Sledge put in its sketchbooks on a daily basis, but that hardly mattered. This was for Kobb and Kobb alone. As it continued to diligently paint, the sparse intermittent hum of crickets all around, it felt another low hum from Sterre. It kept its gaze ahead, at that lowly lit wall, the flickering lantern a bubble of safety from the surrounding darkness.

“It is certainly interesting…” Sterre grumbled, craning its neck to look around the lab where the Lynel currently stood, “...how the Lynels may be the last remnant of what we were like before the Malice, but still under The Calamity.”

Kobb’s ears flicked, not turning around, but still shuffling its feet in place, acknowledging the question.

“How?”

A deep laugh came from behind.

“The way they are a part of the Malice, but command over it as well! When The Calamity still had a face, this Ganondorf behind it all, there must have been a similar order to our army that they are still upholding. The way I remember my few contacts with the Lynels…I see it now much clearer…it was like they have done it before. But this time, with no commander above them but the voice in their head. Have you regained any older memories of our time before? In my slumbers, much has come back for me…”

Kobb paused, wrinkling its snout. It may not have recovered as much as Sterre, but there were sparse moments that came back to it at the most inopportune times. For the longest while it had thought that most everything from the time before it broke free, aside from vague places and its muscle memory, had been lost for good. 

“It had always been a silver Bokoblin or Moblin issuing orders. The times where there were Lynels…I…” Kobb said as it winced, painful to even recollect these hazy echoes of the past, “...was far away. Far enough away that I was safe from the Lynel’s wrath. There is one memory that comes to me in dreams…though I am not sure if it ever happened or not. That is the worst part, that I will never know for sure if it was real or…something else.”

“What was it, Kobb?”

“I am watching a Lynel giving commands to a silver Bokoblin, standing far away. My head was down, refusing to look past its torso. As they are talking, another Bokoblin walks by…and the Lynel…stabs it through the head with its spear - sending it back to the Malice instantly.

It gagged, a part of dinner coming back up in its throat.

“The Lynel did not flinch, did not turn its head, nothing. It gave that Bokoblin as much attention as one of us would give a tiny bug that we just stepped on. I had to tell myself that it is only a nightmare…or that it was a spur of cruelty from The Calamity.”

Kobb clenched its fist, paint oozing out from between fingers.

“I cannot hold onto that delusion any longer. If it did not happen to me…it happened somewhere else. The design of Malice would make such an action of cruelty inevitable. The silver Bokoblin laughed , too. It knew it was safe. It knew it was not in the same danger we were, it was also favored by Malice. This whole time I…I thought that we all had the same absence of control. But after hearing what that Lynel said…how it was given breaths of freedom for its loyalty…I find myself very worried about what will happen when we try to free a Silver Bokoblin…”

Hastily it resumed painting, desperate to get that nightmare out of its mind.

“There are those the Malice favored…but we may as well have all been tiny insects compared to a Lynel…” Sterre said, pensively patting at its thighs, “The Lynels were truly the arms and teeth of The Calamity - standing on a cliff above us. As you saw, and may have done yourself, those of us seen in greater favor were not spared from The Calamity's demand and wrath. For as powerful as we Hinoxes are…when the demand came I was shackled and treated as lowly as any other monster on our wide cliff.”

Kobb halted in place, temporarily broken from its self-given duty with other tumultuous thoughts bombarding its mind.

“That may be why you defected…and why you do not have the same mindset as the monsters of Malice. You have been directly affected by the cruelty of The Calamity…unlike them…who enact it themselves…out of pleasure…”

Sterre grumbled.

“Perhaps…but I ask you this: if any of us were given as much freedom as the Lynels, would we also enjoy such cruelty?”

Dejectedly, Kobb dropped its head.

“Absolutely. But we were not in that position, were we? We can talk about how we could be, or we could see how we are now. And for the Lynels, their cruelty goes beyond their goal of ‘survival’. That word is their excuse, their justification to be cruel. I believe that deep down they know every single one knows that they are destroying the world, but ignore it for how much they enjoy sitting above the rest of us.”

“It could also be how the Lynels are kept in line.”

That was what got Kobb to turn around, staring into Sterre’s bright yellow eye, catching all of the moonlight, grunting curiously.

“We are all shackled by the Malice - the same chains, but wrapped around us differently. There is a design, from how things were or stolen elsewhere. Where we are placed in The Calamity’s hierarchy is specially fit to attack our weaknesses. For the Bokoblins, Moblins, and Lizalfos, it is the Malice’s sheer power when many gather that makes escape impossible. For Wizzrobes, it is their learned hatred from the moment they are born - induced to the Malice when they have been molded to fit their rigid place. For Horriblins, it is the isolation from the rest of us that destroys their hope and turns Malice into a formality. For Gibdo, the very design of their hive, as they call it, allows for Malice to spread like a fire. For…Hinoxes…it is our forced slumbering - never allowed a single thought for very long. So how would The Calamity keep the Lynels in their given cliff - rigid and unmoving?”

Kobb began to shiver, the night breeze suddenly colder than a tundra.

“Their place at the top of all monsters, the tiniest speck of freedom they are allowed compared to us, is exactly what is keeping them held firm. We know that we have lost entire kinds of monsters, ones that this Malice could not fully control. The Lynels would not be so obsessed with their survival if that were true. They were given a glimpse of all that was thrown out, all we monsters have lost, because they could not be fully controlled - and threatened with that same erasure. Until now, they have gone untold rises and falls of the sun believing they had a choice - that they would merely follow the strongest side for survival. But the Malice gave them exactly enough free-reign to be as cruel as possible. Why would they ever defect when they have such dominion over the rest of us? That is why this Lynel is how it is. It was doomed to keep this cruelty.”

Sterre let out a sigh so fierce it kicked Kobb’s wolf pelt up.

“And, back down to us, that leads our chains to tighten even harder. Some of us see the cruelty of the Lynels, and wish not for it to end, but to be the one holding the spear. The pale silvers, those that let the Malice change their very body, are a direct result of these forced cliffs - with those at the bottom desperate to climb to the top to simply be above something .”

Kobb closed its eyes calmly, but its trembling did not cease.

“You may have to face this tomorrow, when you go back out into the wilds of Hyrule. Are you ready for that? To see this mindset of Malice in your own kind?”

“After today…I am not sure…” it said quietly, turning to stare into the moon, “If there is a Bokoblin that…refuses to shed the Malice in its mind…I would have to turn it away from our home, too. Could I do that? For all that we are fighting for, could I bring myself to do that? Does it deserve that? Does any monster deserve that?”

It, too, craned its neck around the lab, catching the front tip of the Lynel’s horns just around the corner. Kobb recoiled back quickly.

“I have some pity on the Lynels, in a way…” Sterre said quieter than usual, “Their cruelty is as much of a creation of Malice as ours, but they will never let go of it - not while they still believe there must be a winner and a loser, a commander and an obeyer. The structure of stone The Calamity built around it is its finest work. It created a box that they could leave at any time, and will never do so. Their idea of how the world should be built is much too strong.”

Sterre flashed a wide toothy grin.

“But even that is falling as we speak. Whether the Lynel stays or leaves, the first stone has begun to fall. Your decision on that is your own. Take care, Kobb. I think I will sleep by the lakeside tonight.”

Kobb held its closed fist to its heart, smudging some paint on its chest. As Sterre began to pull itself up and trudge off, Kobb couldn’t help but think about everything it spoke - and all it hadn’t spoken to Sterre.

“How much do you listen to from behind here?” it said with a suspicious eye, “How many private conversations have those ears caught?”

 It chuckled back.

“It is not my fault I was given such big ears, with so much to hear…”

…

Deep in the heart of the Yiga Clan, the training room had been emptied for the day with the exception of one lone woman. Loti frantically wailed on a training dummy with her serrated sickle. This one in particular was meant to hone one’s control of the flow of combat. It was a wide tall trunk split into three individually rotating pieces, with a large heavy protrusion sticking out of each segment. Whenever said protrusions were smacked with a weapon, they would rotate around to the other side deceptively quickly - forcing a block or counterattack on the other side. Exercises with the dummy often involved juggling all three moving segments with the trainee’s weapon of choice, knowing when a piece was moving too fast to be able to counter in time, when to block, when to go for a light or hard attack, and so forth. This was a standard type of combat training dummy during the Pre-Calamity times, but the stand-ins for weapons on the end were usually fitted with padding or some type of shock absorbent so failure was not too painful.

The Yiga Clan did not allow such pleasantries. Bulbous bumps stuck out from each of the three branches, almost coming to a point. Pain follows failure. That was the Yiga way.

Loud grunts echoed in the hollow room, along with the clacks of steel on wood. There was no encouragement to be found except for her own thoughts, and they were anything but encouraging. As she wailed on the dummy, every single face of those she wished to run through with her blade whizzed past with the wooden arms. That unsettling, unblinking, uncanny face of the Gibdo that stole a member of her clan…that smirking, devious, blonde gremlin…that shaky, whimpering mess of a man that she knew was still hiding something…and that infernal, wretched Wizzrobe who ruined the best shot she ever got.

Faster.

But then another face came into view, one that had been burned into her sight since she was born. The wrinkly mottled forehead, the lazy lumbering lips, those burning vengeful red eyes, had been the only face she knew for so much of her life.

And her voice was right behind her like it always was.

“Protect your core, Loti! Elbows bent! Stay low!”

She instinctively scrunched herself up, passing the sickle between hands and blocking with the leather arm-guards on her wrist. It did little to curb the sting of the wood.

Faster.

“You won’t last a second on the battlefield like that! Again! Do I need to strap dragon bones onto these things to give you a reason to try?!”

Loti’s teeth strained, she was gritting them so hard. Her whole body ached and stung, but she kept soldiering it through, like the voice in her head was really there.

“Do you expect to get anywhere in the clan with posture like that?!”

Her moves were rhythmic, like she had done this a thousand times. The whirling wooden arms were pushed aside as effortlessly as water. She could go for another two hours like this if she had to, but Loti still wasn’t satisfied. She never was, and neither was that voice.

Faster.

“My own flesh and blood, sluggish and unrefined! Any Yiga worth their bananas would be a commander under my training by now!”

Faster.

“You have only made it this far because of me, you hear?! If you were left to your own devices you would be crammed into a closet sorting papers all day!”

Faster.

“Miss ChuChu, late as always! That’s another twenty reps onto today’s training!”

Faster.

“Our entire lineage depends on your competence, and you are failing it.”

Faster.

“This was a waste of time, it is apparent why I have outlived the failures that birthed you.”

Faster.

“Mediocre. Again.”

Faster.

“Faster, Loti!”

The middle club swung around too fast, smacking Loti right in the gut and snatching her back to the present. She gasped, reeling back and clutching her stomach. Sweat drenched her uniform down to her wobbly knees, whipping her head around so fast her topknot came loose - revealing a few strands of ghostly-white hair.

Loti screamed from the back of her throat, biting her bottom lip so hard she drew blood, then jumped right back into the fray to kick the middle of the training dummy. The feeble stakes holding it in place uprooted from the ground - toppling it over as the last momentum of the arms caused it to writhe like a dying animal. She stood over her unearned kill, gasping for breath with heavily forced exhales. The face and the voice faded, but the sting remained - stronger than anything that stupid hunk of wood could ever hope to dole out.

With another frustrated grunt, she hobbled out of the training room, the halls just as empty and barren.

Even if it wasn’t alone, she would find no comfort in whatever idiot was lurking around at this hour. She commanded the hideout, now. She was to be feared, respected.

And yet, not once did it ever feel like they were obeying her for anything but begrudging obligation.

…

The air inside Akkala Lab remained stale, the wind rustling in from the night as Kobb sashayed in and out acting as the only short and stifled breaths of the atrium. Robbie had gone to bed after some coaxing from Jerrin, his eyes telling everyone he wouldn’t be getting much sleep. Link had found a large enough opportunity to duck back to Kakariko, for reasons he was not privy to share. Zayl habitually sharpened each serrated tip of its spear with its claws, even though it had already cleaned it up after Kobb’s fight with the Lynel. It simply did it to get its mind from thinking of anything else. Rezek floated back and forth pensively, occasionally checking the window to see if the white-mane was still there. Sledge surrounded itself in pillows alongside Purah, eyes glazing over the books in its hands but not reading.

They knew they would all have to get some sleep soon, for the plan was to leave for the Hyrule wilds well before the crack of dawn. If they could catch some monsters while they still slumbered, it would make the entire operation much easier. And yet they couldn’t wind themselves down - not after what had just happened.

Every time Kobb rushed in or out, it seemed to have even more of a determined stare. It always went back for more of Hudson’s paint materials. First, for the container of black sooty charcoal mix, then the base limestone-white, then for some daisy yellow. On the last entry it was met with Sledge, forcing itself out of the comfort of its pillow fort, to look at Kobb with somber eyes.

“How much of…everything…did you hear?” it said with a dry throat.

It sighed, stared towards the window, then held Sledge’s hand with a forced smile.

“Thank you for trusting me, Sledge,” it said, “but not even half of your reasoning went into my decision…”

Sledge drew a tiny gasp. Kobb winced and turned away further.

“It was a decision of emotion, and one that aligns with our goals by mere coincidence. Maybe it is the right choice, but I made it for the wrong reasons. Perhaps…I am not fit to be out there tomorrow…”

It tried to pull away, return to the outside, but Sledge grasped onto its hand tightly before it could slip away. Kobb was yanked inward, Sledge dropping to its knees, long wide arms wrapping around Kobb like a blanket. Warmth enveloped it, a long snout pressing against its back. The dense heartbeat shook Kobb’s entire body. Its lips trembled, the only part not held in place by a Moblin’s hug.

“We have been fighting for this since our first true breath,” Sledge whispered with desperation, “Please…do not give up when we are this close…”

Kobb bowed its head as much as it could, every good feeling rushing back into the void in its heart like a waterfall. Its hands ran across the underside of Sledge’s arms.

“Alright…I will not…for everyone…”

“Yes, please don’t quit now especially after all the energy you put into arguing with me…” Rezek said from above, suddenly within breathing room of the two.

It was the break from the mood the room desperately needed, a round of light chuckles evaporating the tension.

“What are you even doing out there anyways, Kobb?” Purah said from afar.

A genuine smile flashed across its face, but one that had a mountain of sadness behind it.

“It is something I need to get out of my head…for the sake of a friend. I will show you all when it is ready…”

Dutifully, it grabbed the bucket and headed back outside. 

Meanwhile Recksin had been eavesdropped from its room, not being able to help but peek in through the sliver between the door and the frame. The artificial suns that flickered dimly were just bearable enough for the goggles to remain fixed on its forehead above its eyes. And yet they couldn’t help but “talk” once again.

It only makes sense there would be many more monsters we have never seen. Lynels…a monster that sits so high above us we were not allowed to know of its existence. More proof we are from a different world entirely than all the others. If we went back down, and asked every Horriblin we could find, do you think any of them know what that monster was? A name would never be found, but would they know of something that stands taller than a cave with four legs and two arms? They would never believe you. Wizzrobes, they are known by name, but not Lynels. Now we know, and are worse off for it. The army of The Calamity is like those impossibly tall mounds of rock beyond the confines of this cave. You have been trapped underneath it all - oblivious to how much was really above you. And now that we know, you can never forget…

It trembled and wrapped its remaining arm around its side, wanting to head back to bed but wanting to do anything but lie down.

“Ay…this could be what we need at the same time…for all Horriblins. I thought the monsters I had seen were all there were, and they stood above us. But now I know there are monsters above them in The Calamity’s army…and what we thought was the top have succeeded in fighting back. We do not defect because we see it as hopeless, useless, with no chance of survival. This could convince the rest when…there is no ice magic on our heads…”

And why are we not back under the ground, then? If this is what we need, why do we linger? Remember, the longer we remain, the harder it will become to ever go back. If we stay for too long…the open caves will change us too much…and all will be lost.

“But a Horriblin with one arm will never get far. This is…shaky. I am between two caves, both about to collapse. This is what…that steel cave will be for”

Time is not our ally. And if you do not kick yourself out, leave the world we were never meant for, it will happen soon enough. Their hospitality only extends to those they deem “worthy” and we can see it right in the Lynel. How long before we make a mistake that warrants the exact same punishment?

“No…they have history with that Lynel. Recksin, stop telling yourself this,” it said, pushing at its forehead, “Nothing I can do will ever be as bad as what that Lynel did.”

Are we so sure we can expect that for all of this cave? What about the Hylians, you see how they stare at you, the look in their eyes. Perhaps they know more than we do. Of everything we have done. They are not like us monsters, they have had all of their time alive to think on their own. The knowledge they hold, keep from us, digs deeper than what our meager claws can muster. They know something of Horriblins we do not, just as we know something of us that they may never uncover. But the one with the tall white hair. Robbie. He will figure it out. Or the other monsters will. Especially Sterre. The blast of the gray puffy ceiling gave it all away. It is only a matter of time before one of them puts everything together. And when they do, you will be expected to answer-

It smacked the goggles even harder.

“Ay…shut up, shut up already!” it hissed, the thoughts continuing to rush in despite its best efforts..

Shut up your mind? Do you suggest we stop thinking entirely? Reduce ourselves to a vacuous drooling mess? See how far that will get us. I do this because I have to. We cannot fall into a sleep up here. We must go back down eventually. It is what makes us Horriblin.

“Why do I think like this…”

Because you must. And this Lynel is proof. They are sending it away because they know keeping it here will only cause it to lose sight of its own goal. This paradise will ruin it like it is ruining you. We saw it before anyone else. It has to be the one to save the rest of its own. So what are we waiting for?”

Recksin hastily shut the door.

…

After staring blankly at the moon for what felt like the rest of the night, the white-maned Lynel let its curiosity get the better of it. Just around the side of the lab it heard enough of a conversation to run its blood cold, then a door opening and shutting, then more scratching of stone and running water. Frankly, it had no idea where to go from here. The Lynel had fully expected Kobb to accept its duty and had already planned out everything past that assumption. But with its entire world into pieces, there was nowhere for it to go, and nothing more to do.

It felt truly lost - more lost than it had ever been. 

Steadily, it crept around, tip-toeing on its hooves. 

Kobb’s hands were a flurry against the stone wall. Under the low light of its lantern whatever it was smudging across was too abstract for the Lynel to recognize. There were waves of red, lines streaking across like shooting stars in the sky - leaving behind a fiery trail. It dunked its arm deeper and deeper into the bucket of paint, slathering all it could across the wall, wringing out its soul. The faucet rushed on once again, Kobb throwing its whole arm up to the shoulders under the water until the ground ran with a reddish tint. It wiped itself off and grabbed another jar of many at the foot of the wall. The white-mane caught a yellow tinge drifting into the red bucket, Kobb gingerly adding more and more, swirling everything around methodically until it was the exact shade it was looking for. Its swatches were more precise and careful, but had the weight of the world behind them. With its thumb Kobb brushed from the outside-inwards of whatever this was - the Lynel tracking a fan-like pattern emerging from the left and the right side. Still, it could not make anything out.

After another sobering rinse, Kobb grabbed another jar, the color blending in with the blueish night behind it, and poured it in the same bucket of thick paint. It swirled that around until it became a smooth rippling brown. The color was an almost exact match to the wolf pelt it wore on its back. Again, it painted more gingerly, nothing with the ferocity that it threw onto the wall with the reds. The paint dripped south of the large main oval shape, short and sharp deliberate strokes like they were coarse strands of fur. With squinting eyes, the Lynel continued to trot closer. Still shaken up from its last two altercations with this inconceivable Bokoblin, it felt these foreign feelings well up from below. What the lessers would call unease, apprehension, hesitation. Never would it have even considered such emotions to be possible for Lynels, but there was no denying this ache all throughout its chest and lungs.

Kobb washed its arm a third time and grabbed the final jar: soot black, a void trapped in glass. The dust fell into the bucket, mixed around until the color corrupted all that once fell in - nothing but an ocean of black on Kobb’s hands. The way those flecks fell, reminded the white-mane of how its own Malice scattered into nothing when it had ripped it out.

The next few brushes were made with agonizing precision, as if the black paint were a sword and the stone canvas was thinly stretched reed paper. It only dipped the tips of its fingers this time, shaking off excess drip onto the ground before starting. First Kobb made two wide curves to give this oval shape more definition, then another wide curve turning upwards like a bowl or a smile. After a careful re-dip, it painted an odd triangle-shape outline in the middle of the red oval, then two more arches near the upper half, then one final solidly colored black triangle jutting out of the top. Now it was starting to resemble something of a face for the Lynel, but it still couldn’t parse on what. Was it a Bokoblin? The color matched, but it did not understand why Kobb was doing this. Meanwhile Kobb seemed to ignore it entirely despite how close it had gotten - either too focused on its craft or entirely uncaring of the white-mane’s actions.

For the final touches, Kobb resorted to dusting its own wettened hands with its color of choice, taking its thumb to various spots where it had seemingly made a small error. The last two strokes were snow-white, two dashes at the bottom of each black arch. It didn’t bother washing off its hand, leaving the chalky-white mixture on its fingers and smudging it on the lantern handle. The only haste it showed through the entire process was to put a light under its finished painting.

The wall caught the glow of the lantern, and shone like the brightest star in the sky.

It was Amber, with its head cocked to the side and making big toothy grin - the last time Kobb ever got to gaze upon its face. And it was the one memory of Amber that remained as clear as the purest brook in Hyrule. Everyone one of them, of Kobb’s old squad, had little pieces of themselves that stuck out from the standard Bokoblin. In Amber’s case, it was the inside of its ears: what led to its very namesake. They always seemed to glow with a fiery orange hue of the sun, and only intensified with its mood. That, and the two little white marks on the corners of its eye, subtle in the flesh but embellished in Kobb’s painting. It was those marks that let Kobb see the tears flow as it turned around to sprint towards its certain doom. The browns were its own wolf pelt, wrapped snugly around its neck, that Kobb remembered trailing through the wind as it ran. All it forced from its mind onto the wall, was like reliving the moment of helplessness over and over. It expected the painting to come to life and turn away, sprinting into the stone void behind until it was nothing but a red dot - as it would swiftly be yanked off the ground by Sledge and carted to safety despite its protests.

This was something it needed to do, but staring at that face once again, now more than a mere memory, became too much. Kobb slowly blinked, large globulous tears slowly falling around its own ovular chin and dripping to the ground overtop the wispy mix of reds and oranges on the ground. Its chest rose and fell like stormy waves of the sea, already eyeing space around the mural. There was room for the other four. There had to be.

The sight of Amber had also stricken the white-mane with a dizzy spell, falling onto all four of its knees with a hefty THUMP . How could it ever forget such a burning orange? Kobb hardly jostled despite the ground around it shaking from the Lynel’s weight. It turned around and stared straight into it with bloodshot eyes. It had a scowl, but there was little anger. Only sorrow.

“Do you now understand the extent of what you have taken from all of us…” it said through its teeth, “and why I refused you?”

Slowly it pulled a horn out of its satchel. It had a black tinge to it - just like the painting.

“Amber was all that was left of a dream Sledge and I shared. And you killed it, without a second thought.”

Kobb tried so hard not to shout, not to let every bone in its body follow the instincts screaming at it.

“There is more to this life than strength and power, but you will never see that - not when you have killed dozens of Bokoblins just like this one because you were ordered to…or because you simply could. We do not have to prove our worth to feel we deserve to live, but you do. Amber traded its life for a few seconds, seconds it gave to me so that I may live, instead. If you think that means it deserved to die, that it was ‘weak’ for losing to you in combat, that it was ‘lesser’, then stand up and run until you can run no longer!”

The demand ended with a swift slice of Kobb’s hands outwards, gesturing to the wilds just past the lab. For a while the white mane remained silent, contemplating. It scooted with its horselike legs closer to the mural, letting it subsume more and more of its vision until all that wasn’t the last sight of Amber were hazy peripherals.

But it dared not reach out.

“This was…” it said, almost dreading to get the words out, “...the Bokoblin that started it all…”

For the second time that night, Kobb had been caught entirely off-guard by the Lynel’s words. A short snort came from its snout, the silence thereafter demanding clarity.

“We are respected because we are feared. I remember…everywhere we went the lesser-”

A horrible stink eye came from Kobb.

“... other monsters were terrified of our presence. It was amusing to us, the way they ran upon even the slightest step of our hooves towards them. Never did they dare to challenge us, always their heads turned away from ours - never looking up. Especially Bokoblins. And they were so scared of returning to the Malice. Our strength was a reminder from The Calamity to know their place at the bottom, one we let them know whenever we were forced to engage with such groups. That is why…we have always seen them as the weakest link…”

Kobb clenched its fists fiercely, the words stinging more than ever.

“But that one…Amber, as you said. It did not do any of that. It approached me. It stood in front of me, eyes staring right into my own. And as it fought there was no fear, no terror. Not even when I…”

It froze, more hesitation and reluctance to talk in detail of how it slayed this lone Bokoblin. The white-mane did not understand these feelings, or where they came from. At first it only thought of them as a nuisance, a distraction towards its greater goal. But that goal was dead and buried as the monster painted on the wall. This was the first time it had held itself back.

“...when I had realized too late it was all a distraction, that this Amber had given the last life it had…to save you…as I was holding it off the ground…it smiled at me.”

Kobb gasped. 

“Please…tell me more!” it stammered, suddenly desperate to get this last shred of Amber left that had been held in the clutches of its murderer the whole time.

It no longer cared where that piece of it was from. It just had to know. Ever since it had seen Amber’s limp body dropped from the air it had gone on assuming it had died alone and afraid. The assumption had been eating it from the inside, never once considering an alternative - dispute everything it knew about Amber. The white-mane bowed its head solemnly, more of those tight feelings emerging in its chest.

“It stared straight at me, and smiled. It did not fear death. Amber welcomed it. The final words that came out of its mouth were both for me, and the Malice in my head…”

The Lynel took a deep breath.

“ You lost. ”

It stared back up towards the moon.

“The light left its eyes before the smile left its face…”

Kobb began to shake, the old wounds opening all over again. It could perfectly picture that smile in its head, the snaggletoothed triumphant sly grin that couldn’t be washed away from Amber by even the mightiest flood. It knew there was no hope left for itself, so it went down in stride to pass what it could onto the future it would never have for its own. That was the Amber that Kobb knew, not whatever version it had conjured in its head the whole time. It was the closure it needed, but now it was like it was right back to square one. Right after it had thought it moved on, put that final visage for the world to see on this wall, it had to grieve all over again. Short aching sobs left its snout, wiping its face with the rag hung over the faucet. All the while, continuing to stare with a conflict of sorrow and newfound scorn at the Lynel. It closed its own eyes with a wince, showing a remorse that Kobb had never seen in them before. The knot of anger loosened just a little.

“It changed me…” it said, “even through the impenetrable wall of Malice, I knew that I had done something…in error. Like I had destroyed something that was never meant to be destroyed. The suggestion was impossible, as Lynels do not make mistakes, but once I was reborn from the Malice…that face could never leave me. Much like…how that face could never leave you…”

That did little to lessen the scowl, but the Lynel took it on the chin. It felt like it had to. There was nothing left for it to lose. Everything that had been on its mind before and after it tore out that Malice…it could lay them to rest.

“At first, I was convinced that it was not a Bokoblin. That it was…some other monster merely imitating one. Bokoblins do not stand and fight, Bokoblins do not show courage, therefore what I had faced was not a Bokoblin. The Moblin…Sledge…being the one to best me was more truth I could still not accept…but at least a Moblin’s victory could be accounted to their strength and size. For a Lynel, the Bokoblins of the Malice had neither.”

Eerily specific wording, but Kobb just nodded along.

“So the next conclusion was that there must be some power that breaking from the Malice bestows. That would be the only reason why this Bokoblin acted the way it did. It was simply stronger than the others. And once I told my story to the others…unable to keep it within me…they reached the same end. It was…Amber…that led us to consider changing sides. If defecting could turn a meek Bokoblin into…whatever I faced that day…we could only imagine what it would do for the Lynels…what that meant for our survival…”

Kobb hissed out its teeth with aggravation, but at the same time the Lynel did not seem nearly as unrepentant as before. Rather the opposite, its words were wishy-washy and unsure. 

“It is a power…but not how you see power,” Kobb said, “Shedding our Malice gives us the power to care for one another…and that is where our strength came from. We were always this strong, and that is why The Calamity has spent so much convincing us otherwise.”

It was unclear whether the words stuck or bounced off, for the Lynel still seemed to be lost in thought.

“Your victory over me was what toppled the Lynel army, Kobb, but this Amber was the reason we had decided to consider a defection. Never had I given thought to those I had…bested…until that one. What I felt then, the pain of the mind and inner body, is stronger than ever now. It was…the highest mistake I could make. I may as well have taken the most gleaming jewel in this land and shattered it on the rocks. But that made me see. Not only can we bleed the same as the rest of this land, but our decisions are not absolute. This Amber was where it all began. It may have saved more than merely your life, Kobb, but Lynel kind as well…”

That was meant as a compliment, but Kobb saw it as anything but. A fire brewed in its belly, remembering exactly what had made it so mad before. It stomped up to the Lynel with a quivering lip, holding back everything in its power not to swipe a fist across its face - made even easier with how they were at eye-level once again.

“It should not have to be like this!” Kobb screamed, eyes watering once more, “You should not have to kill one of our own to realize we are the same! We should not have to pay our own bodies for your freedom! Even after everything, you still cannot help but see us as stepping stones for your sole gain! Your mind is just as rotten as when you were in the Malice, and your new allowance for remorse and regret have changed none of that!”

The white-mane flinched and tried to turn away, but suddenly felt a firm hand on its chin, Kobb refusing yet another deflection from its guilt.

“And what have you done to give this mistake room to heal?! What are your actions?! What have you done to comfort all of the pain you have put on me and Sledge and monsters as a whole?! Knowing that you have made a mistake is not enough! Because all I see is a Lynel doomed to make the same mistakes it made in the Malice! Had I bowed to your whims, and became your superior, would any of this have changed?! Would you have changed for the better if I forced you to?! I do not think so!”

This was the second time the white-mane had a Bokoblin this close to its face, the hand affixed to its chin as constricting as its own hands were around Amber. Kobb stood firm, letting its words ruminate, its wide beaming blue eyes overtaking everything else in the Lynel’s vision. It really tried. It tried in its mind to think of a way to make things right, undo every mistake that led to this, but nothing came. The Lynel would’ve fallen into an endless wallow of self-pity, had there not been a glimmer of hope in Kobb’s eyes.

It still had not given up. It couldn’t, for everything it believed in.

Slowly its grip loosened, turning away back to the mural.

“I want you to change. I want the shackles of Malice that still remain to come free from around your mind. I want to see what Lynels are meant to be - not what has been forced into them since this Calamity was created.”

Its shoulders rose and fell with the heaviest sigh.

“But you still cannot stay here. Not after everything you have done. Maybe I could finally let Amber rest for good, had your acts matched your words of regret, but they do not. When you showed up to our home, it was because you were still trapped in your pursuit of power, and the idea of helping us all heal through the cuts this world has given us had not even passed your mind. I saw Amber’s nameless killer in your eyes. I still do.”

The Lynel reached out desperately with a hand, but recoiled. Everything inside its body was fighting against each other, but one resolve remained - a new resolve.

“What can I do that we may both move past this, then? Is there anything that will lead to that?” it said with genuine desperation in its voice. Kobb was unphased.

“Are you asking that question for yourself, or for whatever idea of power is still in your head? Do you still cling onto the idea that if you did whatever I asked, then you would be given everything you want? Because this world does not work like that.”

Slowly it looked down at its heavily scarred hands.

“I…I do not know. I do not know what parts of these shattered pieces of myself are still, what they call, ‘me’. My Malice has been gone for one lone day, and so much has been pushing around the cracks. The pains of the mind, the fatigue of the mind, the…comfort…of the mind. All have tried to wiggle their way in, but I do not know what I should let in or out!”

The Lynel fought every urge to bow down before Kobb again. It forced itself to treat this Bokoblin not as a potential superior, but merely another monster.

“I fought through all of my pains of the body and mind, caused by my own kind, to this Hylian den…your ‘home’...because I had nowhere else to go. I need direction, I need guidance. If you refuse to issue me a command, then…hand me that instead.”

It lets its arms aimlessly swing like before, to the rhythm of the breeze.

“Tell me what I need to do to forge my own path…no, a path for all of the Lynels. The path that you are walking…it is no mistake. Help us to get there…”

A tightness came from its throat, and its last word had to be choked out.

“…please…”

Kobb’s head bobbed up and down, pensive grunts filling the air. The slightest chuckle concluded the thought, and it turned back around. All of the old emotions were still there, but so was a small half-smile.

“Save them,” it said softly but with ironclad weight.

“The ones that exiled me?”

Kobb nodded slowly.

“We heard it all from your mouth. The leadership of the Lynels has toppled. They are scattered, but we have little chance of ever finding them. Our efforts to free more of our own will be in the heart of Hyrule, but where no Lynel would dare put itself. No doubt the rest are where they do not wish to be found. You are the only one that could save them from being dragged down with The Calamity when it inevitably falls. You are fast enough, you are determined enough, and that was more or less your plan from the start.”

“I was under the assumption I would have assistance. I am merely one disgraced Lynel against many…”

“We started as one Bokoblin against many.”

Its eyes suddenly turned grave.

“But that is not enough. It is one of many steps. This is not only about the Lynels, but all monsters of Hyrule. When the battle is won, and The Calamity is gone, we will need to work together to build what monsters should have always been - to live peacefully with the rest of this land. And that includes not just monsters, but the Hylians and the rest as well.”

There was a gut reaction the Lynel tried to quell, of disgust. It could only hide so much and Kobb raised a brow.

“You need to understand why I turned you away, why your ideas of power and dominance are so destructive. If you find any more monsters like us, those that are free from the Malice, connect with them. Learn who they are, how they act, why they believe what they believe. See them as equals, not lessers. Create a connection with them that goes beyond obligation for survival.”

“How? How do I possibly fulfill this?”

“You will know. It will come to you naturally, as long as you listen to yourself instead of what you were told to be. And you will find more of us, I guarantee it. The Calamity is weakening day by day, and Starenday is proof that more can and will defect without our help. We freed monsters always seem to run into one another. You will find one.”

Kobb took another heavy breath and became even more stern.

“But first, above all else, you need a name. For the rest of us, a name is how we defected. Seeing ourselves as our own monster, separate from the rest, was what broke the Malice. You yanked yours out all on your own, and did not learn of names before. That has hurt you, but it is never too late to find out who you are. Give it some time, longer than you think it should be. I cannot say more, your name should be something you create.”

It was all so confusing for the Lynel, like it had to learn to walk all over again. At least its physical legs were still functioning, finding the strength to lift itself back up to full height. Kobb’s neck craned up, keeping a fixed eye contact.

“Would I ever be allowed to return here?” it asked, its cat-like snout turned downwards in slight sorrow.

“When you have done enough for all monsters that you feel you could return, then you may return.”

“But when will I know that?!”

“Again, you will know. Someday, you will understand everything. But this is not that day.”

The Lynel winced, a tiny fear coming up that Kobb will simply deny it no matter what it does.

“There is one more thing you should know…” Kobb said, sensing the apprehension. It looked deep into the Lynels eyes with the same conviction from the Colosseum.

“I will not give you forgiveness for what you did. I…cannot. Nothing you do will be enough to bring Amber back. But you should not let that lead you into despair. You do not need my forgiveness to forgive yourself. Whatever you do to remedy your mistake…do it for your own sake, not mine.”

Kobb then stood taller, the lantern’s glow shining a little brighter behind it.

“Let this be a reminder. You can never undo a life you take. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you begin to move past your ideas of power and weakness and strength that have kept you in The Calamity’s bind for so long. I am willing to push down all of my anger, all of my sorrow, to give Lynels a place in this world. You and the rest of them deserve to live here as much as we do, and that is why I am now sending you where you need to go…for their own future and yours.”

It closed its eyes, turned back around, the sudden darkness from the absent eyes hitting the Lynel like a freezing bucket of water.

“No monster left behind…I am sorry I almost lost sight of my goal in all that has happened between us. Now go…find yourself.”

Kobb sat down, and continued staring at the mural. The white-mane wanted to ask for more, beg for more, but what would it even ask for? It had already been given everything it needed, and it knew that. Its heart beat fast with a newfound determination, the weariness of the night washing away. Opportunity for sleep would come, for now it felt that innate urge to gallop across the fields of Hyrule - only with a brand-new outlook this time. It puffed its chest out and made a little smirk. It was not the victory it came here for, but perhaps it was something greater.

“If that is what it takes…then I will try with all of the strength I have…” it said with a low hum, starting to canter back to the south. 

“Wait,” Kobb said, the white-mane halting right to its side. They looked at each other for one more time, Kobb’s eyes tired and half-shut.

“Hol-ding var-tu-le…”

Its voice was earnest and genuine. Kobb needed the Lynel to succeed just as much as it needed to.

“Sehseh tu-le-mes…”

The same to you as to me…

A thankful grunt later, the muffled sound of hooves on grass tore off from the Lab and down the hill, already taking a wide berth around the nearby stable. When it had died down to a rustle, Kobb reeled its head back and let out one loud final groaning sigh.

Why did it all have to be so hard?

The door to the lab creaked open, Kobb entirely unsurprised to see Sledge lingering in the frame. With a small smile, Kobb waved it over. When the mural caught its eyes Sledge nearly fell to its knees with a hard gasp. It got far enough to reach Kobb, collapsing next to it and wrapping a long strong arm around its shoulder. Zayl followed from the back door, meekly walking up to Kobb’s other right and nestling itself up by its side. A hot pouch of water was affixed on its head, a little more susceptible to the cold Akkala weather than the rest. Kobb put its arm around Zayl’s neck, and its scales flowed back to a healthy deep green. Last came Rezek, the light of its magical essence around its eyes giving itself away the second it glanced at the painting of Amber. It floated to the back, squeezing itself between where Sledge’s arm wrapped around Kobb and sat itself askew on one of their legs apiece. Not a single word was said as they gazed upon the reds and oranges smudged across the wall.

They stayed till the lantern light dimmed below Amber’s head.